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Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between cultural distance (both perceived and objective), innovation and firm export performance.

Hypotheses were tested here by structural equation modeling using data from 186 export ventures into 23 international markets by Swedish companies.

The results indicate that managers’ perceptions of substantial cultural differences as well as objective cultural differences (gauged using Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) scores for dimensions of national culture) and subsequent environmental uncertainty when expanding into culturally distant markets triggers strategies for interacting and integrating with the market environment. These include producing and adopting innovations to processes and products and to organizational strategy, structure and administrative procedures to cope with the new environment and overcome uncertainties. These innovations and the associated competitive advantages improve firm export performance.

Despite much research into the relationship between firm internationalization and innovation, little attention has been paid to the effect of the characteristics of the foreign markets (specifically cultural differences) on firm innovation strategies. Moreover, much research has been devoted to the effect of innovation on firm export performance, but such research has mainly focused on one type of innovation, i.e. technological innovation, while the influence of organizational innovation on firm export performance has been basically ignored. The present study validates the explanatory of cultural distance (both perceived and objective) in relation to innovation strategies (technological and organizational) and export performance.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Unlike previous studies which emphasize market oriented performance from the perspective of firms or customers, but mainly internally, the paper proposes that firms should prioritize customer‐focused performance defined totally externally from the perspective of targeted customers, which are the fundamental drivers of purchasing or repurchasing behaviors of customers and consequently the key to successful competition in the customer‐centered era. Then, the role of customer‐focused performance in the overall business performance system is examined. After the components and dynamics of customer‐focused performance are analyzed, much attention is given to its key determinants in perspective of a resource‐based view, which aims mainly at bridging the current gaps between strategic management and service management. In addition, important propositions are presented and future implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, testing the relationships between internal marketing and employee satisfaction; second, investigating the links between employee satisfaction and perceived organizational performance; and finally, testing the relationship between internal marketing and perceived organizational performance.

Data were collected from 419 employees working in 53 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Kivu (DR Congo). Data processing was performed using structural equations modeling through LISREL 9.1.

The results revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between internal marketing and employee satisfaction. The results also revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between internal marketing and perceived organizational performance. However, no significant relationship between employee satisfaction and perceived organizational performance was identified.

There is a need to conduct a large qualitative survey aiming to understand why MFIs apply internal marketing and marketing practices in general. The results from such a study would serve to prepare a global quantitative study, which integrates in the same model internal marketing, external market orientation, employee job satisfaction (EJS), and organizational performance.

Results invite MFIs managers to change their mind and focus more on their employees. In fact, employees generate the most cost in general but they can also contribute to sustain growth and profitability. This is possible if they are better rewarded for their efforts.

This study links internal marketing, EJS and perceived performance in a sector and country which have been less or not studied in the marketing sector.

According to the universalistic perspective, organizations from different sectors, across industries, and through different time periods should use a series of select human resource management practices (HRMP). The main purpose of this paper is to investigates whether there is any difference in the relationship between HRMPs and organizational performance across time (stable or not).

The data for this study are taken from two cross‐sectional surveys. The firms included in this research were selected from a sample of organizations from the public and private sectors based on firms that were included in Dun's Guide, Israel 1995/6 and 1999/2000, the Israeli Business Directory. In 1996, questionnaires were completed by 102 of the 230 designated companies. In 2000, using an identical sampling methodology and a similar questionnaire, the result was 104 useable responses of the 275 firms.

In general, results for both periods of time indicated that several HRMP contribute to enhanced organizational performance. Firms exhibited higher organizational performance when they treated their employees as assets and invested in their abilities, enhanced their power in the decision making process and used them as the main source for new employment.

From the theoretical perspective we suggest that researchers and HR managers have to take into account the culture context in each country when they try to export successful HRMP from one country to another. A major practical contribution of this research is that it demonstrates the importance of training and employee participation vis‐à‐vis organizational performance.