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1 – 10 of 240Telmo Lena Garcez and Marcelo Fernandes Pacheco Dias
This paper aims to analyze the evolution and interaction over time of the functions of a technological innovation system (TIS) based on the concept of an innovation motor.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the evolution and interaction over time of the functions of a technological innovation system (TIS) based on the concept of an innovation motor.
Design/methodology/approach
It is a case study of the innovation system associated with the technology for producing cage-free pullets for laying eggs in Pelotas/Rio Grande do Sul (RS).
Findings
The motors proposed by the TIS approach evolve sequentially and are associated with cumulative causality mechanisms. The study's results identified two functionalities: analysis of the chain as a whole and coordination of the actors involved in the system. The study's results also identified the presence of inflection points at the beginning of each of the motors.
Research limitations/implications
The absence of a more accurate detailing of the market motor in discussions of the evolution of the motors and functions of TIS cage free Pelotas.
Practical implications
Innovation Motors as a new guiding approach for participatory innovation initiatives in rural areas.
Originality/value
Application of the TIS approach in agribusiness and proposition of two new functions for motor analysis, in addition to including inflection points as activation triggers in the evolution between motors.
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Teresa Villacé-Molinero, Laura Fuentes-Moraleda, Alicia Orea-Giner, Rocío González-Sánchez and Ana Muñoz-Mazón
This study aims to investigate how university students experience a skill transformation process aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This transformation occurs…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how university students experience a skill transformation process aligned with the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This transformation occurs through their participation in a service-learning programme alongside an international volunteering project. The theoretical framework for understanding this skill transformation process is based on the “rite of passage”.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative methodology is adopted by conducting 23 online surveys with volunteers (virtual and onsite) and five with coordinators across the rite of passage phases. Volunteering was carried out in five Mayan indigenous communities in Mexico as part of an international cooperation project with the goals of supporting community-based tourism development and strengthening volunteers’ skills in accordance with the SDGs.
Findings
Results show that international volunteering programmes for university students significantly enhance their interpersonal and professional skills, demonstrating strong potential for implementing the SDGs. These programmes provide learning and education opportunities for both volunteers and local communities. Volunteers gain a broader perspective on gender equality and cultural barriers. Additionally, volunteering supports sustainable tourism, economic worth and collaboration among institutions. Both volunteers’ personal characteristics (educational level and sociocultural context), as well as their sociocultural context, influenced the perception of the skill transformation process and learning about the SDGs. Finally, a new educational university programme in volunteering aligned with SDGs is proposed.
Practical implications
This research examines the practical ramifications of incorporating volunteer programmes into university courses. Universities must include these initiatives in their educational systems as a means of enhancing student learning.
Social implications
A new educational university programme in volunteering aligned with SDGs is proposed. This study suggests a shift in university mindset, as well as increased funding for training and adherence to the SDGs.
Originality/value
This study pioneers the rite of passage framework in an international volunteer tourism project facilitated by universities, emphasizing volunteering as a valuable tool for SDG implementation, considering the interrelationships between objectives.
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Mohammad Nematpour and Amin Faraji
The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the process of tourism growth at a national scale in Iran, by taking into…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the process of tourism growth at a national scale in Iran, by taking into account the reviews of previous studies, views of experts and structural analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
In this investigation, structural analysis technique has been used to identify the correlation between variables by using mix method data analysis. By using cross-impact analysis (N × N integer matrix) in the form of the Micmac method, the economic, sociocultural and environmental factors have been evaluated.
Findings
The results of the distribution of factors in the coordinate axes and the graphs between them indicate their features, and for reaching a sustainable system of tourism development, at first, priority should be given to the negative influential factors, especially the environmental fields, and then the focus should be on the decrease of the dual and risk variables as they cannot be anticipated.
Originality/value
For the rapid growth of tourism in many countries, governments ensure that policies have been heeded in designing and preparing general plans of the country to understand how the development trend is moving on. In this respect, arisen impacts of tourism system are one of the important issues during the development path and in the field of tourism future. Because of the complexity and broadness of tourism activities, these impacts have also many interconnected dimensions that should also be considered while studying tourism impacts.
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Diego Rodrigues Boente and Paulo Roberto B. Lustosa
After assessing papers on efficiency, most of the studies available are focused on the analysis of efficiency measures, without providing a deep discussion of the factors that…
Abstract
Purpose
After assessing papers on efficiency, most of the studies available are focused on the analysis of efficiency measures, without providing a deep discussion of the factors that determine efficiency. This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of Brazilian electricity distribution companies based on a structural model that enables the identification of a network of relationships among representative variables that contribute to efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling was applied in a sample of 62 electricity distribution companies operating in Brazil, forming a balanced panel from 2010 to 2014. Then, the authors verified the model compliance according to the empirical evidence of the entities analyzed. This verification included a survey of the variables, which was supported by theoretical references related to the phenomenon studied. The data collected were statistically treated, and benchmarking models and multivariate techniques were used. Once the adjustments were made, the re-specified model was estimated using the maximum likelihood method.
Findings
The empirical model reached good adjustment rates. The analysis concluded that the constructs information system, structural system, management system and sociocultural system affect efficiency.
Originality/value
This study adds to several other papers, and this is one of its main contributions. Relationships among the constructs have been systematized according to literature in the form of a structural model, which will enable future researchers to have a reference frame of relevant studies and a research foundation in this area of knowledge. A third contribution is the model tested in a sample of Brazilian electricity distribution companies, whose results can be compared to other utility sectors (e.g. telecommunications) or to other countries' electrical sectors, thus providing an empirical basis for the proposed hypotheses. Finally, this study also offers a contribution to the Brazilian Electrical Energy Agency (Aneel, in Portuguese), a regulatory agency, providing mechanisms to guide tariff adjustments, seeking a balance between costs and the need for investments allied to tariff affordability.
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Silvia Baiocco and Paola M.A. Paniccia
This paper aims to better understand how business model innovation (BMI) occurs in the context of sustainable entrepreneurship, emphasizing the dialectical nature of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to better understand how business model innovation (BMI) occurs in the context of sustainable entrepreneurship, emphasizing the dialectical nature of entrepreneurial relationships. To do so, key interdependencies and reciprocal influences between internal/firm-specific and external/environmental factors underlying BMI for sustainability are analysed through co-evolutionary lenses.
Design/methodology/approach
A co-evolutionary framework is developed and applied to a longitudinal business model (BM) analysis of 15 Italian widespread hotels, which creatively use historic villages at risk of abandonment to establish their hotels.
Findings
Largely influenced by the interplay between internal and external factors, BMI of widespread hotels occurs through multilevel co-adaptations, which are recognised as virtuous by all stakeholders involved. Effective variations of the BM value elements are selected resulting in circular economy practices, which are retained for successful BMI, radical (first) and incremental (thereafter). Knowledge of specific local and multi-local conditions, time awareness and a future-oriented temporal perspective, by both entrepreneurs and policymakers, favour this dynamic.
Practical implications
Developing targeted policies and practices based on increased organisational knowledge supported by indicators can help in selecting and retaining successful variations of BMs appropriately in/with time with positive effects on firms' performance and sustainable development.
Originality/value
This study provides a novel co-evolutionary framework that explicitly links sustainable entrepreneurship and BM concepts in the accommodation sector. It further proposes a dynamic and holistic explanation of BMI for sustainability from which the crucial roles of the time-knowledge binomial and circular practices emerge.
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António Oliveira and Orlando Lima Rua
This paper aims to contribute to the explanatory debate of the entrepreneurial intention-action gap that results from the interposition of normative-regulatory, sociocultural and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the explanatory debate of the entrepreneurial intention-action gap that results from the interposition of normative-regulatory, sociocultural and economic-financial barriers facing potential and intending entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded on post-positivist position, the authors propose a quantitative approach, surveying 569 potential and intending entrepreneurs from a longitudinal and stratified sample of 22 years.
Findings
The economic-financial barrier is the most important, followed by the sociocultural except in the period in which access to banking financial support is facilitated, where the order is reversed. The impact of the normative-regulatory barrier is statistically relevant, but irrelevant on the magnitude. The results also allow us to conclude that a lower development of the project accentuates the entrepreneurial intention-action gap and, finally, support the existence of a medium/long-term temporal relation between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial action.
Research limitations/implications
From an empirical standpoint, the sample was limited to potential and pretending entrepreneurs from one national institution and one country. This limits the scope of generalization. Further studies in multiple contexts should be undertaken.
Practical implications
The study points to contradictory results with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – Portuguese Reports, which, if confirmed, require the reformulation of Portuguese national policies in the promotion and development of entrepreneurial activities.
Originality/value
The study is novel by providing new insights about entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial intention-action gap.
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