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This study aims to examine the effect of entrepreneurial resources on micro businesses and the mediating role of innovation capability in this relationship.

A structured questionnaire was used to gather data for this quantitative study, which adopted partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses on a sample of 455 women entrepreneurs in Malaysia.

The results reveal that entrepreneurial resources, particularly technical resources, positively and significantly affect innovation capability and enhance business performance. Furthermore, innovation capability mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial resources and microbusiness performance.

This study contributes theoretically by combining six entrepreneurial resources into a single framework in light of the resource-based view and finance-based theory. The results corroborate the effects of entrepreneurial resources on the performance of women’s micro businesses and the mediating role of innovation capability in this relationship. However, the cross-sectional design study limited this study’s ability to engage respondents in a more in-depth analysis of pertinent themes.

This research provides guidance and directions for business managers/owners and decision makers to adopt and improve entrepreneurial resources to achieve superior performance and competitive advantages. It presents evidence of innovation capability’s significant role in converting resources into innovative outcomes and creating value. Additionally, it is useful for policymakers to design development programmes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in emerging markets.

This study highlights the value of innovation with a variety of entrepreneurial resources for women business owners that significantly impact Malaysian employment and gross domestic product and may have a positive social impact by enhancing social life in local communities. The nation’s unique context of multiracial and ethnic groups reflects Malaysia’s truly Asian ethnic composition.

This study fills the research gap by offering empirical evidence of the mediating role of innovation capability in the link between entrepreneurial resources and microbusiness performance, thus significantly contributing to emerging markets worldwide, where women-owned micro businesses are increasingly generating value and employment.

This paper aims to analyze the economic-financial performance (EFP) and value creation (VC) in the Brazilian construction industry.

Based on the theories of strategy and finance, a quantitative-qualitative, descriptive and explanatory and applied study was carried out, contrasting the performance of the Direcional company and the civil construction industry – both listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange and the Over-the-Counter Market (B3)

The analysis of the EFP in the Brazilian construction industry shows that EZTEC, Helbor, Trisul and Direcional were the companies with the best EFP in the period. The analysis of the Economic Value Added (EVA®, henceforth EVA), as a VC metric and basis for assessing the relative technical efficiency score by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA®, henceforth DEA), revealed that the companies Direcional, EZTEC, MRV and CR2 were considered efficient throughout the period covered. The multicriteria methodology for empirical testing of the EFP and VC allowed not only contrasts Direcional's results with the other companies of the construction industry but also offered a complementary tool for comparative analysis of enterprises of different sizes, structures and realities.

Regardless of any contextual limitations, from a theoretical point of view, the research not only helps fill the research gap aforementioned but also expands knowledge on the topic and demonstrates how this multi-criteria methodology (integrating DEA and EVA) can be used to assess EFP and VC in addition to traditional tools. However, this new approach evaluates, at the same time, corporate and sectorial effectiveness by contrasting the efficiency and efficacy (simultaneously) in the generation of performance and value of a company in relation to the industry.

Significant implications for managerial practice could be noted by offering a tool to improve company performance and creating a competitive benchmarking process for analysts, investors, managers, financing agencies, shareholders, policymakers and business owners, as well as organizations and sectors in similar situations – who need to assess the EFP and VC holistically and improve their decision-making processes.

The uniqueness and innovation of this research come from the original multi-criteria methodology developed, applied and validated for analysis of EFP and VC. This methodology was operationalized through DEA applied to the companies' EVA, making it possible to compare corporate results and those of the whole industry in a balanced way – an unexplored issue in the literature, especially in emerging economies, opening several avenues for future research.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar el desempeño económico-financiero (DEF) y la creación de valor (CV) en la industria de la construcción brasileña.

Con base en las teorías de estrategia y finanzas, se realizó un estudio cuanti-cualitativo, descriptivo, explicativo y aplicado, contrastando el desempeño de la empresa Direcional y de la industria de la construcción civil, ambas cotizadas en la Bolsa y Mercado Extrabursátil Brasileña (B3).

El análisis de la DEF en la industria de la construcción brasileña muestra que EZTEC, Helbor, Trisul y la Direcional fueron las empresas con el mejor desempeño en el período. El análisis del Valor Económico Agregado (en adelante EVA), como métrica de CV y base para evaluar el puntaje de eficiencia técnica relativa mediante Análisis Envolvente de Datos (en adelante DEA), reveló que las empresas Direcional, EZTEC, MRV y la CR2 se consideraron eficientes durante todo el período cubierto. La metodología multicriterio para pruebas empíricas de la DEF y CV permitió no sólo contrastar los resultados de la Direcional con los de otras empresas del sector de la construcción, sino que también ofreció una herramienta complementaria para el análisis comparativo de empresas de diferentes tamaños, estructuras y realidades.

La singularidad y la innovación de esta investigación provienen de la metodología original multicriterio desarrollada, aplicada y validada para el análisis de DEF y CV. Esta metodología fue operacionalizada a través de DEA aplicado al EVA de las empresas, permitiendo comparar los resultados corporativos y los de toda la industria de manera equilibrada – un tema inexplorado en la literatura, especialmente en las economías emergentes, abriendo varias vías para futuras investigaciones.

Independientemente de las limitaciones contextuales, desde un punto de vista teórico, la investigación no solo ayuda a llenar el vacío mencionado anteriormente, sino que también amplía el conocimiento sobre el tema y demuestra cómo esta metodología multicriterio (integrando DEA y EVA) puede utilizarse para evaluar el DEF y CV además de las herramientas tradicionales. Sin embargo, este nuevo enfoque evalúa, al mismo tiempo, la efectividad corporativa y sectorial contrastando la eficiencia y eficacia (simultáneamente) en la generación de desempeño y valor de una empresa en relación con la industria.

Se podrían observar implicaciones significativas para la práctica gerencial al ofrecer una herramienta para mejorar el desempeño de la empresa y crear un proceso de evaluación comparativa competitivo para analistas, inversionistas, gerentes, agencias financieras, accionistas, formuladores de políticas y propietarios de negocios, así como organizaciones y sectores en situaciones similares, que necesitan evaluar el DEF y el CV de manera integral y mejorar sus procesos de toma de decisiones.

This study aims to investigate the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) investment on the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) profitability in the Indian context.

This study used a framework based on the ICT investment and firm size, measuring the impact on profit before depreciation, interest, tax and amortisation of MSME by taking a random sampling of 300 Indian MSME manufacturing firm’s secondary data from the Prowess database. This framework was analysed using the design of experiment (DoE) technique.

The study showed that ICT investment has a significant positive relationship with profitability. This study examines the different ICT investment levels to predict investment strategies and fine-tune profit targets. The critical finding is that ICT investment maximises profit at one million rupees. This discovery aids MSME leaders’ sustainable business decision-making.

This study has an explicit limit to the Indian context, where the firm requirements of countries are different, and these findings need to be validated with many operating variables and applied to more firms with more data. Even so, as a theoretical implication, this study took a novel approach to ICT adoption (through ICT investment) in the Indian MSME sector with guiding levels of ICT investment for each type of firm (i.e. micro, small and medium). This study opens new avenues for investigating researchers and stakeholders by exploring other factors responsible for ICT adoption.

This study uniquely provides practitioners with the functional level of ICT investment for MSMEs in the Indian context. These finding guides top management to make strategic ICT adoption decisions with information symmetry. At the same time, these findings suggest financial institutions astern their credit programme to provide credit for ICT investment in MSMEs.

This study highlights the value of ICT as a practical resource for business owners that significantly makes MSMEs more informed and profitable, thus creating more jobs and incrementing the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

This study offers unique empirical findings on how decision makers in MSMEs maximise profits through optimal ICT investment levels depending upon the firm size in an emerging economy like India. There is evidence in the study to conclude that ICT is a need of MSME and has implications for firm performance.

Innovation is critical for businesses to stay competitive in today's world, as it allows them to constantly look for new ways to differentiate their products or services from their competitors as well as improve cost-effectiveness. This study explore the role of strategic human resource practices in developing organizations' competitive capabilities-differentiation and cost-effectiveness, which, improves their innovation performance to create a competitive advantage.

The authors collected data from 387 employees from 25 knowledge-intensive information technology organizations in India through a questionnaire-based survey. After checking for biases, reliability and validity, the hypothesized relationships were tested by structural equational modeling using AMOS 26.

Strategic HR practices have a significant and positive effect on innovation performance and both competitive capabilities-differentiation and cost-effectiveness. While the differentiation capability had a strong positive effect on innovation performance, cost-effectiveness capability was not significantly related to innovation performance. The differentiation capability mediates the relationship between strategic HR practices and innovation performance link, whereas the cost-effectiveness capability did not have a mediating effect.

This study provides practical insights to HR and knowledge managers to focus on development of human capital and invest in hiring, training, development, strategic performance management practices to enhance employees' knowledge behaviors, which, stimulates innovation performance.

The paper adds to the strategic HRM paradigm by clarifying the underlying process of how strategic HR practices leads to higher innovation. It affirms the vitality of choosing appropriate competitive capabilities, and supporting organizational factor for business's success. It fills an important research gap by providing original empirical evidence from knowledge intensive information technology organizations in the emerging economy of India.

The distant data centre-centric Internet of Things (IoT) systems face the latency issue especially in the real-time-based applications, such as augmented reality, traffic analytics and ambient assisted living. Recently, Fog computing models have been introduced to overcome the latency issue by using the proximity-based computational resources, such as the computers co-located with the cellular base station, grid router devices or computers in local business. However, the increasing users of Fog computing servers cause bottleneck issues and consequently the latency issue arises again. This paper aims to introduce the utilisation of Mist computing (Mist) model, which exploits the computational and networking resources from the devices at the very edge of the IoT networks.

This paper proposes a service-oriented mobile-embedded Platform as a Service (mePaaS) framework that allows the mobile device to provide a flexible platform for proximal users to offload their computational or networking program to mePaaS-based Mist computing node.

The prototype has been tested and performance has been evaluated on the real-world devices. The evaluation results have shown the promising nature of mePaaS.

The proposed framework supports resource-aware autonomous service configuration that can manage the availability of the functions provided by the Mist node based on the dynamically changing hardware resource availability. In addition, the framework also supports task distribution among a group of Mist nodes.

By combining relevant literature and using quantitative methodology, this study aims to look into the role of knowledge management (KM) as a mediator between entrepreneurial competencies (ECs) and the sustainable performance (SP) of manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The relationships in the proposed model were examined with data collected from 122 Malaysian SMEs using a cross-sectional technique and a standardized questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling path analysis.

According to the findings, ECs have a positive and considerable impact on KM as well as the SP of manufacturing SMEs. Importantly, KM partially mediates between ECs and the SP of manufacturing SMEs.

This research provides a theoretical contribution through the integration of ECs, KM and SP within a unified framework that takes into account the viewpoints of the resource-based view, the knowledge-based view and the triple bottom line. The results corroborate that ECs directly affect SP and indirectly through KM. Nevertheless, the study’s use of cross-sectional survey data makes it impossible to draw conclusions about causes. This is because ECs, KM and SP all have effects on time that this empirical framework cannot account for.

The findings of this research provide valuable insights for managers and decision-makers in SMEs, who are expected to show an increasing interest in adopting KM processes into their companies through which ECs can be translated into SP.

By applying the proposed framework, SMEs can conduct their activities in ways that do not harm environmental and societal well-being while achieving appropriate economic performance at the same time.

As a result, the findings of this study can add to the literature on ECs and KM, as well as boost the chances of SME sustainability. Directions for future research are also provided in relation to a better understanding of the factors affecting the SP of SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how working from home (WFH) affects the relationship between internal corporate social responsibility (ICSR) and employee creativity in times of uncertainty when employees’ occupational stress increases and their identification with their company decreases.

Applying social identity theory, the authors derive and test the hypotheses presented in this study regarding ICSR’s direct effects on employee creativity, given the amount of time they spent on WFH and the role of threat in this relationship. The authors use partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the various effects. Via an online questionnaire and using the snowball technique, the authors collected data from 158 participants in different industries in Germany.

The empirical results of this study show that ICSR activities increase employee creativity, partly by reducing one harmful aspect of stress, namely, threat. In addition, the authors find that WFH moderates this effect, such that the higher the degree of WFH, the weaker the ICSR activities’ effects are.

This study focused on the respondents’ WFH situation during the global COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this research contributes to understanding the roles that modern work practices, human resource management (HRM) and ICSR actions play in respect of employee creativity. The authors expand the theoretical understanding, which is based on social identity theory, by showing that the greater the amount of time spent on WFH, the more it reduces ICSR’s positive effect on employee creativity. The findings of this study open avenues for future research and longitudinal studies that compare the ICSR effects during and after the pandemic, as well as for those that compare WFH and its effects on organizational creativity.

This study shows that managers should encourage appropriate ICSR measures in their organizations and should specifically consider the work setting (i.e. WFH or at the office) as a boundary factor for these measures’ effectiveness. However, ICSR actions, such as anti-discrimination measures, are less effective in respect of building the employee–employer relationship and supporting employees’ identification with and commitment to the company when they work from home. Given the economic benefit of decreased turnover rates and the societal benefit of a company output with higher creativity levels, this study has an impact from both an economic and a societal perspective.

This study sheds light on employee creativity and ICSR’s roles in current HRM practice, which is still underexplored. More importantly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first empirical evidence of a hitherto overlooked mechanism explaining ICSR activities’ effects on, or their perceived threat to, employee creativity.

This study aims to examine the cryptocurrency adoption (CA) level among Indian retail investors who use cryptocurrency as an investment and mode of transaction.

Through self-administered survey questionnaires, data is collected from 397 retail investors of Haryana (India). This study adopted a quantitative method using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

This paper offered a robust model with a high explanatory value for CA in which four of the five proposed factors of diffusion of innovation theory (trialability, compatibility, complexity and observability) and one of the two proposed factors of consumer behavioral theory (perceived value) significantly influences CA. More specifically, the absence of regulatory support is a barrier to the broad adoption of cryptocurrencies, as its regulations are necessary to mitigate or minimize uncertain outcomes.

This research primarily focuses on CA in India. Thus, it can be extended to cover diverse other countries for more precise results.

The results provide insights to the government to design the policies, better regulate and make investment strategies that can ultimately enhance CA. In addition, the study’s results also inform financial educators, policymakers, employers and academicians about the significance of several variables affecting CA in India.

From a social standpoint, this study is an advance that directs central banks and governments to develop, regulate and manage digital currencies and implement a digital currency ecosystem. Moreover, the results assist in understanding investors’ perceptions and decision-making perspectives toward cryptocurrencies through the country’s digitalization.

This paper fills the study gap to assist policymakers and cryptocurrency experts in broadening their knowledge base and recognizing prioritized intentions. Additionally, this study provides a theoretical model with the latent variable for a present and pertinent matter.

Although green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) has received much attention, it is unclear whether it affects technological green innovation (GI). Therefore, this study aims to understand how GEO affects technological GI, with its dimensions green product innovation (GPRODI) and green process innovation (GPROCI), as well as to explore whether resource orchestration capability (ROC) moderates the relationships between them.

Based on a cross-sectional survey design, data were gathered from 177 managers of large manufacturing firms in Yemen and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling via SmartPLS software.

The results revealed that GEO positively affects both GPRODI and GPROCI, with a higher effect on GPROCI. Importantly, ROC does, in fact, positively moderate the link between GEO and GPRODI.

This research adds to knowledge by combining GEO, ROC and technological GI into a unified framework, considering the perspectives of the resource-based view and the resource orchestration theory. However, the study’s use of cross-sectional survey data makes it impossible to infer causes. This is because GEO, ROC and technological GI all have effects on time that this empirical framework cannot account for.

The findings from this research provide valuable insights for executives and decision makers of large manufacturing companies, who are expected to show increasing interest in adopting ROC into their organisations. This suggests that environmentally-conscious entrepreneurial firms can enhance their GI efforts by embracing ROC.

By adopting the proposed framework, firms can carry out their activities in ways that do not harm environmental and societal well-being, as simply achieving high economic performance is no longer sufficient.

Theoretically, the results offer an in-depth understanding of the role of GEO in the technological GI domain by indicating that GEO can promote GPRODI and GPROCI. In addition, the results shed new light on the boundaries of GEO from the perspective of resource orchestration theory. Furthermore, the findings present important insights for managers aiming to enhance their comprehension of leveraging GEO and ROC to foster technological GI.

All of us seek truth via objective inquiry into various human and nonhuman phenomena that nature presents to us on a daily basis. We are empirical (or nonempirical) decision makers who hold that uncertainty is our discipline, and that understanding how to act under conditions of incomplete information is the highest and most urgent human pursuit (Karl Popper, as cited in Taleb, 2010, p. 57). We verify (prove something as right) or falsify (prove something as wrong), and this asymmetry of knowledge enables us to distinguish between science and nonscience. According to Karl Popper (1971), we should be an “open society,” one that relies on skepticism as a modus operandi, refusing and resisting definitive (dogmatic) truths. An open society, maintained Popper, is one in which no permanent truth is held to exist; this would allow counter-ideas to emerge. Hence, any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed since it chokes its own refutations. A good model for society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian and epistemologically arrogant. The difference between an open and a closed society is that between an open and a closed mind (Taleb, 2004, p. 129). Popper accused Plato of closing our minds. Popper's idea was that science has problems of fallibility or falsifiability. In this chapter, we deal with fallibility and falsifiability of human thinking, reasoning, and inferencing as argued by various scholars, as well as the falsifiability of our knowledge and cherished cultures and traditions. Critical thinking helps us cope with both vulnerabilities. In general, we argue for supporting the theory of “open mind and open society” in order to pursue objective truth.