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The prevailing view in the existing literature is that open innovations (OI) increase the innovative performance of enterprises. The author examines whether the same OI practices are equally important for sole entrepreneurs, micro firms, small firms, medium-sized and large enterprises in introducing radical innovations and which set of OI practices is best for a firm, given the firm's size.

In this study probit models were used on a sample of 915 innovative Serbian enterprises.

OI is important for all enterprises introducing radical innovations. However, not all OI practices are equally effective in each enterprise size group. The set of OI practices leading to radical innovations depends on the firm size. Cooperation with others is not important for sole entrepreneurs and micro and large companies in introducing radical innovations. Still, cooperation's role is predominant in small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, certain OI practices are important for all enterprises, whilst others do not contribute to radical innovations, regardless of the firm size.

Owners/managers can save considerably by avoiding the allocation of resources to OI practices that result in little to no contribution to radical product commercialisation. At the macroeconomic level, these findings can help policymakers create adequate (tailor-made) public policies to achieve innovation in each specific group of firms.

This study demonstrates that not all OI practices are equally important for achieving radical production solutions in each group of enterprises.

This article analyzes the determinants of credit constraints and their effects on the productivity of micro-firms in Colombia.

An Endogenous Switching Regression Model (ESRM) is estimated to analyze credit constraint impact on economic performance.

The results show that owner characteristics such as age and gender decrease the likelihood of being constrained. Firms' characteristics, such as legal status, the formality of the employees, commercial property and savings, are important for reducing credit constraints.

This article discusses how formal credit restrictions harm the economic performance of Colombia's micro-firms. The results show that the productivity of the micro firms in Colombia could increase, on average, by U$ 825 USD when all types of restrictions are eliminated.

This study aims to examine the impact of regulatory, normative and cultural cognitive institutions and firm and individual factors on entrepreneurial behavior.

Using the quantitative research method, the authors collected data from 316 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kosovo, a transition economy, through a cross-sectional research design. The authors performed exploratory factor analyses, correlation and regression analyses on the data using SPSS 26 and STATA software.

The research findings indicate that, within transition economies, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions have a positive impact on entrepreneurial behaviors. The authors could not determine the effect of regulatory institutions on entrepreneurial behavior. The authors also discovered that young firms are more inclined toward entrepreneurial behavior than older firms, and micro firms display a stronger entrepreneurial behavior than small firms. Furthermore, family businesses showed a greater tendency for entrepreneurial behavior than nonfamily firms. Interestingly, when the rational decision-making interacts with regulatory institutions, the effect on entrepreneurial behavior is negative.

This study employed a cross-sectional approach to investigate the influence of macro, meso, and micro-level factors on entrepreneurial behavior within a transitioning community across three industries. Future studies could replicate these findings within comparable institutional contexts, employing longitudinal studies that include additional variables beyond those considered in our present study.

Considering the importance of MSMEs for a country’s economic and sustainable development, the authors provide some policy implications. The authors recommend managers carefully evaluate the information gathered while they decide and also increase their capabilities concerning digitalization, which is crucial for their firm’s survival, growth and sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper contributes to the literature and shows and analyses entrepreneurial behavior at institutional (macro), firm-level factors (meso) and managers' rational decision-making (micro), providing evidence from a transition community.

This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in elucidating the relationship between the COVID-19 shock and workplace employee relations (ER) tension.

Survey data from 1,483 enterprises across 21 prefectural cities in China’s Guangdong Province are collected. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression.

The study reveals a positive correlation between the COVID-19 shock and workplace ER tension across crisis-hit enterprises, irrespective of their size or industrial sector. Wage reduction and mass layoffs emerge as significant mediators, while the collective bargaining system (CBS) and employees’ localization act as moderators.

The measurement of ER is limited in a single-item scale. Representation of China is also limited since the study exclusively focuses on Guangdong province. The study offers some contributions that firm-level data reveal the pathway through which COVID-19 creates ER tension.

On the one hand, the authors recommend the establishment of an effective communication system between employers and employees. On the other hand, managers should consider the role of informal institutions. Furthermore, the authors suggest implementing tailored strategies at the enterprise level.

Intense external shocks result in widespread layoffs and increased wage reductions within workplaces, and under such circumstances, formal or informal institutions may be insufficient to alleviate ER tension. In this case, the state authorities – including governments and other public agencies or bodies – are necessary to intervene in to organize tripartite dialogue.

While numerous emerging studies on COVID-19 explore how different countries manage industrial relations tension at the national level, few focus on ER at workplace level, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how workplace ER evolve during external shocks and identifying institutional measures to mitigate their negative impact is crucial for future crisis management.

This paper investigates the financing preferences and practices of Senegalese entrepreneurial firms, with a particular focus on understanding the gaps between the two and how they may contribute to financing constraints in developing economies. By juxtaposing the preferences of different financing options against their degree of usage, this study attempts to reveal the mismatch in demand and supply of entrepreneurial firms financing in Senegal.

A structured questionnaire was used to survey 524 entrepreneurial firms, and data was analyzed using various statistical methods.

The results indicate that the most preferred sources of financing for Senegalese entrepreneurial firms are self-financing and short-term bank loans. Short-term funding horizons are also much more preferred than their long-term counterparts. However, there is a mismatch between financing preferences and practices, particularly with regards to equity sources, which were found to be more preferred than used. The study argues that a combination of preferences, firm, and owner characteristics can explain the choice and frequency of usage of financing sources.

This study contributes to the literature by contrasting preferences and practices, revealing gaps between theory and practice, and providing better insight into the real financing needs of entrepreneurial firms in developing economies. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the financing preferences of Senegalese entrepreneurial firms, making it an important contribution to the literature on entrepreneurial firms financing in developing economies.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the marketing and communication activities carried out by small management consulting firms and how they relate to customers.

After the framing of the literature on the subject, the study is based on the results of a survey carried out through an online questionnaire. The sample under investigation is represented by 914 small consulting firms located in central Italy.

Results show that half of the sample carried out marketing and communication activities, mainly through the website and social media, while others participating in events as speakers at conferences. It also emerges that management consulting firms carry out activities aimed at maintaining relationship with customers even if they do not invest time in market research in order to find potential and new clients.

The study suggests that management consulting firms should adopt a systematic and strategic approach to communication and should develop a complete and integrated digital communication strategy, as well as to rethink the consulting business model.

There are no previous studies that provide insight into the everyday practice of marketing and communication of small management consulting services in today's dynamic and changing economic environment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges relating to the integration of soft skill development with recruitment and retention strategies in small and micro businesses of a small island state. Recruitment and retention play an important role in the development of such skills, which make an impact on the effectiveness of employees in today’s workforce and the adaptability of organizations in a competitive market.

This paper uses qualitative methodology, collecting data from 14 semi-structured interviews, and uses constant comparative analysis to derive findings. The process is facilitated by MAXQDA software.

Findings indicate that organizations are faced with challenges in recruiting candidates with both technical and soft skills. Once the right candidate is recruited, efforts are made to retain staff by enhancing soft skills and their development despite challenges encountered in the process by owner-managers and human resource consultants.

The paper’s originality lies in the intensive investigation of challenges relating to recruitment and retention of employees and of the development strategies used as part of the employee lifecycle. Further, this paper studies the small and micro businesses of a small island state, which are generally overlooked in the literature.

Scientific knowledge is rich with literature on the antecedent role of social capital on resilience. However, empirical evidence has overlooked the role of the individual dimensions of bonding and bridging social capital on its outcomes. This study aims to extend empirical research on the influence of social capital facets of bonding social capital and bridging social capital on financial resilience and more specifically in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic where women SMEs mostly need bonding.

The study uses an explanatory research design to determine the hypothesized effect of social capital on financial resilience. The authors used regression to test the hypothesized relationship using a sample of three hundred and eight four women-owned SMEs in Kampala registered with Kampala City Traders Association.

According to the findings, the social bonding provides female entrepreneurs with emotive encouragement and inspiration through personal connections and responsibility sharing. Furthermore, women entrepreneurs bridging, which consisted of business networks, made it easier for them to identify new financial opportunities, which ultimately led to an increase in their financial resilience. The findings placed an emphasis on the significance of fellow business owners as sources of knowledge and assets that are crucial to maintaining one's financial resilience.

Data were collected from women owned SMEs, and the application of the findings may be limited to women SMEs in Kampala District. Therefore, future research should replicate the current study findings using a sample drawn from other SMEs owned by both male and female from outside Kampala because of changes in operating environment. The study was cross-sectional, and financial resilience of a firm changes was periodical. This study paves the way for future longitudinal research in the same topic area, which will allow for a more complete comprehension of the financial resiliency of SMEs throughout a range of different time periods.

Research findings shape trajectory for current practitioners of SMEs to establish relevant social bonding and bridging as social capital in preparation for financial resilience in case of any pandemic.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to establish the antecedent role of social capital on financial resilience during an economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, using a sample of women-owned medium- and small-sized businesses in Kampala.

Industrial robots are of great significance to the long-term development of family firms. Drawing on the lens of the principal–principal conflict, this paper aims to investigate the influence of family non-executive directors on robot adoption in Chinese family firms.

This paper selects the family firms in China from 2011 to 2019 as the sample. Furthermore, the authors manually collected the family non-executive directors and constructed the robot adoption variable utilizing data sourced from the International Federation of Robotics. In brief, this paper constructs a comprehensive framework of the mechanisms and additional tests pertaining to the influence of family non-executive directors on robot adoption.

This paper finds that family non-executive directors can promote robot adoption in family firms. The underlying mechanism analysis shows that family non-executive directors promote robot adoption by exerting financial and human effects. This paper further finds that the characteristics of family non-executive directors, such as kinship, differential shareholding and excessive directors, affect the role of family non-executive directors. Finally, robot adoption can improve future performance, and the promotional effect is more evident when family members are non-executive directors.

This paper contributes to the related literature from the following two aspects. Firstly, this paper decomposes the types of family directors to understand the role of family non-executive directors, which challenges the assumption that family board members are homogeneous in family firms. Second, this paper expands the research on the factors that influence robot adoption in emerging economies from the micro-enterprise level. In addition, the findings in this paper have managerial implications for family firms to optimize their strategic decisions with the help of the mode of board right allocation.

This paper aims to provide a focused review of international business (IB) literature on research and development (R&D) internationalization, assessing the progress and proposing future research directions.

Total 167 peer-reviewed articles from IB journals (following the ABS list 2021 from 4* to 2) published between 1996 and 2022 are critically reviewed using a science-mapping approach. This paper used Bibliometrix R-package to analyze the retrieved bibliometric data. Additionally, a strategic diagram was developed to comprehend the maturity stage of various R&D internationalization concepts.

Most studies on R&D internationalization are influenced by perspectives from advanced-economy multinational enterprises (AMNEs), while perspectives from emerging-economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) are underrepresented. Considering the characteristics of emerging economies, firms from these locations might embark on and develop their R&D internationalization strategies differently. Investigating the emerging economy perspectives will enrich the understanding of R&D internationalization strategies for both AMNEs and EMNEs. Additionally, bringing different underutilized theoretical perspectives will help to untangle the anomalies observed in extant literature.

This paper is among the few to scrutinize the IB literature on R&D internationalization by applying a unique combination of bibliometric techniques and a content analysis approach. By complementing existing reviews and providing fresh insights into the phenomenon, it offers a conceptual framework that can be used as a basis for further research on R&D internationalization.