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This paper investigates how companies become resilient to supply chain (SC) piracy through using transactional and relational governance mechanisms to develop strategies effective in environments characterized by weak regulative institutions and mistrust.

This study developed case studies of nine large manufacturers with operations in Brazil.

The companies employed transactional and relational governance mechanisms to learn from past incidents, anticipate, and respond to the threat of SC piracy, becoming more resilient over time. Transactional governance mechanisms reduced risk triggers through technology, while relational governance mechanisms enhanced trust between SC and non-SC members, allowing the members to build social capital.

The authors provide practical guidance for managers and policymakers in developing risk management strategies based on technology and collaboration to reduce SC piracy in environments characterized by mistrust.

SC piracy is a serious problem for global operations and SCs in many low-cost manufacturing locations. Besides the cost and service level consequences, the authors also highlight worker safety consequences, including the potential for kidnapping, psychological trauma, injuries, and death.

This study focuses on the little-researched topic of SC piracy. The authors examine the negative effects of a weak institutional environment, while most prior research focuses on the positive effects of a strong institutional environment. The authors position transactional and relational governance mechanisms as essential elements of SC risk resilience.

This study aims to examine the joint moderating effects of privacy risk and time risk on the relationship between financial risk and intentions to pirate digital products.

The author collected data from 247 participants using a survey method. Subsequently, PROCESS macro was used to evaluate the proposed hypotheses.

This study found that financial risk does not have a significant relationship with the consumer intention to pirate digital products. However, privacy risk moderates the negative relationship between financial risk and consumers’ intention to pirate digital products, such that the negative relationship is stronger when privacy risk is high. Furthermore, time risk does not moderate the negative relationship between financial risk and consumers’ intention to pirate digital products. Lastly, it was found that privacy risk and time risk jointly moderate the negative relationship between financial risk and consumers’ intention to pirate digital products, such that the negative relationship is strongest when both privacy risk and time risk are high.

This study contributes to the digital piracy literature by understanding the extent of consumer predispositions when there are combined different types of perceived risks against their piracy decision.

This study aims to empirically investigate how difference in social trust explains the heterogeneity of intellectual property right (IPR) protection (proxied by software piracy rate) across countries. Specifically, the authors also examine whether this effect is complementary or substitute to legal and economic factors.

The authors use both ordinary least square and two-stage least square regressions to investigate this effect.

The authors find that there is also a complementary effect between trust and rule of law in reducing the violation of IPRs.

Although the literature by now has documented the solid relationship between trust and the quality of formal institutions, only few studies have explored more specific measures of institutional consequences. Thus, this study is the first study investigating the role of trust, a valuable social capital dimension, on IPR protection.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the pricing strategies for knowledge payment products, taking into account the quality level of pirated knowledge products, in the context of platform copyright supervision.

This study abstracts the knowledge payment transaction process and aims to maximize producer's revenue by constructing a pricing model for knowledge payment products. It discusses pricing strategies for knowledge payment products under two scenarios: traditional supervision and blockchain supervision. The analysis explores the impact of pirated knowledge products quality level and blockchain technology on pricing strategies and consumer surplus, while providing threshold conditions for effective strategies.

Deploying blockchain technology in platform operations can significantly reduce costs and increase efficiency. In both scenarios, knowledge producer needs to balance factors such as the quality of pirated knowledge products, the supervision level of platform, and consumer surplus to dynamically adjust pricing strategies in order to maximize his own revenue.

This study enriches the literature on the pricing models of knowledge payment products and has practical significance in guiding knowledge producer to develop effective pricing strategies under copyright supervision.

The case is written based on publicly available data from primary sources like the company’s annual reports and presentations and from secondary sources, as indicated in the references.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (B&N), one of the oldest and largest American retail booksellers founded in 1917, was facing a grim business situation underpinned by a fall in demand, a change in consumer preference and stiff competition. After almost a century of being in the business, B&N was experiencing a fall in market share and weak stock market performance. In 2019, the company was sold to Elliot Advisors – a hedge fund – for US$638m. With the appointment of new chief executive officer (CEO) James Daunt in August 2019, a man known for the turnaround of similar businesses, B&N expected its business’s revival and reorganization strategy to turn profitable. Its long-term strategy of beating competitors with its offerings’ sheer volume and low prices was no longer viable. The turmoil was compounded by top management crises with the repeated changes and ousting of several CEOs in a short span, alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. Daunt was considering how to overcome the crisis and act fast to reposition the company and regain the loyalty of its customers. Was there more that the company could do to improve the company’s position and restore profitability?

The case can be used in strategic management and entrepreneurship classes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The case can be used in an investment analysis and management course to teach students the industry analysis technique using Porter’s five forces model.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

Financial technology (fintech) has emerged as a major player in the global financial system, providing a range of services such as payments, digital currencies, money transfers, loans, crowdsourcing, and insurance. Fintech startups in Arab countries have also gained traction due to economic openness and globalization. However, concerns remain about the safety, durability, and security of traditional financial services, especially with the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and digitization. The Central Bank of Bahrain and other regulatory authorities need to balance risk avoidance with the global trend toward innovation in fintech, as well as ensure that these technologies are not used for fraud, money laundering, piracy, or terrorist financing. The Bahraini government and supervisory authorities must strike a balance between preserving the integrity and robustness of the financial and banking sector and developing innovation. This can be achieved by adjusting the rhythm of comparison, strengthening and enhancing the safety of banks, achieving financial stability, and ensuring compliance with laws and legislation. It is important to address gaps in regulatory rules, information security, and the business environment, and launch financial awareness at the community level before embracing the potential of fintech and its unseen future development at the level of cryptocurrencies and others. The current work examines the impact of Fintech on the Future of banking in Bahrain and the opportunities and challenges.

This study aims to investigate the customer’s willingness to participate in family takaful using the theory of interpersonal behaviour (TIB) in Pakistan.

For this study, purposive sampling was used, and 310 useable questionnaires were received from the respondents who were postgraduate students, non-users of family takaful. The respondents are residing in the largest city of Pakistan, which is Karachi. The software Analysis of Moments Structures (AMOS v.25) was used to analyse the data.

The findings of this study reveal that awareness, affect, facilitating conditions and religious obligation are pivotal in determining the customers’ intention to purchase family takaful products. In addition, perceived risk and social factors are found not to be significant predictors. Resultantly, it may also be necessary to look into the factors examined in this study and other factors that may have played a great role in the acceptance of family takaful in the case of Pakistan.

This study is limited in terms of geographic coverage as it only covers part of Karachi city as a place of investigation, and therefore, the results cannot be generalised fully. On the same note, the sampling method can also be broadened to have the actual number of respondents for generalisability purposes. Future studies may focus on the random sampling method using cluster sampling to cover other regions and provinces for a clear picture and understanding.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the first studies to be carried out on empirical grounds using the TIB in the context of family takaful products in Pakistan.

This case study was built from secondary data such as news articles and videos. Several drafts of the case study with teaching note were tested in classroom settings and shared at a case writing conference. The case was revised based on feedback from students and roundtable discussions from the conference.

“What’s next: Ever Given after the Suez Canal incident (Evergreen Marine Corporation in, 2022)” explores the situation of the firm Evergreen Marine Corporation, a world-leading cargo shipping company headquartered in Taiwan, and its efforts to deal with challenges stemming from a pandemic and the global supply chain transition. The case provides background on the latest changes in global business environments, the Suez Canal Incident stemming from the grounding of Ever Given and firm-specific information, which would help students to understand the context affecting Evergreen Marine Corporation’s (EMC) strategic decisions. The case enables students to evaluate EMC’s overall position and to analyze the actions that they can take to deal with these challenges in a dynamic global environment.

This case would be appropriate for a course in strategy or international business, especially with the topic of international supply chain management.

Increasing evidence from high-income countries has revealed the positive impacts of creative entrepreneurship on the local economy, and these have attracted substantial attention in recent years. Creative industries are considered as the seedbeds for innovation; they are highly innovative and productive and are seen as drivers of economic development and social change. Creative industries are distinctive in that they have several transaction networks and income streams. Although creative industries are generating increasing interest in the minds of researchers and policy-makers in developed countries, the institutional and economic settings in Cameroon and other developing nations may not be so conducive to creative industries. The available evidence is insufficient to understand their performance and sustainability, let alone to estimate their contribution to the rest of the economy. This chapter demonstrates how the creative industries could contribute to the economic and social development of a nation. The chapter further explores the current situation of creative industries in Cameroon, with a focus on the artists of popular and folk music, the challenges they are facing, and provides ways forward.