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Why do some ventures grow to become dominant market players while most new ventures that do not fail limp along more modest trajectories? In comparison with our knowledge regarding determinants of venture creation or survival, the phenomenon of venture growth has been relatively neglected, both theoretically and empirically. Venture growth is a multi-level phenomenon co-occurring at different analytical and temporal levels. In this chapter we develop a theoretical model that accounts for venture growth as a process, drawing upon the mechanism-based theorizing approach. We offer nine social mechanisms that lead to venture growth, providing a foundation for empirical exploration and further theory building.

Purpose – In accordance to the globalized and competitive environment, traditional manufacturing sectors’ companies are being particularly forced to reshape their global strategy and reconfigurate their activities to survive. Due to the fact that these firms present special characteristics that make the change extremely difficult, this chapter tries to analyze the influence of managerial attitudes and characteristics on the decision of their international strategy.

Methodology/approach – The study was carried out in Spanish traditional manufacturing sectors through a questionnaire, obtaining a final sample of 115 SMEs. We performed a cluster analyses to classify groups of companies, innovative and rigid, and assessed their different perceptions and characteristics.

Findings – Our results show that the adoption of these new models of internationalization is indeed related to the attitude and characteristics of managers. We found that more innovative strategies are associated with managers with intermediate experience in business, higher education levels, and a more realistic perception of the severity of the situation, the influence of the environment, and its strategic capabilities.

Practical implications – This chapter evidences that there are still important internal barriers affecting the international competitiveness of these companies. We propose that more traditional strategies of internationalization in the manufacturing sectors should move toward more complex models that combine the advantages of the cooperation, multilocation, diversification, and integration of those key activities of the value chain. Therefore, we display the critical role of managers’ profile in this process.

Originality/value of the chapter – Despite the fact that many works have analyzed the determinants of strategic change, we offer a wider view considering the essential role of managers, by combining demographic and perception variables. Furthermore, we based this idea on the theoretical perspective known as managerial cognition; therefore, we give new explanatory factors on the decision of the international strategy.

Much attention has of late been paid to the issue of tourist sustainable ­mobility at the destination. This issue takes on particular significance in big cities, which, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, saw considerable increases in visitor numbers. The aim of this chapter, which draws on the case study method, is to explore the question of how foreign tourists move around in a Polish conurbation, known as Tri-city. Made up of three cities – Gdansk, Sopot, and Gdynia – it is one of Poland’s most popular tourist destinations. Crucially, in Tri-city all major tourist attractions and facilities are dispersed over a wide area, which makes it particularly well suited to researching visitor mobility patterns. The case study that forms the core of this chapter relies mainly on a paper-and-pencil questionnaire survey conducted among foreign tourists visiting Tri-city in January 2020 as well as on direct observation of reality. It turned out that walking was a preferred way of moving around Tri-city for most foreigners. The findings indicate, too, that young female visitors used public transport more often than older women and all men regardless of age. Furthermore, tourists with a university education more often opted for public transport than those without a degree, and visitors who lived in urban areas used public transport more often than those living in the countryside. The chapter concludes by ­summarizing the argument and drawing practical lessons for municipal authorities interested in facilitating tourist sustainability in their cities.

We apply data envelopment analysis to compare the relative efficiency of different forms of microfinance institutions (MFIs): banks, cooperatives, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and nonbank financial institutions. We find that MFIs that operate as NGOs are technically more efficient than bank MFIs. Using the same inputs (labor and physical and financial assets), NGOs serve more clients (number of borrowers or depositors) than bank MFIs.

This chapter introduces linguistic delivery style to auditing research, demonstrates how linguistic delivery style relates to client credibility, and shows how linguistic delivery style and client credibility influences auditors’ judgment. Two hundred auditors participated in an analytical procedures task. The results indicate that high client credibility and powerful linguistic delivery style increase the auditor's assessed likelihood that the explanation accounts for the fluctuation and decrease their intent to perform additional testing. Moreover, powerless linguistic delivery style from an otherwise high credibility client leads to auditor judgments and intentions that are indistinguishable from those that arise from a low credibility client. Finally, evidence indicates that linguistic delivery style is a fourth component of credibility.

In this chapter, I reflect on the place of hope in activist criminology. Offering reflections from my own activist scholarship, this chapter draws out the ways in which hope structures and sustains our work across temporal frames and distinct modes of academic practice. This chapter develops a hopeful analysis of lineage, memory and resistance, reflecting on my participatory research with the Tamil community in London, and reflects on the revival of utopian thought in criminological scholarship. Hopeful imaginaries of an abolitionist future inform my scholar-activism with Reclaim Holloway – an abolitionist collective formed to influence the redevelopment of the Holloway prison site. I describe this future-oriented work before considering hope as a practice in the present, focusing on ‘pedagogies of hope’ as activist criminology in the classroom.

The study of strategy is the study of how firms gain and maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It is an examination of both the types of strategy that appear to be most successful in a given situation, as well as the organizational resources, systems, principles, and processes that create, transform, and carry out strategic action in competitive arenas. Since its development as a distinct disciplinary area, strategy research has focused primarily on large, cross-sectional studies of quantitative data gathered through questionnaires, archival sources such as financial reports, and commercial data bases such as PIMS and COMPUSTAT. These analyses have focused on, and revealed, patterns of strategy content, formulation processes, and competitive interaction that exist across firms within a given competitive context and that explain variations in performance across firms. These results have led to the development of several basic theoretical frameworks that help us to understand and predict competitive activity and organizational performance.