Search results

After the completion of this case study, students will be able to understand the importance of being close to local people when embarking on social business; understand that clear purpose and good decision-making can lead to great outcomes; and learn that innovation is crucial to ensure sustainability of both business and impact.

The case highlights the journey of Laiterie du Berger (LDB), a social enterprise in the agribusiness industry and the challenges faced as it expands and innovates. LDB’s roots lie in its commitment to social impact, aiming to uplift the Fulani livestock farmers and address socioeconomic issues. The company’s business model prioritizes people over profits, focusing on sustainable development and poverty alleviation. The LDB case showcases the challenges and opportunities in the agribusiness industry. LDB’s commitment to social impact, demonstrated through its support for farmers and sustainable farming practices, has been integral to its success. As the company expands and innovates, it faces critical decisions that require balancing financial growth with social responsibility. By embracing development, innovation and collaboration, LDB can continue to be a catalyst for positive change in the agribusiness industry while staying true to its roots and the principles that have defined its journey.

This case study is designed for bachelor’s and master’s degree students in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as MBA students. The case focuses on social entrepreneurship with the example of an agribusiness company located in Senegal, prioritizing social impact and quality of life. The case study explores the dynamics of the sector, including expansion strategy, innovation initiatives and the dilemma of balancing social mission and profit that social entrepreneurs may be facing. By analyzing this real-world situation of LDB, students will have the opportunity to enhance their decision-making skills.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

The changing roles of the United Nations (UN) and national institutions have made addressing climate change a critical concern for many multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) survival and growth. This chapter discusses how such institutions, which vary in their nature and characteristics, shape firm strategies for climate change adaptation. Exploring different versions of institutional theory, the chapter demonstrates how and why institutional characteristics affect typical patterns of firm ownership, governance, and capabilities. These, in turn, influence companies’ internationalisation and climate-change strategies. Climate change poses challenges to how we understand firms’ strategic decisions from both an international business (IB) (HQ–subsidiary relations) and global value chains (GVC) (buyer–supplier relations) perspective. However, climate change also provides opportunities for companies to gain competitive advantages – if firms can reconfigure and adapt faster than their competitors. Existing IB and GVC research tends to downplay the importance of climate change strategies and the ways in which coherent or dysfunctional institutions affect firms’ reconfiguration and adaptation strategies in a globally dispersed network of value creation. This chapter presents a perspective on the institutional conditions that affect firms’ climate change strategies regarding ownership, location, and internalisation (OLI), and GVCs, with ‘investment’ and ‘emerging standards’ playing a significant role. The authors illustrate the discussion using several examples from the Global South (i.e. Bangladesh) and the Global North (i.e. Denmark, Sweden, and Germany) with a special emphasis on the garment industry. The aim is to encourage future research to examine how a ‘business systems’, or varieties of capitalism, institutional perspective can complement the analysis of sustainability and climate change strategies in IB and GVC studies.

This study investigates how firms’ awareness of sustainability affects the revision of their internationalization strategy. Adopting a resource-based view (RBV) approach, the authors argue that sustainable-oriented firms have a higher propensity to de-internationalize (i.e., to go back to their home country) when confronted with the need to relocate foreign manufacturing subsidiaries, as the shortening of value chains would allow the reduction of transportation emissions and enhanced corporate image as green-oriented entities. Furthermore, the authors explore the role exerted by a stringent regulatory setting in the home country on the likelihood of de-internationalization. The empirical test conducted on a sample of relocations performed across European nations in 2002–2014 reveals that multinational enterprises (MNEs) – regardless of their sustainability orientation – have a higher probability to de-internationalize when their home countries have strict institutional contexts in place.

“First principles” of international business (IB) thinking should be applied systematically when assessing the functioning of internationally operating firms. The most important first principle is that entrepreneurially oriented firms seek to create, deliver and capture economic value through cross-border linkages. Such linkages invariably require complementary resources from a variety of parties with idiosyncratic vulnerabilities to be meshed. Starting from first principles allows bringing to light evidence-based insight. For instance, most companies are not global and even the world’s largest firms rarely change the location of key strategic functions. International new ventures (INVs), emerging economy multinational enterprises (MNEs) and family firms face unique vulnerabilities but also command resources that can be used to create value across borders. The quest for “optimal” international diversification appears to be a futile academic exercise, and in emerging economies with institutional voids, relational networks – and more broadly, informal institutions – are unlikely to function as scalable substitutes for formal institutions. In global value chains (GVCs), many lead firms and their partners have been able to craft governance mechanisms that reduce bounded rationality and bounded reliability challenges, and it is also critical for them to use governance as a tool to create entrepreneurial space. Finally, many of the world’s largest companies have been on successful trajectories toward reducing their climate change footprint for a few decades. But these firm-specific trajectories are fraught with challenges and cannot just be imposed via unilateral, macro-level targets decided upon by individuals and institutions lacking a clear understanding of innovation and capital expenditure processes in business.

Introduction: Cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are essential for new-age firms to survive and succeed in the VUCA market environment. This study examines how automobile corporations have improved cost competitiveness, productivity, and product quality.

Purpose: This study examines the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance for the long-term survival of organisations in VUCA markets, looking at the practical efforts made by automobile corporations to enhance cost competitiveness, productivity, and quality.

Methodology: The study utilises a comprehensive analysis of the strategies and initiatives implemented by the selected automobile companies. It involves a review of relevant literature, case studies, financial data analysis, and interviews with key industry experts, providing a holistic understanding of the actions taken by these organisations to achieve their goals.

Findings: The study reveals that cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are critical factors for the long-term survival and success of organisations in the automotive industry. The analysed automobile companies have undertaken practical efforts to improve cost competitiveness, enhance productivity, and ensure high-quality products, enabling them to navigate the challenges and maintain a competitive edge.

Significance: The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance in the automotive industry. It highlights the need for organisations to constantly monitor both qualitative and quantitative profit to avoid complacency and ensure long-term efficiency. The study’s insights are relevant to businesses operating in other sectors, as they face similar challenges in the VUCA market environment.

Why is it that, despite repeated claims that digital-content firms and internet-based businesses can internationalize everywhere almost instantly, many seem unable to profitably expand outside their home markets? Why have emerging market firms (EMNEs) caught up with established developed-country multinationals (DMNEs) so much faster than expected? In this chapter, the author argues that the clue to these two puzzles lies in the realization that, contrary to the dominant view in the international business (IB) literature that focuses only on the intangibles exploited by DMNEs and assumes that these firms are free to unilaterally decide on their mode of entry and operation, doing business in a foreign country is only possible if intangibles are bundled with complementary local resources, usually held by local firms. Taking into account these complementary local resources and their owners makes it clear that DMNEs are not always free to choose their entry mode but must enlist the cooperation of local resource owners. The need of digital-content and internet-based firms for local complementary resources also explains why they sometimes experience problems when expanding abroad. Lastly, control of complementary local resources provides EMNEs with a home advantage against DMNEs competing with them in their home market. The author shows how EMNEs can capitalize on this advantage to obtain the intangibles they lack and need. The fact that these advantages are available on efficient global markets, while complementary local resources are not, explains the surprising speed of EMNE catch-up.

This research investigates how consumers who are most active on Facebook during the day vs in the evening differ, differ in their ad consumption, and how advertising effects vary as a function of a key moderator: gender.

Using a survey of 281 people, the research identifies Facebook users who are more intensely using mobile social media during the day versus in the evening, and measures five Facebook mobile advertising outcomes: brand and product recall, clicking on ads, acting on ads and purchases.

The results show that women who are using social media more intensely during the day are more likely to use Facebook to seek information, hence, Facebook mobile ads tend to be more effective for these users compared to those in the evening.

This contributes to the literature by analyzing how the time of day affects social media behavior in relation to mobile advertising effectiveness, and broadening the scope of mobile advertising effectiveness research from other than just clicks on ads to include measures like brand and product recall.

By analyzing the effectiveness of mobile advertising on social media as a function of the time of day, advertisers can be more targeted in their media buys, and so better use their social media budgets, i.e. advertising is more effective for women who use social media (Facebook) more intensely during the day than for those who use social media more intensely in the evening as the former tend to seek more information than the latter.

This research extends media ecology theory by drawing on circadian rhythm research to provide a first demonstration of how the time of day relates to different uses of mobile social media, which in turn relate to social media mobile advertising consumption.

While research on social media advertising has been steadily increasing, little has been explored on how users consume ads when they engage with social media at different periods along the day. This paper extends media ecology theory by investigating time of day, drawing on the circadian rhythm literature, and how it relates to social media usage.

In recent decades, emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) have predominantly adopted a big step internationalization strategy to expand their business overseas. This study aims to examine the effect of big step internationalization on the speed of subsequent foreign direct investment (FDI) expansion for EMNEs. The authors also investigate the potential boundary conditions.

The authors use the random effects generalized least squares (GLS) regression following a hierarchical approach to analyze the panel data set conducted by a sample of publicly listed Chinese firms from 2001 to 2012.

The findings indicate that implementing big step internationalization in the initial stages accelerates the speed of subsequent FDI expansion. Notably, the authors find that this effect is more pronounced for firms that opt for acquisitions as the entry mode in their first big step internationalization and possess a board of directors with strong political connections to their home country’s government. In contrast, the board of director’s international experience negatively moderates this effect.

This study provides insights into our scholarly and practical understanding of EMNEs’ big step internationalization and subsequent FDI expansion speed, which offers important implications for firms’ decision-makers and policymakers.

This study extends the internationalization theory, broadens the international business literature on the consequences of big step internationalization and deepens the theoretical and practical understanding of foreign expansion strategies in EMNEs.

International business research is showing an increasing interest in the link between international business and human rights. Despite extensive coverage of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, the analysis and discussion of why multinational corporations include human rights in corporate reporting is still in its early stages. This chapter develops an analytical framework on corporate human rights reporting, with special emphasis on international business. The conceptual part of the framework draws on legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory and signalling theory. The analytical part distinguishes between factors inside the corporation and the external environment of business organisations operating internationally.

This study aims to investigate sustainability practices in the banking industry, focusing on a developing economy. It uses the triple-bottom-line framework to answer the following research question: how do banks in Nigeria conceptualise sustainability, and what role does it play in their banking practices?

This study adopts a social constructivist approach in its exploration of banking sustainability practices in an emerging economy, and the research design is a purpose-based (exploratory) approach. The qualitative data was collected from 33 bank personnel from various bank units and departments through semi-structured interviews to achieve the research objective.

The study reveals a lack of sustainability policies and programmes, as banks focus mainly on profitability. It uncovers unfair treatments of bank workers through casualisation, low wages and work overload. It indicates that most banks in developing countries ignore environmental considerations, as they still carry out paper-based transactions and use diesel-powered generators, which cause various negative environmental impacts. It also confirms that governments and banks in the country are not doing enough to propagate sustainable practices and banks have also not taken advantage of the sustainability concept to promote their brands; instead, they consider it as requiring additional operational costs.

The findings demonstrate the need for banks to see sustainability from a marketing point of view and adopt sustainable practices to create additional value that will improve their brand image and enhance their competitiveness.

The importance of sustainability in the banking industry in emerging economies is considered a viable means of contributing to the overall development goals of the United Nations as the world tries to preserve the environment. It also highlights the consequences of inaction or unsustainable banking practices.