Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of enterprise systems (ESs), in particular radio frequency identification (RFID) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, on supply chain management (SCM). The results of this conceptual paper demonstrate that ERP and RFID systems contribute to SCM by improving supply chain integration. Supply chain integration occurs to facilitate the flow of financing, products, and information throughout the chain. In this regard, ERP and RFID contribute to integration by enhancing the information flow across the supply chain.

This paper proposes a conceptual model developed from the findings of literature review within the research domains of SCM, ESs, and supply chain integration.

This conceptual study contributes to the existing theory by linking the concept of information technology, ESs to SCM. The conceptual model in this paper may provide insights for executives who wish to implement ERP or RFID systems in their businesses in order to achieve higher integration, both within internal sectors and also with supply chain partners.

The findings in this study contribute to the theory base by linking the concept of information technologies, ESs to SCM. The conceptual model presented in this paper can provide insights for executives who wish to implement ERP or RFID systems in their businesses in order to achieve higher integration within internal sectors and with supply chain partners. This study offers new understandings by investigating the impact of ERP and RFID together on SCM.

The purpose of this study is shed light on the underlying forces behind entrepreneurship within a regional innovation system (RIS) in a remote rural region. The authors examine the following questions: Which are the main underlying forces behind the entrepreneurial process in a rural RIS characterized by traditionally low-tech, small-scale businesses? How can the development of a low-tech regional innovation system be conceptualized?

The design of the study is based on entrepreneurship theory. Data analysis followed practices used in phenomenography, a research approach used to analyse and identify commonalities and variations in populations' perceptions of a certain phenomenon. Data are composed using semi-structured interviews and a database composed of company information of all firms in the population.

A proactive mobilization of regional stakeholders and resources can be an important driving force behind the entrepreneurial process and generation of a rural RIS. Innovation can be generated within low-tech industries turning the rural context into an asset. An RIS in a remote rural context can be initiated and orchestrated by regional authorities, but knowledge brokering and orchestration can also be managed by networks of small-scale businesses brought together by mutual benefit and common interests.

Regional innovation systems theory is most often used to study high-tech industries. But by combining regional innovation systems with rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory is a fruitful avenue to understand the role of rural entrepreneurship in regional development, even in remote and peripheral regions. Innovation does not need to entail high-tech international environments; it can appear as the result of efforts in low-tech industries in rural and remote environments. The authors’ findings need to be scrutinized; therefore, the authors call for more research on regional innovation systems in rural environments.

It is possible for regional authorities to orchestrate a development process through the actions of a strong regional agent but also by supporting the creation of networks of small businesses that are built on trust and common interests.

This study contributes to the literature with a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurship and of regional innovation systems. Entrepreneurship research with focus on rural contexts most often highlight limits to entrepreneurship and see entrepreneurship as “just running a business”. A perspective that starts from innovation and innovative behaviour, despite the rural context and embedded resources, helps to generate new knowledge that can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and also be the foundation for more precise business development policies in rural settings.

The aim is to advance the conceptualisation of island entrepreneurship by investigating how the island context, for example, industry characteristics, social context and formal and informal institutions, influences the development of artisan food businesses in that context.

An applied, qualitative and participatory research approach was implemented. Data were collected during a business development process focusing on food artisans in the Åland Islands. In total, 19 business owners participated in the process. Key informants and public officers were interviewed, and the literature was reviewed. Interviews were analysed using phenomenography to identify representative categories, and the literature was analysed using content analysis.

Island characteristics and context, local institutions, the quality of social capital and gendered institutions influence business activities positively and negatively. Island entrepreneurship entails mobilising agencies to find innovative solutions that enable businesses to overcome obstacles. Most previous research treats business activities as entrepreneurship; however, as self-employment is essential in the island context, it should be highlighted in future studies.

This study illustrates how the island context influences the business development of small firms. Results indicate that local policies (1) benefitting female entrepreneurs, (2) supporting local businesses and (3) promoting locally produced artisan food could generate benefits for the entire artisan food businesses.

Local policies that (1) benefit female entrepreneurs, (2) support local businesses and (3) promote locally produced artisan food have the potential to generate benefits for the entire trade. Policies can benefit from an understanding of the role played by different ecosystem actors. Promoting self-employment can generate benefits for the local entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing agglomeration and helping to solve some challenges caused by the characteristics of islands.

Empirically, this research enhances the knowledge of post-productive responses in the island context. Theoretically, the study advances the conceptualisation of research on the island entrepreneurship context and the local food debate.

The paper contributes to the debate about local food and conceptualization of rural entrepreneurship by analysing the performance of small-scale dairies departing from their relation to innovations, innovative activities and risk.

The authors use phenomenography to identify representative categories, and to draw conclusions about how these are consistent or different from dominant definitions of rural entrepreneurship and self-employment. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews, participatory workshops and compiled a database of all small-scale dairies established between 1968 and 2020.

A focus on innovations contributes to differentiate between rural entrepreneurship and self-employment and how these interact in the process of economic growth. Innovations are seldom disruptive. Instead, innovative behaviour is strongly related to business models and to imitation. Social capital and collective action play a key role for the innovative capacity of small businesses, especially to realize disruptive innovations, such as the establishment of a new market.

The innovative capacity of rural businesses can be understood through their ability to break patterns, alter institutions and turn embededdness into assets. Rural entrepreneurship and self-employment are intertwined in the economic growth process.

Innovative behaviour is a significant aspect for firm survival over time, and it is also strongly related to new business models. Most rural firms can be characterized as self-employment, the latter are essential because they provide rural livelihoods and help bring maturity to newly established markets.

The right type of support, e.g. adopting enabling industrial regulations and granting access to constructive experiences of others, contributes to the innovative behaviour of small-scale rural firms.

This study differentiates rural entrepreneurship from rural self-employment by analysing the role of innovation. The authors show how innovations and innovative behaviour work their way through the process of economic growth and how innovation can break patterns by turning rural embeddedness into assets; and how innovative behaviour related to self-employments contributes to the creation of value and interacts with entrepreneurship in the process of economic growth.

The aim of the study is to examine the effects of opportunity creation and discovery on the performance of family firms. Specifically, from the tenets of dynamic capabilities and organizational contingency perspectives, this study proposes and tests a framework of how family firms' creation and discovery behavior impact venture growth and the conditions under which such impact can vary.

The study uses moderated-hierarchical regression to analyze survey data from 156 family-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating within a sub-Saharan African economy.

The findings indicate that creation behavior has a curvilinear U-shaped relationship with venture growth, while discovery behavior has a direct positive relationship with venture growth. Further analysis reveals that the curvilinearity of the U-shaped relationship between creation and venture growth will be stronger for older family firms than for younger ones.

The study findings may be limited by the cross-sectional nature of the data and the specific focus on family firms only.

The results highlight the significance of pursuing both opportunities among family firms. In fact, both creation and discovery opportunities are significant drivers of family firm growth, albeit in different capacities. Relatedly, managers of older family firms (compared to younger firms) can invest more in exploiting creative opportunities.

From these findings, governments and other stakeholders should create enabling environment and institutional frameworks conducive to exploiting opportunities by entrepreneurial firms.

The study is novel – as it provides unique findings on the performance implications of creation and discovery behavior of entrepreneurial family firms within developing economies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a cohesive overview of the available self-service and customer value literature, identify customer value in self-service kiosks (SSKs), and analyze this value from the customer experience perspective.

The study comprises a systematic literature review of available works on customer value.

The paper presents conclusions on the SSK’s technological forms, presence in industries, and conceptual state. The review also provides a cohesive inventory of customer value elements in SSKs. The in-depth analysis proposes two alternative models of the customer value creation process: linear and circular.

The study reveals gaps stemming from the inconsistency and fragmented nature of previous research on customer value in SSKs. The gaps are treated as opportunities for future studies.

By identifying new sources of competitive advantage and new ways to improve customer service strategies and experience management, the findings support managerial decision making at the stages of considering, implementing, and improving SSK networks.

This study is the first to systematically review and provide an inventory of customer value elements in SSKs. It, therefore, offers new perspectives on customer value creation using self-service technology.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, describe and categorise practices of managing product returns empirically in internet retailing.

A multiple case study was conducted involving 12 e-commerce firms and 4 logistics service providers. An integrative data collection approach of semi-structured interviews, documentation and observations was used to gain comprehensive managerial and operational descriptions of returns management (RM) processes.

The findings show inconsistent RM processes, with a plethora of practices implemented and organised differently across firms. RM processes are ambiguous; their design is a result of incremental changes over time, lacking strategy and goals. There is a mismatch between how they are described and understood in the literature and how they are actually used. Practices in gatekeeping, avoidance and reverse logistics are defined and categorised. These serve as a typology of practices for managers to (re)consider, along with 15 propositions on how RM is practised.

The range of RM practices and the processes reflect a lack of scholarly attention and strategic view. Research is needed to develop clear goals on how the RM process can be better aligned with business strategies.

The typology of practices is a benchmark for internet retailers in their design of efficient RM processes.

Systematic and empirical research on RM is scarce compared to forward management. The study bridges this gap as one of the first to describe RM practices in depth, define service as a key activity, and identify a mismatch between theory and practice.

This article aims to explore the impact of supply chain integration on the financial performance of Swedish manufacturing firms.

The literature review provided the foundation for the development of the survey instrument and hypotheses for the study. In addition, the survey instrument was tested by the experts in the field and modified before it was sent to the managers in the survey group.

The findings show that supply chain integration at any level is beneficial to the financial well being of the firm. Companies with total supply chain integration reported the highest level of financial performance.

Data were collected from Swedish manufacturing firms without regard to the size of the firm. The results show that supply chain integration is beneficial at any level.

The findings will assist managers with decisions regarding supply chain integration and its role as a critical factor in improving the financial performance of manufacturing companies.

Limited empirical studies have been conducted in this area, especially in Sweden. This study provides insight for manufacturing managers with regard to the importance of supply chain management and the competitive nature of business in the global market.

This paper aims to gain a better understanding of how Swedish branded goods manufacturers (BGMs) deal with the increased usage of private labels.

The approach takes the form of answering the three research questions of this study: how private labels are viewed by BGMs on the Swedish market; how Swedish BGMs strategically respond to the increases in private labels; and how the benefits and drawbacks of these strategic responses are perceived by Swedish BGMs. A contrasting multiple case study of four Swedish companies in the fast‐moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry was used.

The perceived advantages of private labels are connected to their overall control of the market in which they operate, whereas the advantages of BGMs are seen to be linked to product development and superior brand reputation. BGMs respond to private labels by taking them seriously and striving to increase the perceived distance of their brands from private labels in the eyes of the consumers. The overall benefit of these strategies is perceived to be preparedness for increased private label competition, while the drawbacks vary between companies.

In addition to empirical testing based on previous research on private label competition in a new setting, the study also presents suggestions for future research and the implications of the findings for managers.

Findings indicate that BGMs should take the emergence of private labels seriously, while at the same time striving to maintain good business relationships with the retailers.

The study provides insights into the competitive situation between private labels and the manufacturer brands in the Swedish FMCG market.

Prior studies have argued that small firms with dynamic capabilities can revise and reconfigure their internal resources to meet the uncertainties of their business environment. However, there is a lack of understanding of how they can develop such critical capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to propose that small firms can employ information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities as a facilitator for developing dynamic capabilities. Thus, the study builds on resource-based view (RBV) literature and information systems (IS) literature by examining the influence of ICT capabilities on the dynamic capabilities of small firms.

Several hypotheses were tested by analysing the survey data from 291 small high-technology firms in Sweden.

The results reveal that ICT capabilities influence dynamic capabilities of small firms. More specifically, the ICT use for internal efficiency positively influences adoptive capabilities, collaborative use of ICT positively influences networking capabilities, and ICT use for communications positively influences both adaptive and innovation capabilities. Consequently, the results suggest that the different components of ICT capabilities facilitate the development of the different organizational capabilities that together represent dynamic capabilities and thus, can contribute to a small firm’s competitive advantage.

This study has few implications for the managers and CEO’s of small high-technology firms. First, by prioritizing ICT capabilities, small firms can benefit from the development of dynamic capabilities that will support them to meet the challenges of turbulent business environment. Second, because small firms usually lack internal resources (i.e. financial resources and competence), the study provides more specific direction on how they can strategically invest and build different components of ICT that will positively influence their adaptive, absorptive, innovative, and network capabilities.

The study provides an alternative view of how ICT capabilities influence the performance of small firms, and outlines how such capabilities influence the development of dynamic capabilities. Therefore, the study in hand contributes to the RBV and IS literature by specifically linking the components of ICT capabilities to dynamic capabilities and its related sub-capabilities.