Search results

This paper develops a typology of argumentation strategies used in lobbying. Unlike in other strategic communication functions such as crisis or risk communication, such typologies have not been proposed in the sub-field of public affairs.

The article synthesises the strategic communication, political communication and policy studies literature and employs exchange theory to explain the communicative-strategic exchange in public affairs. It showcases its explanatory potential with illustrative examples from Big Tech lobbying.

The paper describes that categories of argumentation strategies that a public affairs professional will choose are based on the contingency of the issue, policy objective and lobbying objective. The descriptive typology will require empirical testing to develop further.

The paper describes how public affairs professionals influence public policy through their argumentation strategies, which sheds light on the usually opaque activities of lobbying.

The proposed typology is the first of its kind for the field of public affairs. Beyond, it contributes communication-scientific insights from a rhetorical tradition to strategic communication research and other social science fields where lobbying is studied, e.g. policy studies.

This study examines whether different strategy archetypes deploy specific performance metrics to support their strategic goals and priorities. If so, does alignment of strategy and metrics positively impact organisational performance?

The conceptual framework and hypotheses are couched in Contingency Theory. The role of business strategy as a moderating variable is tested using MANOVA, followed by post hoc pairwise comparisons. The results are based on cross-sectional survey data from 372 manufacturing and service organisations in Italy.

The overall contingency effect of business strategy in selecting and deploying performance metrics and their effect on organisational performance is supported. However, the group-wise post hoc analyses show support only for Prospectors but not for Defenders and Analysers.

This research lends further support in favour of the Contingency Theory from a new geographic context (Italy) that there are no universally best performance metrics that drive organisational performance. However, more research is needed to understand why the theory only holds for certain strategic archetypes and not across all archetypes.

Managers can direct resources and effort towards designing and deploying the “right” type of performance metrics suitable for their strategic orientation and thus optimise organisational performance.

This is a rare study that tests the moderating role of business strategy using all four strategic archetypes of the Miles and Snow typology. It deploys both financial and non-financial measures and uses a very large sample of both manufacturing and service organisations from a relatively unexplored region of the world. The study provides additional evidence in favour of the Contingency Theory whilst advocating for more research to refine our understanding of why the contingency perspective is not so important for firms that are not the first-in.

Certified and non-certified organisations must make strategic decisions regarding ISO 9001 adoption, maintenance, renewal and abandonment. However, the ISO 9001 literature lacks a typology of the strategic options available to these organisations. The purpose of this conceptual study is to develop a framework of the alternative strategies for the stages of the ISO 9001 life cycle (implementation/certification, certification maintenance and recertification/decertification stages).

The research method is based on literature review, selection of relevant variables and synthesis of coherent alternative strategies.

Results include the main variables of relevance for the definition of the ISO 9001 strategies (e.g. life cycle stage, organisational motivations, barriers, benefits, internalisation degree and quality of the certification body), the main situations in which organisations can find themselves (in terms of ISO 9001 certification, maintenance and decertification), the strategic options for each situation (e.g.: certify, maintain certification, try harder, change certification body, intensify learning and experimentation with ISO 9001) and the implications and consequences of such options. Research results are integrated into a strategy framework, composed of three strategy matrices, one for each stage of the life cycle. The matrices present the strategic situations, available strategic alternatives and benefits of the strategies.

This study combines the results of previous research to develop an original strategy framework, which constitutes the main research contribution. As far as the author is aware, there is no such strategy framework in the literature. The framework has relevant implications for theory and practice and helps to identify future research directions.

This study aims to systematise the links between firms’ strategies (corporate and business) and the cluster dynamics (through the cluster life cycle [CLC] perspective) and propose an integrative framework bridging firms’ strategic behaviour and cluster dynamics (CLC).

The methodology used is an integrative literature review, which provides a distinctive form of research.

The study identifies several links between firms’ strategies (corporate and business) and the cluster dynamics (CLC), namely: (1) firms’ strategies as a triggering factor of cluster evolution; (2) firms’ strategies and path's decline; (3) firms’ strategies and cluster’s renewal; (4) resilience strategies and the cluster life cycle; and (5) cluster’s features and firms’ strategies.

This study contributes to developing strategic management theory and cluster theory by bridging firms' strategies and cluster dynamics (CLC). It proposes a new conceptualisation of the impact of cluster dynamics on firms' strategic choices – firstly, it proposes a specific approach to identify the CLC; and secondly, it develops an integrative framework model that relates firms' strategies and each stage of the CLC. These are theoretical tools relevant for further advancements in this area of research, as they can be applied in studies of different clusters for validation, something that was not done.

The integrative framework is expected to be helpful to company managers, allowing them to design better strategies that account for dynamic cluster environments.

This study aims to fill this gap in the literature by systematising the links between firms' strategies (corporate and business) and the cluster dynamics (CLC).

The purpose is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurs’ exit strategies and modes of entry. The topic of exit strategies in the context of approaching retirement warrants further attention.

We apply logistic regression to analyse 1,192 responses to an online survey of firms with entrepreneurs aged over 55.

Family successors are more likely to choose family succession and buyers to choose to sell, but the association between founding and exit mode cannot be confirmed. Firm size is also significant. Our findings suggest that entry and exit via a business transfer are linked. Entrepreneurs might be influenced by their form of entry when choosing their exit strategy.

The data were collected from a single European country, limiting generalisation. Future research should incorporate intervening variables not controlled for here, such as, entrepreneurial experience. Future studies should also seek to test the existence of imprinting directly, as it is implied rather than verified here.

If the entry mode has a lasting effect on the entrepreneur as our results suggest, thus influencing the exit strategy selected, entrepreneurs could benefit from greater awareness of the imprinting mechanism. Increasing awareness of imprinted biases could unlock the benefits of exit strategies previously overlooked.

The study is the first to consider sale, family succession and liquidation as exit strategies in relation to the original entry mode of ageing owners. It contributes to the understanding of exit strategies of ageing entrepreneurs and proposes using entrepreneurial learning and imprinting as lenses to clarify the phenomenon.

The purpose of this study is to compare the communication practices of Chinese and US companies on YouTube and explores the effectiveness of different communication strategies at the topic level.

The author selected 22 Chinese companies and 22 US firms and compared the content of their English language corporate YouTube channels through content analysis, sentiment analysis and cluster analysis.

The results revealed that the three communication strategies (information, response and involvement) in general were not significantly different regarding their engagement rates, but they generated different comment scores when communicating topics of corporate social responsibility. The results also showed that Chinese companies were more likely than American firms to display the speeches of corporate leaders, use collectivistic references and present human interest messages in YouTube videos.

This study sheds light on how national institutional environment shapes corporate communication on YouTube.

This study challenges the infatuation with the involvement strategy and offers some advice for practitioners on topic selection and user comment function management.

This study makes a novel contribution to the literature of corporate communication on YouTube by adopting a cross-national comparative approach. A conceptual framework of major factors influencing stakeholder responses on YouTube was presented.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2023-0061

This study aims to explore how key stakeholders and recipients of local food access programs operate strategically to meet individual and community food needs, enhance experiences of dignity and promote social justice. The study of a fragmented community food system highlights the connections between micro and meso dimensions of food access, illustrating how people work around food system limitations to access food.

Using qualitative in-depth interviews with food assistance managers, workers, volunteers and recipients, this study examines the period before the implementation of a centralized community-based food access initiative in a mid-sized, rural Oklahoma college town with a high rate of food insecurity. This study asks: What are community members’ experiences in a fragmented food assistance system? In what ways do individuals use everyday resistance and workarounds to actively promote experiences of dignity and social justice in food access spaces?

Those involved in sites of community food access build important networks to share information and engage in negotiation and trade to gain access to useful food resources. As forms of everyday resistance, such practices encourage co-construction of dignity and social justice in stigmatized spaces.

This research contributes to literature examining micro- and meso-level community dynamics that inform agency, dignity and social justice in community food access approaches.

This paper aims to quantitively assess the resilience of residential properties to urban flooding in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and assess whether they vary at spatially aggregated scales relative to the level of flood exposure.

The study synthesizes theoretical constructs/indicators for quantifying property level resilience, as a basis for measuring resilience. Using a two-stage purposive/stratified randomized sampling approach, 407 questionnaires were sent out to residents of 25 flood-prone areas, to solicit information on the resilience constructs as indicated by the adaptation behaviors of individual households and their property attributes. A principal component analysis approach is used as a mechanism for weighting the indicators, based on which aggregated spatial-scale resilience indices were computed for the 25 sampled areas relative to their levels of flood exposure.

Area 11 located in the moderate flood zone has the lowest resilience index, while Area 20 located in the high flood zone has the highest resilience index. The resilience indices for the low, moderate and high flood zone show only minimal and statistically insignificant differences indicating maladaptation even with incremental levels of flood exposure.

The approach to resilience measurement exemplifies a reproducible lens through which the concept of “living with floods” can be holistically assessed at the property level while highlighting the nexus of the social and technical dimensions.

The study moves beyond theoretical conceptualization, to empirically quantify the complex concept of property-level flood resilience.

This study aims to investigate the impact of organizational external environmental factors on strategic management accounting (SMA) usage in an emerging economy.

The study collected data from 79 public limited companies listed with the Dhaka Stock Exchange (Bangladesh) through a questionnaire survey. Multiple regression analysis is employed to test the impact of external environmental variables such as perceived environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition on SMA usage.

The study finds a significant positive impact of environmental uncertainty (fluctuation in the external environmental factors) and intensity of competition (domination by few companies) on SMA usage. However, the direction and magnitude of this impact vary considerably for specific groups of SMA practices such as costing, competitor accounting, customer accounting and planning and performance measurement techniques.

This study shows the impact of several facets of environmental uncertainty (i.e. unpredictability, fluctuation, ambiguity, lack of information and uncertainty of the outcome of decision) and intensity of competition (i.e. stressfulness and domination) in the empirical-based SMA research.

This paper aims to understand technology-based accelerators’ legitimation efforts in an emerging entrepreneurship ecosystem.

This research is based on qualitative inductive methodology using ten Turkish technology-based accelerators.

The analysis indicates that accelerators’ legitimation efforts are shaped around crafting a distinctive identity and mobilizing allies around this identity; and establishing new collaborations to enable collective action. Further, the authors observe two types of technology-based accelerators, namely, “deal flow makers” and “welfare stimulators” in Turkey. These variations among accelerators affect how they build their legitimacy. Different types of accelerators make alliances with different actors in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Accelerators take collective action to build a collective identity and simultaneously imply how they are distinguished from other organizations in the same category and the ones in the old category.

This study presents a framework to understand how accelerators use strategies and actions to legitimize themselves as new organizations and advocate new norms, values and routines in an emerging entrepreneurship ecosystem. The framework also highlights how different accelerators support legitimacy building by managing the judgments of diverse audiences and increasing the variety of resources these audiences provide to the ecosystem.