Search results

This study aims to investigate the potential positive effects of cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns that show evidence of commitment to espoused causes. It examines whether consumers respond positively when a CRM campaign promises to deliver proof of the espoused cause.

This study adopted the grounded theory approach to conceptualize the promised impact evidence construct. A promised impact evidence scale was developed and validated using robust qualitative and quantitative methods, including item response theory estimates.

The study provides evidence for promised impact evidence as a reflective second-order latent construct. The promised impact evidence scale demonstrates strong internal consistency, reliability and validity. In addition, this study posits that promised impact evidence is an antecedent of advertising trust, purchase intention, advertising credibility and persuasive and selling intent.

This study positioned the promised impact evidence scale against the theoretical underpinnings of the persuasion knowledge model. Specifically, this scale contributes to existing knowledge because it applies the persuasion knowledge model in CRM campaigns by adopting an acceptance focus, as opposed to the rejection focus used in developing persuasion knowledge model scales.

Institutional theory assumes practice adoption and subsequent decoupling. However, there is a range of alternative organizational theories that challenge this view and offer instead their reinterpretation, extension and modification of institutional predictions with regard to the adoption and possible range of various responses and processes that follow the decision to adopt. This paper aims to review this spectrum of theories and suggest how they clarify, supplement, correct, restrict and/or abandon some institutional explanations and predictions.

Extensions and alternatives to institutional theory are mainly motivated by the need to have a theory of practice adoption and variation, and a plethora of alternative practice adoption theories currently exists in the literature. The authors review these theories and compare them against institutional theory and against each other.

The analysis revealed shortcomings and advantages of alternative theories compared to institutional theory and against each other. It is suggested which theory is most useful in each domain of application. The authors review and compare institutional theory, Scandinavian institutionalism, management fashion theory, virus theory and institutional inertia theory and analyze how and whether they are able to reproduce the success of institutional theory and successfully address and resolve its shortcomings and gaps. The authors conclude by discussing whether regular emergences of new theories that account for the idea-handling stage of diffusion signals institutional theory’s limit of validity in this domain.

The problem of idea emergence/diffusion/disappearance and adoption/variation/use are fundamentally different, but both of them motivated researchers to go beyond institutional theory. Despite being the dominant theory of organizations internally consistent and explaining a wide range of empirical observations, it is evident that institutional theory is not a complete theory. This paper contributes to this problem by exploring and comparing existing candidates for practice variation theory.

The large role that emotions play in the work lives of school-level leaders is absent from much of the research exploring what they do on a daily basis. This chapter discusses future directions for research surrounding the emotional aspects of school-level leadership and how this research can influence practice in meaningful ways. For example, it may be beneficial for future research to focus on principals who are struggling to manage their emotions. This would allow researchers to identify factors or practices associated with school-level leaders who are less able to manage their emotions in a positive manner and provide supports. Further, more large-scale research surrounding school-level leadership is needed to better understand how the ability to manage emotions intersects with other challenges in contemporary principals' work. Research of this nature would also provide additional avenues of support for current leaders. Future directions for practice include an emphasis on changing the culture so that school-level leaders who are struggling feel empowered to reach out beyond their immediate colleagues for supports. Without a renewed appreciation for the emotional aspects of their work, principals, vice-principals and other school-level leaders will be unable to maximise their impact on student outcomes.

The study aims to investigate the effect of cultural alignment and value congruency between children and founder on intergenerational succession and on the observation of family optimal outcomes.

A game-theoretical approach is used to develop a sequential game modeling the strategic interactions behind successor selection. The authors test its main predictions by conducting an experiment with 75 subjects.

A theoretical prediction that misalignment between children and founder leads to outcomes without intergenerational succession, or to outcomes with intergenerational succession that are not family optimal. These predictions are buttressed by our experiment, which also found evidence that the family optimal outcome is focal when there are multiple equilibria.

No light is thrown on the sources of cultural (mis)alignment, but only on some of its consequences. Further studies of a different nature are needed to better understand the former.

Cultural diffusion and value congruency within the family should be timely fostered to promote harmony during the succession process and raise the chances of successful succession.

The cultural alignment and value congruency between incumbent and successors is treated as shaping the incentives that both types of agents face in the successor-selection process. Further, experimental techniques have not been used to test the results obtained in games exploring issues in family firm succession. This paper aims to begin filling this gap.

Family businesses have a dual objective of profit making and providing opportunities for family members. This duality leads to a conflict that may bring poor team work and communication, which is difficult to reconcile. Thus, the study looked into how the performance of family enterprises is affected by family dynamics. Additionally, it examines the relationship's ability to be mediated by effective leadership.

The study adopted a quantitative, explanatory research approach. The study population was family-owned enterprises in KwaZulu-Natal's South Durban Basin, of which 236 were chosen using a snowball and convenience sampling technique. Data was analysed using various descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, namely, multiple regression and the standard deviation.

The finding of the study shows that family dynamics significantly influenced business performance both directly and indirectly through effective leadership. Besides, the family firms with larger employee sizes have better effective leadership that positively contributes to the business performance.

The study recommends that family businesses should train their members to ensure leadership effectiveness.

This study is unique in that it was conducted in Black Townships and focusses mainly on businesses owned by families of Indian descent that need to prepare for leadership/ownership. It also contributes to academic literature on family dynamics and will encourage families to recognise the importance of strong leadership in controlling family dynamics to improve business success.

This paper is a critique of Western modernity and the problems and promises of postmodernism in (re)liberating disaster studies. It criticizes metanarratives and grand theories of Western discourses to advance postmodern discourses in disaster studies.

This paper outlines a conceptual domain through which approaches of postmodernism can be employed to (re)liberate disaster studies.

Metanarratives and grand theories frame the scope and focus of disaster studies. But the increasing number and the aggravated impacts of disasters and environmental challenges in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are proofs that our current “frames” do not capture the complexities of disasters. Postmodernism, in its diversity and various meanings, offers critical and complementary perspectives and approaches to capture the previously neglected dimensions of disasters.

Postmodernism offers ways forward to (re)liberate disaster studies through ontological pluralism, epistemological diversity and hybridity of knowledge.

The agenda of postmodernism in disaster studies is proposed in terms of the focus of inquiry, ontological and epistemological positionalities, research paradigm, methodologies and societal goals.

This essay is not a typical essay that follows the norms of academic discourse which have become standardized by the bureaucratization of the academy and academic publishers in the name of neoliberal economic policies. The abstract is a function of that bureaucratization. It provides a summary taste of what follows so that the reader can make a quick judgment as to whether the words contained therein are worthy of their time. The typical scholarly article gets few readers beyond the author, editor, and reviewers. If and when the abstract succeeds in making a reader turn to the pages, all too often today, this means only reading the introduction and conclusion, with a cursory scanning of the intermediate pages for “data.” Theory resists this informationalization. Rather, theory must reside within the realm of knowledge; and knowledge takes time and effort. It forces the reader to make a choice, to use their agency to decide to spend their time on this mental task and to decide what to do with the knowledge they gain. Planetary sociology contends that working toward knowing our self and society, their interconnections and coconstructions, is a necessary precondition for confronting the global endgame on our horizon. Critical socioanalysis provides a model for how to engage in this practice. In the following pages I offer my own life as a brief example of the process while demonstrating the role that theory must play. It cannot be summarized in an abstract. It must be read and digested. It must be the subject of thought, the cause of our engaging in thinking. Theory makes demands of its readers, and it forces us to choose. You cannot be a passive reader of theory. This abstract provides the first chance for the reader to act as an agent, to reject theory's demands or to keep seeking and discover for one's self if it is worth the effort.

In this chapter, the author argues that in order to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goal 4 which calls for education to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030,” transformative leadership may be key. Transformative leadership goes well beyond traditional technical and rational approaches to leadership; it includes but extends theories such as social justice leadership and transformational leadership and involves two general principles and eight interconnected tenets. These include knowing oneself, one’s community and organization; deconstructing frameworks that perpetuate inequity and reconstructing them in more equitable ways; addressing the inequitable distribution of power; emphasizing individual and collective good; focusing on democracy emancipation, equity, and justice as well as interconnectedness and global awareness; and offering both critique and promise. Transformative leadership theory is a critical, holistic, and normative approach that focuses on values, and on beliefs and mindsets as well as knowledge and action. It is characterized by its activist agenda and its overriding commitment to social justice, equity, and democratic society. Thus, it is an approach to leadership that is anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-xenophobic, etc.; it calls for rejection of deficit thinking and for inclusive and equitable practices that require moral courage. It is such a holistic and critical theory that would help to promote the United Nations’ education goal by the target of 2030.

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to rework a promising but limited theory of the foundations of reciprocity. Reciprocity is often attributed to an “internalized norm of reciprocity” – a deeply felt moral obligation to help those who have helped us in the past. Leifer's theory of local action develops a radically different and compelling foundation for reciprocity – one in which the impetus for reciprocity is a thinly veiled battle for status. We rework the theory to offer a new one that addresses its limitations. The key idea is that the impetus for reciprocity is the desire to signal that one intends to create joint value rather than to capture it from the counterparty.

Our analytical approach rests on close examination of a puzzling and underrecognized feature of social exchange: people who initiate social exchange routinely deny giving anything of value (“it was nothing”) while the receiver inflates their indebtedness to the giver (“this is too much!”). We refer to this negotiation strategy as reverse bargaining and use it as a window into the logic of social exchange.

We develop a more general theory of how people manage the threat of opportunism in social exchange that subsumes local action theory. The key insight is that people who initiate social exchange and seek reciprocity must balance two competing objectives: to ensure that the person receiving a benefit recognizes a debt she must repay; and to mitigate the receiver's suspicion that the giver's ulterior motive is to capture value from the receiver.

The aim of this conceptual study is to analyze the effects of state-of-the-art research streams on supply chain risk management (SCRM) based on organizational theoretical background and direct future research toward the use of other related organizational theories. This paper seeks to provide a framework for understanding various organizational theories that can impact the understanding of SCRM.

A systematic literature review on articles published from 1998 to 2020 was conducted manually in the following databases: Emerald, Science Direct, Taylor & Francis Online, and Wiley online library. Among these articles, the paper by Smeltzer and Siferd (1998) is the first article published on the topic. Therefore, that serves as a starting point for the papers' analysis. A total of 109 articles have been selected and reviewed in detail.

The results of the study indicate that the articles which utilize theories in SCRM research have been mostly published in the last three years. The quantitative and case studies have been prevalently applied methods in the articles. In total, 34 theories are listed from the investigated articles. The four commonly studied theories among these are the information processing theory, transaction cost theory, contingency theory, and resource-based view.

This paper is the pioneer in the sense that the paper specifically and directly reviews the SCRM literature in terms of organizational theory usage. For future research, this study offers a diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory that explains the factors which can affect the adoption or diffusion of SCRM practices.