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1 – 10 of 256Andre Nijhof, Jaap Schaveling and Nicolette Zalesky
Organizational change involves optimizing a firm’s sustainability performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore how strategic orientations concerning the interface between…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizational change involves optimizing a firm’s sustainability performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore how strategic orientations concerning the interface between business and society influence organizations’ sustainability performance. To explain how different strategic orientations – especially stewardship and instrumental orientations – impact sustainability performance, dynamic managerial capability theory is explored.
Design/methodology/approach
Ours is an inductive, qualitative study based on the template analysis of interviews conducted among sustainability managers from stock-listed multinational corporations headquartered in the Eurozone.
Findings
Corporations with a stewardship orientation develop different dynamic managerial capabilities underlying sustainability performance than corporations that apply a more instrumental orientation. Results also show an “in-between” position: an equidistant orientation.
Research limitations/implications
This study proves the emergence of different dynamic managerial capabilities that depend on companies’ strategic orientation, but follow-up research based on appreciative inquiry is needed to investigate the development of these capabilities over time.
Practical implications
For achieving a higher level of sustainability performance, a stewardship orientation offers a stronger foundation than an instrumental orientation. Also companies with an equidistant orientation have a better sustainability performance than companies with an instrumental orientation, but based on a more central corporate level. The strategic orientation must be grounded in the development of fitting dynamic managerial capabilities that include an emphasis on shared cognition of long-term objectives, inclusion of stakeholders and setting objectives. Also strong internal and external ties, leadership of the CEO, educational background and how to deal with lack of knowledge are important aspects of managerial social and human capital.
Social implications
Due to its focus on the sustainability performance of companies and the identification of the supporting dynamic managerial capabilities, this paper is socially highly relevant.
Originality/value
Previous research has focused on strategic orientation, but little to no research has investigated how various strategic orientations toward the interface between business and society impact sustainability performance or what role dynamic managerial capabilities might play in the related change process.
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Wanyi Chen, Rong Jin and Yuchuan Xie
The rising uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment exacerbate the challenges firms face in the export market. This study aims to explore which strategy is suitable for…
Abstract
Purpose
The rising uncertainties in the macroeconomic environment exacerbate the challenges firms face in the export market. This study aims to explore which strategy is suitable for export enterprises to develop sustainably under COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the sample data of China’s A-stock listed manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2020, this study applies a survival analysis method to explore the impact of strategic flexibility on export firm survival. Furthermore, this study uses the difference-in-difference model to test the relationship between strategic flexibility and firms’ profits in the context of the pandemic.
Findings
The results show that strategic flexibility can increase firms’ survival time, improving dynamic production and innovation capabilities, which is favorable for their sustainable development. Meanwhile, after the spread of COVID-19, firms with strategic flexibility have higher profits than those without. This influence mechanism mainly involves exploring new markets that can improve the company revenue and the coordination capabilities of the supply chain; this reduces corporate costs.
Originality/value
This study expands relevant research on the factors affecting the survival of export enterprises and supplements research on the economic consequences of firms’ strategic flexibility; this also enriches the dynamic capability theory. Additionally, it provides important implications for firms to enhance strategic flexibility and recommends government implementation of policies that encourage the domestic sales of commodities originally produced for exports under COVID-19.
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Matthias Inauen and Andrea Schenker‐Wicki
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of inside‐out open innovation (as opposed to closed innovation) on firm innovation performance. Inside‐out open innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of inside‐out open innovation (as opposed to closed innovation) on firm innovation performance. Inside‐out open innovation involves the exploitation of existing internal technologies through innovation and commercialization.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses are tested empirically using survey data collected from stock‐listed companies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The data include the complete responses from 141 R&D managers for the period from 2004 to 2008.
Findings
The results reveal that companies that emphasize inside‐out open innovation are more likely to create radical innovations and tend to sell a greater number of new products. Companies pursuing closed innovation are more likely to exhibit a higher incremental product innovation performance.
Research limitations/implications
The cross‐sectional data approach and its dependency on the perceptions and experiences of the respondents has its limitations. Future research should extend the focus and concept of this study and explore additional closed and open innovation strategies.
Originality/value
The adoption of open innovation in practice has not been examined in depth. This study provides empirical insights into the open innovation approaches in German‐speaking countries and, by drawing important conclusions and implications for managers involved in the R&D processes, fills a gap in the innovation management literature.
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Matthias Inauen and Andrea Schenker‐Wicki
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of an open outside‐in innovation management strategy on companies' innovativeness and innovation performance. Specifically…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of an open outside‐in innovation management strategy on companies' innovativeness and innovation performance. Specifically, it focuses on the adoption of the open innovation paradigm in practice and the extent of collaboration with different stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed hypotheses are tested empirically using survey data collected from stock‐listed companies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The data include the complete responses from 141 R&D managers for the period from 2004 to 2008.
Findings
The openness of the outside‐in process in R&D management is of crucial importance for achieving high direct and indirect innovation output effects. In particular, openness towards customers, suppliers and universities has a significant positive impact on the different innovation performance measures. Regarding openness towards cross‐sector companies, the analysis reveals a significant negative effect on innovation performance.
Research limitations/implications
The utilization of cross‐sectional data and its dependency on the perceptions and experiences of the respondents has its limitations. Thus, future research should be based on a more longitudinal design that emphasizes quantitative measurement techniques.
Originality/value
To date, the adoption of open innovation in practice has not been examined in depth. This study provides empirical insights into the open innovation approaches in German‐speaking countries and, by drawing important conclusions for managers involved in the R&D processes, fills a gap in the innovation management literature.
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Malin Song, Jing Wang, Shuhong Wang and Danqing Zhao
The establishment of free trade zones (FTZs) is an important experiment as part of the reform and opening up policy. This paper aims to focus on the issue of production efficiency…
Abstract
Purpose
The establishment of free trade zones (FTZs) is an important experiment as part of the reform and opening up policy. This paper aims to focus on the issue of production efficiency of environmental protection enterprises in FTZs. Changes in the external and internal environments of enterprises can easily lead to changes in the production efficiencies of enterprises. The establishment of FTZs can change the external environment of enterprises. Knowledge accumulation changes the internal environment of enterprises. However, traditional efficiency analysis has usually ignored the internal and external heterogeneity of decision-making units, resulting in the distortion of the evaluation results.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper examines the relationship between knowledge accumulation and development potential based on financial data of environmental protection enterprises that were listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A stocks, from 2009 to 2016. Then, through data envelopment analysis cross-efficiency analysis of the listed environmental protection enterprises from external heterogeneity, BP neural network model is set up.
Findings
The results show that the model set up in this paper is stable and reliable. The paper makes policy suggestions such as stimulating trade inside industry, quickening technological progress and enhancing environmental protection.
Originality/value
This paper analyzes the economy, environmental protection, science and technology and education to simulate the external environment of enterprises. Based on the experience data from the completion of Shanghai FTZ, this paper predicts the future development potential of Hainan FTZ enterprises.
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Current publication practices in the scholarly (International) Business and Management community are overwhelmingly anti-Popperian, which fundamentally frustrates the production…
Abstract
Purpose
Current publication practices in the scholarly (International) Business and Management community are overwhelmingly anti-Popperian, which fundamentally frustrates the production of scientific progress. This is the result of at least five related biases: the verification, novelty, normal science, evidence, and market biases. As a result, no one is really interested in replicating anything. In this essay, the author extensively argues what he believes is wrong, why that is so, and what we might do about this. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an essay, combining a literature review with polemic argumentation.
Findings
Only a tiny fraction of published studies involve a replication effort. Moreover, journal authors, editors, reviewers and readers are not interested in seeing nulls and negatives in print. This replication crisis implies that Popper’s critical falsification principle is actually thrown into the scientific community’s dustbin. Behind the façade of all these so-called new discoveries, false positives abound, as do questionable research practices meant to produce all this allegedly cutting-edge and groundbreaking significant findings. If this dismal state of affairs does not change for the good, (International) Business and Management research is ending up in a deadlock.
Research limitations/implications
A radical cultural change in the scientific community, including (International) Business and Management, is badly needed. It should be in the community’s DNA to engage in the quest for the “truth” – nothing more, nothing less. Such a change must involve all stakeholders: scholars, editors, reviewers, and students, but also funding agencies, research institutes, university presidents, faculty deans, department chairs, journalists, policymakers, and publishers. In the words of Ioannidis (2012, p. 647): “Safeguarding scientific principles is not something to be done once and for all. It is a challenge that needs to be met successfully on a daily basis both by single scientists and the whole scientific establishment.”
Practical implications
Publication practices have to change radically. For instance, editorial policies should dispose of their current overly dominant pro-novelty and pro-positives biases, and explicitly encourage the publication of replication studies, including failed and unsuccessful ones that report null and negative findings.
Originality/value
This is an explicit plea to change the way the scientific research community operates, offering a series of concrete recommendations what to do before it is too late.
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José Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, Manu García and Manuel Yáñez
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of a non-sanction “soft” gender quota policy structure (a simple recommendation), using the case of Spain. In the first…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of a non-sanction “soft” gender quota policy structure (a simple recommendation), using the case of Spain. In the first part of the paper, the authors have reported the dismal improvement regarding the increase of female percentage presence in the companies’ boards of members.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide a detailed sectorial analysis and a classification of board members by type (executive, proprietary, independent and other external). In the second part, the authors exploit the fact that since 2013, the stock-listed companies are legally obliged to respond to a series of questions on gender diversity issues in their annual reports. Using this requirement, the authors perform an analysis using text processing techniques. The authors find that “self-plagiarism” is common in the responses – i.e. they copy responses from previous years – as well as “plagiarism” – i.e. they copy responses from other companies in previous years.
Findings
The insufficient progress in respect to the goals of the Law of Equality of 2007 (enacted by Spanish authorities) and the lack of interest that can be inferred from the companies’ responses included in their annual reports lead the authors to consider the necessity of changing the law on the corporate policies gender quotas in Spain.
Originality/value
It is the first study that realizes this type of analysis for Spain.
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Yu Xie, Francis Boadu and Hongjuan Tang
Drawing on the resource-based view, institutional logic and isomorphic pressure theories, this study constructed a theoretical model to explore the correlations between government…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the resource-based view, institutional logic and isomorphic pressure theories, this study constructed a theoretical model to explore the correlations between government subsidies and innovation performance. Particularly, this study aims to investigate the moderating effects of ownership types and degree of internationalization on these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
To empirically test the relationships, the authors use panel data from high-tech manufacturing and automobile manufacturing industries in Chinese A stock listed companies for the period 2011–2015 and performed regression analysis.
Findings
Results indicate that government subsidies positively enhance enterprises’ innovation performance; there is a big gap between government subsidies’ incentive effect on innovation performance between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private-owned enterprises (POEs); with the improvement of internationalization, the promotion effect of government subsidies on enterprise innovation performance is strengthened; there is a three-way interaction between government subsidies, degree of internationalization and ownership types, such that in the presence of a low degree of internationalization, there is a big gap in the incentive effect of government subsidies on the innovation performance of SOEs and POEs; in the presence of a high degree of internationalization, the gap is significantly reduced.
Originality/value
This is an empirical study on the impact mechanism of ownership types and internationalization on the relationship between government subsidies and innovation performance in China. It provides valuable insights to show how internationalization can dramatically improve SOEs’ efficiency disadvantages in the allocation of government subsidies to innovation activities.
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The purpose of this paper is to determine whether passing ISO accreditation can effectively enhance business performance, and further to explore the major contributions of ISO…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether passing ISO accreditation can effectively enhance business performance, and further to explore the major contributions of ISO accreditation for companies. Although there are some current debates on the effectiveness of ISO9000, for many companies having ISO9000 accreditation is mainly for marketing purposes. However, no company really knows the detailed performance effects of ISO accreditation. In this study, both the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Activity Based Costing (ABC) methods are used to compare the direction and strength of each performance indicator for companies that have passed, or not passed, ISO accreditation.
Design/methodology/approach
Companies in the manufacturing industry and service industry, with stocks listed in Taiwan's regular stock market and over‐the‐counter stock market, are selected as the research targets. A total of 212 valid questionnaires from the manufacturing industry and 120 from service industries are collected for further analysis of business performance using the BSC method. In addition, ABC measures are used to compare the performance difference through objective financial data.
Findings
Through qualitative and quantitative methods, this study develops key measurement indicators along four performance constructs based on the Balanced Scorecard. These include 38 indicators for the manufacturing industry and 32 indicators for the service industry. Through evaluation and comparison, the study shows that the pass of ISO accreditation by an enterprise can enhance its business performance and financial benefits. Higher effects are especially apparent in the manufacturing industry.
Originality/value
This study uses the concept of the BSC to construct performance measurement indicators and to evaluate the business performance of enterprises. In addition, the differences in business performance attributed to the pass or fail of ISO accreditation have been compared through BSC and ABC methods. From the performance analysis, it can clearly analyze the difference displayed by enterprises that have passed or not passed ISO accreditation. These results can be referenced by different industries when performing performance evaluation and strategy making.
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Quang Thi Thieu Nguyen, Dao Le Trang Anh and Christopher Gan
This study investigates the Chinese stocks' returns during different epidemic periods to assess their effects on firms' market performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the Chinese stocks' returns during different epidemic periods to assess their effects on firms' market performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs an event study method on more than 3,000 firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during periods of SARS, H5N1, H7N9 and COVID-19
Findings
Epidemics' effect on firms' stock returns is persistent up to 10 days after the event dates. Although the impact varies with types and development of the disease, most firms experience a negative impact of the epidemics. Among the epidemics, COVID-19 has the greatest impact, especially when it grows into a pandemic. The epidemics' impact is uneven across industries. In addition, B-shares and stocks listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange are more negatively influenced by the epidemic than A-shares and those listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Research limitations/implications
The results of the study contribute to the limited literature on the effects of disease outbreaks as an economic shock on firm market performance. Given the possibility of other epidemics in the future, the study provides guidance for investors in designing an appropriate investing strategy to cope with the epidemic shocks to the market.
Originality/value
The research is novel in the way it compares and assesses the economic impact of different epidemics on firms and considers their impact at different development stages.
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