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Achieving social sustainability has become a critical challenge in global supply chain networks, particularly during complex crises such as terrorism. The purpose of this study is to explore how institutional forces influence the social sustainability approaches of logistics service providers (LSPs) in high terrorism-affected regions (HTAR). This then leads to investigating how the key factors interact with Institutional Theory.

An exploratory multiple-case study research method was used to investigate six cases of different-sized logistics LSPs, each in an HTAR. The data was collected using semistructured interviews and triangulated using on-site observations and document analysis. Thematic analysis was used in iterative cycles for cross-case comparisons and pattern matching.

The findings interact with Institutional Theory and the three final-order themes. First, management processes are driven by coopetition and innovation. Second, organizational resources, structure and culture lead to an ineffective organizational design. Finally, a lack of institutionalization creates institutional uncertainty. These factors are rooted in many other first-order factors such as information sharing, communication, relationship management, capacity development, new process developments, workforce characteristics, technology, microlevel culture and control aspects.

This study answers the call for social sustainability research and enriches the literature on social sustainability, Institutional Theory and LSPs in HTARs by providing illustrations showing that institutional forces act as driving forces for social sustainability initiatives by shaping the current management processes. Conversely, the same forces impede social sustainability initiatives by shaping the current organizational designs and increasing institutional uncertainty.

This study aims to understand the dynamics underpinning the exit and re-entry strategies adopted by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in an emerging market, Pakistan.

This study undertook an in-depth historical case study of Yamaha Motorcycles, which had initially entered Pakistan as a joint venture but had then exited and re-entered as a wholly owned subsidiary.

This study found that, despite its status as a market leader and one of the older players in the Pakistani market, changing market dynamics in the 2000s – especially the increased competition brought by more affordable (inexpensive) Chinese motorcycles and the weak enforcement of industrial policies – had pushed Yamaha Motorcycles to exit. Another factor that had contributed to its exit were differences in risk perception and strategies with its local joint venture partner (a Pakistani business group). Hence, both firm-level and institutional factors had played significant roles in Yamaha’s market exit. This study further found that re-entering in a wholly owned subsidiary operation mode had been beneficial for the firm, as it gained a significant market share due to its focus on innovation and on capturing a market niche, which had earlier not been its main focus. The findings also suggest that opportunity logics and multiple forms of learning can be important for a firm’s re-entry into a host market – such as experiential (i.e. learning from experience) and vicarious learning (i.e. learning from other organizations, including suppliers and competitors) in an emerging market context, in which institutions evolve amid political and policy uncertainty. Finally, this study found that exit and re-entry timing is an important factor for the development of competitive advantage in a host market.

This study is among the few to have investigated the exit and re-entry strategies of MNEs in emerging markets. The relatively short time during which Yamaha Motorcycles had been out of the market had benefited it on its re-entry, as the firm had been able to capitalize on its prior learning and ties to suppliers’ networks.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of academic research in the business and management studies stream to various stakeholders. The stakeholder theory is used to examine the influence of research on various key beneficiaries and investigate the link between the domain of research and locus of impact.

Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) conducted in the UK provides a useful context and data for our research as REF 2014 encouraged universities to submit the information on research activities and their beneficiaries. This information is in the form of impact case studies which details the research, location of research and beneficiaries.

The findings suggest that research with an international focus has a positive impact on industry stakeholders, especially multinational corporations as well as non-governmental organizations. Second, it shows how research has made a commercial impact in innovation and small and medium enterprises’ growth while having limited impact on other domains such as social, legal, political and healthcare. More broadly, the findings indicate the degree of regional diversity. Also, the wider results-driven agenda in the UK can overestimate the research contribution to some stakeholders in the society.

Self-selection bias as universities might submit only few case studies.

For research to generate long-term benefits for the wider society, it needs to engage more deeply with the whole range of stakeholders.

This study contributes to understanding how research is consumed by stakeholders. The results indicate that while locally relevant research encourages local consumption; it is not assimilated across various stakeholders.

The recent increase in the presence of emerging market firms (EMFs) in global markets requires a closer examination of their international marketing strategies (including branding). The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors behind the standardization or adaptation of global marketing strategies adopted by EMFs for their cross-border acquisitions.

This paper examines the determinants of the marketing strategies adopted by Indian and Chinese firms for their cross-border acquisitions. The drivers of the standardization/adaptation of marketing strategies (including branding) are identified using both quantitative data collected in 168 cross-border acquisitions conducted by the EMFs mentioned above and the institutional theory and organizational identity literature.

Institutional factors have a stronger effect than organizational identities on global marketing strategies, including branding. The standardization of the EMFs’ marketing strategies is driven by the private statuses of the acquirers, legal distances, target countries’ economic development, and the ethnic ties that exist between the home and host countries. The acquirers’ decisions to retain the targets’ brand identities, thus adapting their global marketing strategies, are related to the cultural distances, economic freedom distances, and sizes of the targets.

In this study, two large emerging markets – India and China – are used to gather the empirical data; future works can expand upon this line of research and examine other EMFs.

The acquiring companies have to decide whether to adopt an adaption marketing strategy, with reference to the acquired targets’ local stakeholder requirements, or to incorporate their targets’ brands into their own global marketing strategies.

Typically, previous work on the adaptation vs standardization of global marketing strategies adopted in the wake of cross-border deals has focussed on acquisitions involving companies from developed countries; this paper extends the field of research to the EMFs of two of the most important developing countries: China and India.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that different collaborative entry modes play in how international new ventures (INVs) expand into international markets.

The paper’s arguments are based on the INVs and social network literatures. In order to investigate the entry modes adopted by British and Indian small and medium information and communication technology (ICT) firms into each other’s markets, the paper outlines the results of qualitative semi-structured interviews with the key decision makers of ten British and ten Indian ICT firms.

The findings contribute to the relatively under-researched area of how INVs enter foreign markets through collaborative entry mode. The findings suggest that INVs utilize both equity and non-equity modes of collaboration to expand their international operations. The findings also indicate that financial and non-financial resources always limit the market expansion and internationalization of such companies. Against this background, the INVs rely on building collaboration as one of the safest methods for foreign market expansion and successful internationalization. The collaborative entry mode is enhanced by entrepreneurs’ prior experience, social ties and knowledge of the foreign market.

Set against the backdrop of an ever-increasing trend of internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the paper offers important implications for understanding the conditions and factors behind the choice of collaborative and non-collaborative entry modes by INVs in particular and SMEs more broadly.

The paper is one of the few studies that have examined the role of collaborative entry modes choice adopted by INVs from two of the largest economies – the UK and India.

This paper presents a theorization and an empirical analysis of the influences of international open innovation (IOI) on the international market success of emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises (ESMEs). An analysis of the moderating roles played by cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities in this specific context is also presented.

The study adopted a quantitative research design involving a survey of 231 ESMEs based in the UAE. The authors formulated some hypotheses and tested them by employing hierarchical regression models.

The findings revealed that IOI positively affects the international market success of ESMEs. The authors further found that both cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities moderate the relationship between IOI and international market success.

The study advances the international marketing, knowledge and innovation management literature in two ways. First, it is a pioneering study that advances both the theoretical and empirical scholarship regarding the relationship between IOI and emerging market firm international market success by employing an extended resource-based view. Second, it further highlights the role played by cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities as effective governance mechanisms that moderate the relationship between IOI and international market success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of big data text analytics as an enabler of knowledge management (KM). The paper argues that big data text analytics represents an important means to visualise and analyse data, especially unstructured data, which have the potential to improve KM within organisations.

The study uses text analytics to review 196 articles published in two of the leading KM journals – Journal of Knowledge Management and Journal of Knowledge Management Research & Practice – in 2013 and 2014. The text analytics approach is used to process, extract and analyse the 196 papers to identify trends in terms of keywords, topics and keyword/topic clusters to show the utility of big data text analytics.

The findings show how big data text analytics can have a key enabler role in KM. Drawing on the 196 articles analysed, the paper shows the power of big data-oriented text analytics tools in supporting KM through the visualisation of data. In this way, the authors highlight the nature and quality of the knowledge generated through this method for efficient KM in developing a competitive advantage.

The research has important implications concerning the role of big data text analytics in KM, and specifically the nature and quality of knowledge produced using text analytics. The authors use text analytics to exemplify the value of big data in the context of KM and highlight how future studies could develop and extend these findings in different contexts.

Results contribute to understanding the role of big data text analytics as a means to enhance the effectiveness of KM. The paper provides important insights that can be applied to different business functions, from supply chain management to marketing management to support KM, through the use of big data text analytics.

The study demonstrates the practical application of the big data tools for data visualisation, and, with it, improving KM.

Obesity leads to increased mortality and morbidity among children, as well as when they turn adults. Melding marketing theories in social influence and message framing, this study aims to examine how compliance versus conformance social influence, each framed either prescriptively or proscriptively, may guide children’s choice of healthy versus unhealthy food.

This study conducted two experiments in a Pakistani junior school. Experiment 1 exposed children to either a prescriptive or a proscriptive compliance influence. Experiment 2 involved a 2 (prescriptive vs proscriptive compliance influence) × 2 (supportive vs conflicting conformance-influence) between-subjects design. Participants in both studies answered an online survey after being exposed to the social-influence messages.

Experiment 1 showed proscriptive was stronger than prescriptive compliance influence in nudging children to pick fruits (healthy) over candies (unhealthy). However, frequency of fruits dropped as susceptibility to compliance strengthened. Experiment 2 found that a proscriptive compliance influence reinforced by a supportive conformance-influence led to most children picking fruits. However, a conflicting conformance influence was able to sway some children away from fruits to candies. This signalled the importance of harmful peer influence, particularly with children who were more likely to conform.

Childhood is a critical stage for inculcating good eating habits. Besides formal education about food and health, social influence within classrooms can be effective in shaping children’s food choice. While compliance and conformance influence can co-exist, one influence can reinforce or negate the other depending on message framing.

In developing countries like Pakistan, institutional support to tackle childhood obesity may be weak. Teachers can take on official, yet informal, responsibility to encourage healthy eating. Governments can incentivise schools to organise informal activities to develop children’s understanding of healthy consumption. Schools should prevent children from bringing unhealthy food to school, so that harmful peer behaviours are not observable, and even impose high tax on unhealthy products or subsidise healthy products sold in schools.

This study adopts a marketing lens and draws on social influence and message framing theory to shed light on children’s food choice behaviour within a classroom environment. The context was an underexplored developing country, Pakistan, where childhood obesity is a public health concern.

This paper aims to specifically focus on the challenges that human resource management (HRM) leaders and departments in contemporary organisations face due to close interaction between artificial intelligence (AI) (primarily robots) and human workers especially at the team level. It further discusses important potential strategies, which can be useful to overcome these challenges based on a conceptual review of extant research.

The current paper undertakes a conceptual work where multiple streams of literature are integrated to present a rather holistic yet critical overview of the relationship between AI (particularly robots) and HRM in contemporary organisations.

We highlight that interaction and collaboration between human workers and robots is visible in a range of industries and organisational functions, where both are working as team members. This gives rise to unique challenges for HRM function in contemporary organisations where they need to address workers' fear of working with AI, especially in relation to future job loss and difficult dynamics associated with building trust between human workers and AI-enabled robots as team members. Along with these, human workers' task fulfilment expectations with their AI-enabled robot colleagues need to be carefully communicated and managed by HRM staff to maintain the collaborative spirit, as well as future performance evaluations of employees. The authors found that organisational support mechanisms such as facilitating environment, training opportunities and ensuring a viable technological competence level before organising human workers in teams with robots are important. Finally, we found that one of the toughest challenges for HRM relates to performance evaluation in teams where both humans and AI (including robots) work side by side. We referred to the lack of existing frameworks to guide HRM managers in this concern and stressed the possibility of taking insights from the computer gaming literature, where performance evaluation models have been developed to analyse humans and AI interactions while keeping the context and limitations of both in view.

Our paper is one of the few studies that go beyond a rather general or functional analysis of AI in the HRM context. It specifically focusses on the teamwork dimension, where human workers and AI-powered machines (robots) work together and offer insights and suggestions for such teams' smooth functioning.

Previous research on service multinational corporations (SMNCs) has mainly focused on the entry mode decisions in foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to examine the cross-border knowledge transfer in franchisee networks in Pakistan.

The qualitative semi-structure interviews approach is used to study the cross-border knowledge transfer from a franchisor to two local franchisee networks in Pakistan.

The results show that both explicit and tacit knowledge are transferred in cross-border franchise networks. The transfer of the knowledge from a franchisor to a franchisee is facilitated through the use of a variety of transfer mechanisms – both hard and soft transfer mechanisms, that is, video conferencing, emails, phone calls, seminars, meetings, documents and franchisor agents’ visits. The knowledge sharing in cross-border franchise networks in Pakistan shows numerous similarities with that occurring in manufacturing industries. The prior experience of the franchisee and the regional and local franchisors’ agents – their role as knowledge transfer agents (intermediaries) – facilitate the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge from the franchisor to a franchisee in the developing economies.

The paper discusses relevant implications for managers of franchisor and franchisee networks by focusing on the need to engage with both explicit and tacit knowledge transfer. The experience of the franchisee is important for the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge.

This paper is the first in the context of cross-border knowledge transfer from a franchisor to a franchisee in the Pakistani context. The author highlights the important role of prior experience of the franchisee and the regional and local agents of the franchisor in the transfer of cross-border knowledge transfer under the franchising arrangements.