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11 – 20 of over 158000Haniruzila Hanifah, Hasliza Abdul Halim, Noor Hazlina Ahmad and Ali Vafaei-Zadeh
Innovation performance is an issue that has a profound effect not only on Malaysian large companies but also among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) especially Bumiputera SMEs…
Abstract
Purpose
Innovation performance is an issue that has a profound effect not only on Malaysian large companies but also among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) especially Bumiputera SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical review of innovation culture pertaining to innovation performance by conducting a literature review on SME studies. The previous reference on innovation performance in Malaysian SMEs is still scarce, even though it is the key benchmark to measure firm performance. It has been demonstrated by the literature that innovation culture is significantly associated with innovation performance. Nonetheless, its effect on Bumiputera SMEs is still underexplored. Thus, this study examines the importance of internal factors (specific human capital and social capital) to innovation culture in driving innovation performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to gather data from Bumiputera SMEs. A total of 140 responses were obtained and analyses were carried out using Smart-PLS software to produce interesting findings.
Findings
The findings indicate that social capital (relational capital and social network) has a significant impact on innovation culture and indirectly impacts innovation performance. The findings also reveal that specific human capital does not have significant impact on innovation culture and innovation performance. This paper shows the importance of social capital and how it directly influences Bumiputera SMEs and innovation performance. This result will be encouraging to firms in other developing countries.
Practical implications
Although SMEs play an important role in economic development, their contribution to innovation is small and marginal. This study makes an important contribution by providing information to the Malaysian SMEs, especially those that are of Bumiputera status on the factors that could enhance innovation performance and nurture innovation culture in their organisations. Thus, it is hoped that this study will generate interest among researchers to attain more conclusive evidence about the practice of innovation culture among Malaysian SMEs.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first to address the mediating effect of innovation culture on specific human capital, social capital and innovation performance.
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Cory Hallam, Carlos Alberto Dorantes Dosamantes and Gianluca Zanella
The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated theory to explain the effect of regional culture on high-technology micro and small (HTMS) firm outcomes. The integrated…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated theory to explain the effect of regional culture on high-technology micro and small (HTMS) firm outcomes. The integrated culture-social capital outcomes (CSCO) model examines the impact of culture on performance and evolution of HTMS firms through the mediating effect of intra-firm and inter-firm social capital.
Design/methodology/approach
Theoretical insights from social capital and culture are combined with the results of previous empirical observations to explain cross-cultural differences in the performance of HTMS firms. The authors then propose the CSCO model as a means to integrate and advance theory building.
Findings
The CSCO model explains the impact of culture on performance and evolution of HTMS firms through intra-firm and inter-firm social capital networks. Cultural context affects the performance of high-tech micro and small firms through the nature and structure of the networks involved in building and exploiting inter-firm and intra-firm social capital. Moreover, regional culture indirectly influences the balance between positive and negative effects of social capital on firm performance. These observations explain inconsistent findings from past empirical research and contribute to understanding the “embeddedness paradox” of social capital.
Research limitations/implications
The present model is not comprehensive. It does not account for many contextual factors identified in organizational network and cluster literature that contribute to the development of HTMS firms. Future research should consider the relationships between the three dimensions of social capital and seek to test the model with rigorous data collection and analysis.
Originality/value
While past studies focus on the direct relationship between regional culture and firm performance, this paper proposes the mediating effect of internal and external social capital between cultural context and firm performance. This proposal contributes to social capital and entrepreneurship literature and provides a potential explanation for inconsistent findings in past empirical research.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that in cross-cultural and strategic management, we must pay attention to the processes creating and maintaining culture. How can everyday…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that in cross-cultural and strategic management, we must pay attention to the processes creating and maintaining culture. How can everyday interactions give rise to national, “deep” cultures, recognizable across centuries, or organizational cultures, recognizable across decades?
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper using the evidence provided by research about cultural patterns, and using sociological status-power theory to explain the causation of these patterns. Emergence, also called self-organization, is introduced as mechanism connecting individual-level causation with resulting system-level patterns. Cases are used to illustrate points.
Findings
Simulation gaming and computational social simulation are introduced. These methods allow “growing” a system, thus allowing to experiment with potential interventions and their unanticipated effects.
Research limitations/implications
This essay could have major implications for research, adding new methods to survey-based and case-based studies, and achieving a new synthesis. Strategic management today almost invariably involves cross-cultural elements. As a result, cross-cultural understanding is now strategically important.
Practical implications
The suggestions in this essay could lead to new collaborations in the study of culture and organizational processes. Examples include team formation, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, trans-national collaboration, incentive systems and job interviews.
Social implications
The suggestions in this essay could contribute to our ability of proactively steering processes in organizations. In particular, they can provide a check to the notion that a control measure necessarily results in its intended effect.
Originality/value
The synthesis of biological, sociological and cross-cultural psychological viewpoints with design-oriented method, using games or social simulations as research instruments, is original in the field.
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Juhari Noor Faezah, M.Y. Yusliza, T. Ramayah, Adriano Alves Teixeira and Abdur Rachman Alkaf
The present work investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility and top management support on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) with the mediating role of green…
Abstract
Purpose
The present work investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility and top management support on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) with the mediating role of green culture and green commitment. Social identity theory (SIT) was used to describe the association between green culture, green commitment and EEB. Further, a conceptual model that summarises the interaction between perceived corporate social responsibility, top management support, green commitment, green culture and the adoption of ecological behaviour was developed.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for a quantitative design using convenience sampling by collecting the data through a structured questionnaire gathered from 308 academics working in five Malaysian higher education institutions.
Findings
Corporate social responsibility and top management support positively influence green culture and commitment. Moreover, green commitment positively influenced EEB and fully mediated the relationship between corporate social responsibility and EEB and between top management support and EEB.
Research limitations/implications
The academic staff of universities was the target population of this research. Nevertheless, universities have a diverse population with complex activities that can affect the implementation of a sustainable workplace within the campus. Future research should also examine non-academic staff, including administrative, technical and operational staff, due to different employees' perceptions.
Originality/value
As far as the authors know, this is the first study to assign the mediator role to green culture in a relationship between top management support and EEB amongst academic staff in the Malaysian context. Future research should consider other intervening variables that influence adopting ecological behaviour.
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This chapter offers an introduction to the major directions that the study of culture as a social identity dimension has taken theory building and practical application. Culture…
Abstract
This chapter offers an introduction to the major directions that the study of culture as a social identity dimension has taken theory building and practical application. Culture is explored as it relates to a way of life of a people through arts, beliefs, ceremonies, communication, customs, ethnicity, food, gossip, language, lifestyle, music, nation of origin, religion, ritual practices, stories, and more – and ways that this filters through organizations. Various interpretive and critical approaches are used to scrutinize the nature/culture debate, challenges in operationalizing culture, the circuitous process of culture, culture’s interactions with social structures, and intersectionalities of culture with other social identity dimensions.
Culture dimensions of social identity have been explored by social scientists intrigued by ways that people report negotiating among two or more cultures – double consciousness – and making cognitive shifts for strategic reasons. Too often, even well-intentioned social policies and research designed to advance cultural plurality – or multiculturalism – ends up focusing primarily on ethnic difference while overlooking other social identity dimensions and ignoring bases of cultural differentiation. Organizational culture as an outgrowth of communication, globalization contexts, profit-centric motives, and culture’s intersectionalities with other social identity dimensions is critiqued. Chapter 4 also explores these issues according to subthemes of: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, culture and social identity, problems with culture and social identity for individuals, and managing organizational culture.
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This paper analyzes and explains the dynamics of corporate evolution in the context of anthropologist conception of culture. The multinational corporate characterizing the…
Abstract
This paper analyzes and explains the dynamics of corporate evolution in the context of anthropologist conception of culture. The multinational corporate characterizing the Galbraithian world, as The New Industrial State, dominates the current economic landscape. The conception of corporate culture and its dynamics lays bare the locus of corporate power which resides in the control of corporate technology. Granting this dynamic, the question then arises concerning the agency which controls the application and use of this cumulated corporate power. Corporate power and policy in the USA are currently directed by a social institution in the form of profits without social responsibility. This policy is manifest in a “low road” of cost reduction. Such a policy direction exacerbates rather than ameliorates the current economic malaise now characterizing the US economy.
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Ashari Halisah, Sharmila Jayasingam, Thurasamy Ramayah and Simona Popa
Knowledge sharing culture and performance climate are organizational interventions used by organizations to influence and shape employees’ attitudes and behavior toward knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Knowledge sharing culture and performance climate are organizational interventions used by organizations to influence and shape employees’ attitudes and behavior toward knowledge sharing. While each strategy directly influences employees to respond accordingly, the interplay between the incongruent objectives of these two strategies could lead to social dilemmas in knowledge sharing. This study aims to understand social dilemmas in knowledge sharing due to the interaction between knowledge sharing culture and performance climate.
Design/methodology/approach
An experimental study using the vignette technique was performed on 240 working adults. ANOVA was conducted to examine the interplay effect between knowledge sharing culture and performance climate on knowledge sharing intention.
Findings
Results showed that performance climate moderates the effect of knowledge sharing culture on employees’ knowledge sharing intention. The findings highlight the importance of having goal congruence between knowledge sharing culture and performance climate to minimize the social dilemmas in knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
This study develops a moderation model based on the theory of social dilemma to investigate the interaction between knowledge sharing culture and performance climate and enhance the theoretical validity and exactness of the knowledge sharing literature. The findings from this study provide theoretical insights and practical implications for social dilemmas in knowledge sharing, as well as the foundation for continuous research into knowledge sharing and people management practices that may have a strong influence on employees’ knowledge sharing behavior, attitude and performance.
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Lin Ma and Asheq Rahman
This paper aims to examine the influence of culture on the adoption and use of social media platforms for corporate disclosures by firms in a cross-country setting.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the influence of culture on the adoption and use of social media platforms for corporate disclosures by firms in a cross-country setting.
Design/methodology/approach
It is contended that social media corporate disclosure (SMCD) is culturally influenced because the primary purpose of social media is to connect people in social settings, and social settings are distinguished by their cultures. Using a sample of 1,420 firms from 36 countries and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, this study examines the direct effects of culture on SMCD and its moderating effects on the relationship between SMCD and the agency determinants of corporate disclosure.
Findings
It is found that cultural dimensions directly affect the adoption and use of SMCD. Additionally, the agency determinants of disclosure, size, leverage and growth are positively associated with the adoption, and use of SMCD, and these associations are moderated by the cultural dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
The Hofstede cultural dimensions are broad country-level variables based on the culture of the majority in the population. However, larger countries have many cultures. This study does not cover within-country cultural effects on SMCD. It also does not cover firm-level culture and accounting culture because these factors are derived from national culture. This study adds culture as a country-level determinant of why companies adopt and use social media.
Practical implications
The study provides investors and policymakers with an understanding of the nature of SMCD adoption and use in different cultural settings. It also makes managers aware of which cultural settings are more amenable to SMCD.
Social implications
Social media, by design, have social implications. Examining the role of culture in the use of social media provides societal reasons for the use of SMCD by companies.
Originality/value
Since social media are interactive in form rather than simply one-way disclosure devices, this study goes beyond the realm of corporate disclosure into the less researched area of corporate communication via social media.
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The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the use of the term “culture shock” in international management studies and cross-cultural research and to propose a paradigmatic shift…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the use of the term “culture shock” in international management studies and cross-cultural research and to propose a paradigmatic shift in how the term is understood for future research. The experience of “culture shock” is an established concept within international management studies, engendering an industry of training designed to combat difficulties in relocation. This paper argues that the use of concept is based on a flawed understanding of “culture” and proposes an alternative perspective to help organisations prepare their employees for overseas assignments.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opts for a critical review of literature to examine models of culture shock through time and theories relating to success factors in cross-cultural adjustment. In so doing, the paper revisits the notion of culture shock from a social constructionist perspective within a dialectical framework.
Findings
The paper challenges the notion of culture as an essential, reified concept, arguing that culture shock is not about culture, but about the dynamics of context and how individuals deal with life changes to navigate the challenges that they face.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should focus on context-related, interactive behaviour, framed in discourse processes, rather than predetermined a priori typologies based on cultural stereotypes. This would recognise the discursive nature of social interaction within a dialectical framework, where relational tension emerges as a result of disparity.
Practical implications
The paper contributes to an understanding of the complex range of factors influencing the success of relocation to guide international companies in their policies.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a paradigm shift in the treatment of culture shock towards a more discourse-based concept created through universal cultural and dialectical processes.
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This study aims to provide insights into the conceptualization of social entrepreneurship and the extent to which culture affects it.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide insights into the conceptualization of social entrepreneurship and the extent to which culture affects it.
Design/methodology/approach
First, social entrepreneurship is conceptualized and then the research integrates Hofstede’s framework, with some consideration for Inglehart’s and Schwartz’s framework in exploring the effects of cultural values.
Findings
Seminal studies on social entrepreneurship delineated acting entrepreneurially and having a social mission but failed to consider cultural contextualization. After illustrating Hofstede’s, Inglehart’s and Schwartz’s frameworks for cultural dimensions, the research shows that different cultural dimensions can provide a better understanding of social entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
This study has a limited scope as it relies on narrow conceptualizations of social entrepreneurship and culture.
Practical implications
Future national agendas should embrace varying notions of shared obligation across support institutions and enterprises as they attempt to address social problems across differing cultures.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature by providing an insightful understanding of the influence of culture on social entrepreneurship through integrating widely used cultural dimensions.
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