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The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the direct effect of extra-industry network (EIN) and organization–stakeholder relationships (OSR) on absorptive capacity (ACAP). In addition, this study explored indirect effects of EIN and OSR on performance through ACAP among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Oman by considering the moderating role of big data analytics (BDA) outsourcing.

This study utilized quantitative method through survey questionnaire. The hypotheses were tested with a sample size of 202 surveys completed by SME owners. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was administered to analyze data via the SmartPLS 4.0 software.

The analysis revealed that EIN and OSR had an indirect effect on performance through ACAP, while propensity to outsource BDA was found to have a positive moderating role between EIN and performance. Interestingly, propensity to outsource BDA was found to have a negative moderating influence on the relationship between ACAP and performance.

This research is beneficial for entrepreneurs who wish to learn about the specific intangible resources significant for venture growth, to devise effective strategies to expand their EIN and OSR and to consider the significance of the correlations established in this study through ACAP. The result also assists managers in a way that the propensity to outsource BDA strengthens the positive effect of EIN on performance and weakens the positive effect of ACAP on performance.

This research appears to be among the first empirical studies that attempt to provide insights into the importance of ACAP as the key mechanisms to transform the advantages of EIN and OSR to enhance performance by considering the moderating role of propensity to outsource BDA.

This chapter adds to emerging research exploring the construct of joy by drawing attention to the value of more loving stakeholder relationships. Relationship management research has focussed attention on the antecedents, outcomes and quality of an organization's relationships with various publics and stakeholders and has examined strategies that can nurture these relationships. However, not much of this research has addressed intimacy and passion in these relationships.

Accordingly, this chapter draws on the theory of brand love developed in relationship marketing research and the theory of love from psychological research to build a theoretical framework of organization–stakeholder love (OSL) that can be applied to organizational relationships with publics and stakeholders. An OSL framework switches emphasis from how organizations can attract stakeholder affection (e.g., love) towards organizations to how organizations can and should love their stakeholders. The proposition put forward in this chapter is that OSL can and should become a driving force behind organizations' interactions with stakeholders, thus contributing to ethical public relations practices.

OSL is important because it has the potential to contribute to addressing public relations' image problems (e.g., relating to terms such as spin and corporate greenwashing); it offers a new love orientation that guides organizations towards a focus on the primacy of stakeholder needs and values, which in turn may shape the way organizations initiate and manage relationships with stakeholders. This chapter concludes with practical ways to implement OSL and a research agenda suggesting ways OSL may open up new research opportunities in public relations.

This large‐scale exploratory research explores the manner in which various organizational types view their social obligations in terms of the tradeoffs (or potential symbioses) between economic and non‐economic (social) goals. Historically, this issue has been researched only in the context of business firms. Given the increased scope and visibility of nonprofit organizations, it becomes particularly relevant to explore a broad range of organizational types. To proceed with this research, this study proposes a 5‐class typology describing the organizational spectrum from the fully for‐profit to the fully nonprofit organizations. This paper also contributes to the emerging empirical research stream in the area by undertaking a systematic assessment of the way in which all organizational types value their economic versus social orientations as gauged by several measures. Across the two top executive levels, a regular progression of statistically significant differences are found between the five organizational types with respect to their social and economic orientations. A by‐product of this research is that we reveal how the economic or social orientation of organizations can be systematically investigated by undertaking large‐scale empirical studies with appropriately designed research instruments.

While research has shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can enhance a company's reputation, less is known about the effects of CSR communication on nonprofits. Hence, the current study seeks to understand how corporate reputation, message credibility and message source may impact consumers' attitudinal and behavioral intentions toward nonprofits.

A 2 (corporate reputation: low vs high) × 2 (CSR communication source: newspaper blog vs nonprofit blog) between-subjects online experiment was conducted. Real-world corporations (Toyota and Volkswagen) and a nonprofit (World Wildlife Fund) were chosen based on a pretest.

Nonprofit reputation increased after reading a CSR message, especially when it involved a partnership with a low-reputation corporation. Nevertheless, CSR partnerships with high-reputation corporations evoked higher volunteer intentions. Message credibility mediated the relationship between corporate reputation and nonprofit reputation. When the communication source was the nonprofit and the partnership involved a high-reputation corporation, positive evaluations of nonprofit likeability and competence resulted.

Nonprofit communication managers should understand the merit of communicating CSR partnerships with their constituents, regardless of medium. Additionally, the choice of a corporate partner is important for certain nonprofit outcomes. Lastly, message credibility is another important factor that should be considered.

The study bridges literature in communications that typically examines CSR by focusing on its effects on corporate outcomes with literature in nonprofit management that looks at nonprofit outcome measures. This study demonstrated that nonprofit–corporate alliances can also influence nonprofit reputation and donation/volunteer intentions based on the reputation of the corporate partner.

This study aims to examine the uptake of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Asia Pacific region and to explore the extent to which countries in the region are transitioning towards a sustainable enterprise economy (SEE) and the links between the two, thereby connecting the uptake of CSR at the organisational level to the configuration and transformation of societies.

In order to examine the uptake of CSR in the Asia Pacific region and assess the extent to which countries are transitioning towards the SEE, this study compiles data from a selection of CSR‐related indicators that are globally harmonised and globally recognised as well as national performance indicators that not only set the operational context for organisations but also help to measure the ultimate impacts of policies, practices and activities by organisations on national conditions.

Based on the preliminary study undertaken into global national indicators in the Asia Pacific region, there is a need for more comprehensive indicators that capture key elements of a SEE. The study envisages the creation of a “Global SEE dashboard” of actual, real‐time key performance indicators that can help facilitate stewardship by societies towards the Global SEE.

By underscoring the needs, opportunities and challenges for CSR capacity‐building in the Asia Pacific region and for countries to transition effectively towards the SEE, this study adds value to the efforts of public and private policy makers concerned with CSR, sustainability and governance as well as practitioners and members of civil society interested in responsible global citizenship.

This study aims to investigate the moderating role of investor demand on the relationship between the investors' divergence of beliefs and the first-day initial public offering (IPO) return.

The study sample covers the period from 2010 to 2019 and consists of 117 IPOs that are priced using the fixed price and listed on the Malaysian stock exchange (Bursa Malaysia). This study employed both the ordinary least square (OLS) and the quantile regression (QR) methods.

Investor demand, proxied by the over-subscription ratio (OSR), plays a moderating role in increasing the effect of investors' divergence of beliefs on initial return, and the moderation effects vary across the quantile of initial return. Pure moderation effects are observed at the bottom and top quantiles, suggesting that investor demand is necessary for divergence of beliefs to influence IPO initial return. However, at the middle quantile of initial return, investor demand is a quasi-moderator. That is, the OSR not only moderates the relationship between the divergence of beliefs and initial return but also has a positive effect on the initial return.

Investors' excessive demand for an IPO issue exacerbates the IPO under-pricing issue induced by a divergence of beliefs amongst investors, thus rendering greater equity market inefficiency.

To the authors' knowledge, this study is amongst the first to empirically investigate the moderating role of investor demand on the investors' divergence of beliefs and IPO initial return relationship.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has often been presented as a challenge for management. This is due to the fact that the CSR debate has been associated with the business practices that are linked to it. But CSR is also an approximation to the business practices that require us to question the underlying corporate business model. Therefore, as it deals with a company's business model, the term CSR at once reveals its potential and its limitations. The ambiguity of the term “social” and the risk of not combining this with the term “economic” is by no means less significant: neither is the diversity of interpretations and approaches allowed by the term “social”. Using the words of the Lewis Carrol character, Humpty Dumpty, as a metaphor–according to which a word's meaning depends on the power of the person who uses it – the purpose of this paper is to propose a shift away from talking in terms of CSR (corporate social responsibility) to talking in terms of responsible and sustainable corporation (RSC).

The intention is not to become bogged down with questions of semantics of terminology but, rather, to bring about a change in emphasis. The author intends this to be a means of considering a more relational vision of the company (in other words, a relational corporation), taking as the point of departure the company's relationships with stakeholders. The paper proposes an analysis of the stakeholder relationship which is not reduced to mere relationship management.

Once these relationships have been established, it can be highlighted how, in each of them, the existence of economic, social and environmental dimensions can be investigated and, as a result, how these dimensions can be integrated into management. This means that the integration process should be translated into a vision of CSR (or, as is suggested, of RSC: responsible and sustainable corporation) at the same time as being a transversal management approach and an axis of corporate identity and of understanding the company as a project.

The paper proposes a change of emphasis regarding the approach to CSR. The aim of the paper is to contribute towards preventing the CSR debate from becoming blocked by debate on the scope of the term “social”. It should be put forward directly in terms of business strategy, in order for CSR not to be reduced to a set of business practices but for it to become part of the vision of the company, leading to the proposal of: responsible and sustainable corporation.

This case study was designed using the qualitative research method of interviews with key employees to investigate university social responsibility (USR) practices within Institut Catholique de Kabgayi (ICK) in Rwanda and to advance understanding of ways USR is defined against a postgenocide history, to identify its core components, and to track how it is communicated. Key respondents in accordance with their relationships with internal and external stakeholder groups were interviewed from among functions/departments of public relations, human resource management, community outreach, student services, courses and examination office, and the ombudsperson who plays an intermediary role between employees and employer in case of conflict. Findings suggest that for this higher education organization, on one hand, USR is understood mainly as stakeholder aid and Christian engagement benefitting employees, students, and community members according to specific needs. On the other hand, USR also is understood in terms of privacy protection and as a research driver that integrates openness, flexibility, and autonomy. Core components comprising USR are extension services, business incubation, student volunteer services, public relations activities, public works services, alumni relations, and employee outreach services. Means for communicating USR are face-to-face communication, partnerships, and mass media channels.

This study aims to develop and validate a scale for measuring online fashion brand recognition (OFBR).

Given the existing literature on brand, multiple stages of studies were conducted as a part of the scale development process. The OFBR scale was validated by a step-by-step process following the scale validation methodology suggested in the specialised literature.

The results demonstrate the 25 items of five unique factors that form the OFBR construct and confirm the strong validity of the construct. This finding suggests that the five-dimensional approach (online brand familiarity, online visual simplicity, online aesthetic attraction, online brand emotion and online social reputation) plays important role to form OFBR.

A valid and reliable OFBR scale provides a foundation for broadening the understanding on the important constructs that form OFBR, which is essential for online fashion retailing. Knowledge of the crucial antecedents that influence consumers towards online fashion products can enhance marketers’ capability to position their brands towards their target markets.

The relevance of this study lies in validating the scale for measuring OFBR for the first time in the literature on online fashion brand.

Este estudio tiene como objetivo desarrollar y validar una escala para medir el reconocimiento de marcas de moda online (OFBR).

Partiendo de la literatura de marca, se llevaron a cabo múltiples estudios como parte del proceso de desarrollo de la escala. La escala OFBR fue validada en un proceso de diversas etapas siguiendo la metodología de validación de escalas sugerida en la literatura especializada.

Los resultados demuestran los veinticinco ítems de cinco factores únicos que forman el constructo OFBR y confirman la validez del constructo. Este hallazgo sugiere que el enfoque de cinco dimensiones (familiaridad con la marca online, simplicidad visual online, atracción estética online, emoción de la marca online y reputación social online) juega un papel importante en la formación de la OFBR.

Una escala OFBR válida y fiable proporciona una base para ampliar la comprensión de los constructos importantes que forman OFBR, lo cual es esencial para la venta de moda online. Conocer los antecedentes que condicionan al consumidor al comprar productos de moda online puede mejorar la capacidad del vendedor para posicionar su marca en el mercado objetivo.

El interés de este estudio radica en la validación de la escala para medir la OFBR por primera vez en la literatura sobre la marca de moda online.

Artículo de investigación