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Family centered non-economic (FCNE) goals, such as environmental and social goals, are sometimes strenuous to “sell” to non-family members in a family business, and are often open to resistance. The purpose of this paper is to identify socio-psychological mechanisms for achieving FCNE goals because, in addition to economic goals, they are the other two components of the triple bottom line.

Through a juxtaposition of the literature on family businesses, and the theories of mindfulness and psychological ownership, this paper argues for the facilitating roles of family involvement and mindful organizing in the achievement of FCNE goals. An example of how a Kuwaiti oil company implements these ideas is appended.

A moderated link between family involvement, mindful organizing and FCNE goal of environmental sustainability. Besides its direct effect on environmental sustainability, mindful organizing also has a potential mediating role in the relationship between family involvement and environmental sustainability. Psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness will moderate the relationship between mindful organizing and the achievement of environmental sustainability goals.

The paper presents ten propositions and argues that three types of family involvement (ownership, management and inter-generational), together with non-family engagement (through mindful organizing) would lead to success in achieving the FCNE goal of environmental sustainability. Psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness are potential moderators.

The paper suggests some key drivers of FCNE goal of environmental sustainability as well as several contingent factors. Applicable to family businesses, owners and/or managers of similar firms can apply knowledge from this study in the pursuit of environmental sustainability.

The paper’s model advances the current understanding of the link between family involvement, mindful organizing, environmental sustainability, psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness in the context of family business. The paper further suggests new future research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a special issue on entrepreneurship and service innovation, and to conceptualize the link between entrepreneurial orientation, innovation and entrepreneurship or new entry.

Analysis of secondary data.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO), innovation (IN) and entrepreneurship are in a vital “triadic connect”, where EO supports innovation in organizations and innovation promotes new entry or new venture creation – a vehicle for commercialization of innovations.

There is a need for empirical validation of the linkages proposed in this conceptual paper.

This “triadic connect” between EO, IN and entrepreneurship or new entry is a source of or key driver of organizational performance (OP) and competitive advantage (CA).

The theorization and schematization of the “triadic connect” (i.e. EO–IN–NE link) and outcomes (namely, OP and CA) is presented.

The purpose of this study is to show how outsourcing partners can maximise the benefits of outsourcing while containing the negative effect of destructive conflict (the “bad apple”) on trust and commitment.

The study reviewed existing literature on the benefits and limitations of outsourcing from the principal’s (outsourcer) and the agent’s (service provider) perspectives. The study further draws on empirical evidence from studies conducted across ten industries in three countries within the Asia–Pacific Rim and the Middle-East, namely, Australia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

Long-term orientation and ethical norms are robust ex-ante (i.e. before the destructive conflict) handling strategies, whereas integrative conflict handling style and (to a lesser degree) accommodating and compromising conflict handling styles are effective ex-post (i.e. after the destructive conflict) handling strategies. Forcing and avoidance conflict handling styles can escalate destructive conflict and should be completely avoided by outsourcing partners at all times.

The benefits of outsourcing outweigh its challenges. Trust and commitment are positively affected by ex-ante and ex-post (destructive conflict) strategies. Destructive conflicts (or the bad apple effect) can be contained through these strategies. Firms should leverage the upsides of outsourcing relationships and contain the downsides by integrating long-term orientation and ethical norms that can help to pre-empt and forestall destructive conflict. They should adopt an integrative conflict handling strategy in the event of a manifest conflict. Other strategies that can be applied to manifest conflict (albeit more sparingly) are accommodating and compromising strategies. Each has the potential to increase trust and commitment in the relationship.

The authors unveil before and after (the destructive conflict) handling strategies that do not depend on contextual factors or industry/sectoral differences.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that costs reduction is no longer a complete indication of performance and should not be attained at the expense of the firm’s sustainable social responsibility and environmental aspects. The question of whether outsourcing is a “blessing” or a “lesson” remains unresolved in the minds of practitioners and researchers alike. The literature is replete with the up- and down-sides of outsourcing, all going in different directions, making it very cumbersome particularly for practitioners to articulate when and what to outsource (if at all) and how to contain or mitigate outsourcing downsides.

Outsourcing as a two-edged sword can be value creating strategy or a firm’s soft spot. This paper focusses on the latter through a review of sourcing in two leading multinational companies: Benetton, in the fast fashion industry, and Nestlé, in the food industry.

Benetton experienced the biggest catastrophe in the garment industry, the Rana Plaza collapse. Nestlé went through the horse meat scandal, perhaps one of the most complex food crime cases in history. Both cases illustrated the strategic vulnerability that arises from the international outsourcing of production.

Clearly, production costs are no longer a complete indication of performance as the two cases unveil. Management control systems should be especially vigilant when outsourcing transfers social and environmental responsibility from one contract to another in a global business context. Monitoring costs cannot be outsourced when it comes to sustainable social responsibility and environmental aspects.

Firms can leverage relationships with stakeholder groups, activists and NGOs to help them to monitor their international operations. Institution-based trust to protect brands, increased integration and control are necessary mechanisms.

Indeed, global outsourcing in any industry should transfer not only industrial operations but also credible and responsible social and environmental benchmarks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of structural autonomy in the relationship between innovation strategy and performance of international technology services ventures (ITVs).

Data were collected from 200 ITVs serving markets outside their country of origin. Instrumentation followed standard procedure by adapting validated and parsimonious items from existing literature. Factor and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were applied to examine the hypothesised relationships.

The results indicate a significant relationship between innovation strategy (namely service products innovation, process innovation and administrative innovation) and performance of ITVs. Structural autonomy moderates the relationship between process innovation, administrative innovation and performance. There is no moderating effect of autonomy in the association of service products innovation and performance.

The study corroborates the argument that service firms have more to gain by granting autonomy. In the context of ITVs, such gains are directly linked to performance through enhanced innovation in service products, processes and administration. It adds to the growing suggestions and rebuttals in the literature of a trade-off between innovation and communication; and between exploration of new knowledge and exploitation of existing knowledge in organisations when there is autonomy.

Management can increase innovation and performance by granting greater autonomy to employees. Managers who are concerned that autonomy’s capacity to increase innovation capability may come at the expense of intra-organisational communication can be assured that intra-organisation communications can exist in the face of autonomy, and there is no real trade-off after all. Similarly, there is no basis for any concern for potential trade-off between exploration of new knowledge and exploitation of existing knowledge in organisations.

Research suggests that autonomy of subsidiaries, units, groups or individuals encourages innovation, and that innovation strategy can enhance organisational performance. However, there is a counter-argument that same autonomy potentially hinders exploitation and performance of innovations. The study sheds more light on these anecdotal views based on data from ITVs.

The purpose of this introductory paper is a harbinger to the collection of scholarly articles by some well‐known international scholars in quality and business fields to this special edition of IJQRM on mindfulness and quality in small and large firms. It also provides an analysis of existing research on mindfulness in general.

Through a survey of secondary data, this conceptual paper reviews the theory and extant literature on mindfulness, quality and reliability in small and large firms, and provides a picture of the application of the mindfulness theory in different disciplines, including business.

First, mindfulness enhances quality and mindlessness diminishes it. Second, mindfulness‐based approaches to quality may offer a more resilient and sustainable solution to quality and reliability issues facing organisations, compared to routine‐based approaches.

The paper shows how management approaches that promote human cognition of quality and reliability issues in organisations and capacity to develop multiple effective and resilient solutions can better serve businesses than the routine‐based quality and management initiatives.

The current work demonstrates how relationship marketing (RM) application in cultures of low power distance, collectivism, femininity, high uncertainty avoidance, and long‐term orientation, can bring about customer’s repeat purchase, customer retention and sustained loyalty via superior customer value delivery. The paper also shows the moderation and mediation effects of trust, equity, empathy, and commitment, which are the underpinnings of a relationship as well as important values in the above cultures. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.