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Advances in material agency driven by artificial intelligence (AI) have facilitated breakthroughs in material adaptivity enabling smart objects to autonomously provide individualized smart services, which makes smart objects act as social actors embedded in the real world. However, little is known about how material adaptivity fosters the infusion use of smart objects to maximize the value of smart services in customers' lives. This study examines the underlying mechanism of material adaptivity (task and social adaptivity) on AI infusion use, drawing on the theoretical lens of social embeddedness.

This study adopted partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), mediating tests, path comparison tests and polynomial modeling to analyze the proposed research model and hypotheses.

The results supported the proposed research model and hypotheses, except for the hypothesis of the comparative effects on infusion use. Besides, the results of mediating tests suggested the different roles of social embeddedness in the impacts of task and social adaptivity on infusion use. The post hoc analysis based on polynomial modeling provided a possible explanation for the unsupported hypothesis, suggesting the nonlinear differences in the underlying influencing mechanisms of instrumental and relational embeddedness on infusion use.

The formation mechanisms of AI infusion use based on material adaptivity and social embeddedness help to develop the business strategies that enable smart objects as social actors to exert a key role in users' daily lives, in turn realizing the social and economic value of AI.

This study advances the theoretical research on material adaptivity, updates the information system (IS) research on infusion use and identifies the bridging role of social embeddedness of smart objects as agentic social actors in the AI context.

The paper analyzes socially embedded antecedents of sustainability and compares the results between two distinct contexts of Russia and Italy. Specifically, the paper identifies which forms of embeddedness (network, family and virtual) are associated with proactive environmental sustainability in SMEs.

The data for the study were gathered from the World Bank Enterprise Survey dataset and include observations of 1,106 Russian SMEs and 663 Italian SMEs. Given the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable “proactive environmental sustainability”, the study utilizes a binary logistic regression and test regression models on the Russian and Italian data.

Network embeddedness positively influences proactive environmental sustainability among SMEs in Italy, but not in Russia. Value chain environmental pressure positively impacts proactive environmental sustainability among SMEs in Russia and Italy. Network embeddedness negatively moderates the relationship between value chain environmental pressure and proactive sustainability in Russia, but not in Italy. Virtual embeddedness positively impacts proactive environmental sustainability practices among SMEs in Russia but not in Italy, while family embeddedness positively impacts proactive environmental sustainability practices in Italy, but not in Russia.

We employ social embeddedness theory to determine to what extent certain forms of embeddedness contribute to proactive environmental sustainability among SMEs originating from two very distinct national contexts, a developed economy and a transition (emerging) economy. Our comparative approach allows us to challenge the “traditional” assumptions about SMEs’ sustainability antecedents, by showing the key role of different forms of social embeddedness.

Embeddedness has gained prominence in entrepreneurship studies. However, the notion that the embeddedness metaphor relates to “market” structures prevails in studies in the area. Entrepreneurship scholars still know little about whether entrepreneurs are eventually embedded in other structures whose relationships go beyond the restricted dimension of the interested actor’s assumption. This study aims to propose investigating the social structures in which a specific type of entrepreneurship, the religious one, is embedded.

The research was qualitative, using interviews as an evidence collection instrument. A total of 17 entrepreneur-pastors responsible for business churches in Brazil and eight parishioners took part in the study.

Religious entrepreneurs are embedded in market structures, corroborating a perspective that associates embeddedness with the utilitarian notion. At the same time, entrepreneurs are embedded in two other social structures: reciprocity and redistribution.

This article emphasizes the relevance of going beyond the predominant perspective associated with the utilitarian and rationalized understanding of embeddedness in relationship networks.

This study makes essential contributions. Initially, it attests to the utilitarian perspective of Granovetter’s embeddedness while suggesting incorporating two other dimensions into the metaphor. By highlighting this, this article stresses the need to reinterpret the metaphor of embeddedness and how entrepreneurship scholars use it. Further, by emphasizing the need to consider embeddedness in networks beyond its still utilitarian perspective, this paper highlights unexplored opportunities for entrepreneurship scholars.

On the basis of social identity theory, the purpose of this study is to simultaneously examine how social-based identity (i.e. organizational identification and supervisor support) and personal-based identity (i.e. work-related characteristics and job embeddedness) influence employees’ service sabotage.

By using a sample of 685 employee–customer dyads, this study investigated whether the cross-level moderating roles of organizational identification and supervisor support can activate linkage between work-related characteristics and job embeddedness.

The results of this study indicated that job embeddedness mediates the multiple cross-level effects of organizational identification, supervisor support and work-related characteristics on service sabotage. Moreover, work-related characteristics influence job embeddedness more positively in higher than lower levels of organizational identification and supervisor support.

This study provides a valuable approach to effective management practices, helps to clarify identification at work and expands perceived external prestige for hospitality companies.

These findings support that identity in organizations can be recognized as one of the fundamental concepts that influence individual psychological traits, capabilities, bodily attributes, group classifications and organizational effectiveness.

Value co-creation (VCC) helps platforms establish competitive advantages. Unlike their traditional counterparts, social attribute is a key concept of social e-commerce platforms. This study integrates VCC and social network theories, introduces relational embeddedness and divides this variable into economic and social relational embeddedness to explore its impact on VCC intention. This study also explores the mediating and moderating roles of customers' psychological ownership (CPO) and regulatory focus, respectively.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among users of mainstream social e-commerce platforms in China, and the relationship among the variables was revealed through a structural equation modeling of 464 valid responses.

The dimensions of relational embeddedness positively affect CPO and VCC intention, with social relational embeddedness exerting the strongest effect. CPO positively affects VCC intention and partially mediates the relationship between relational embeddedness and VCC intention. Promotion and prevention focus positively and negatively moderate the relationship between CPO and VCC intention, respectively.

This study expands the VCC research perspective and links the VCC concepts to social network dynamics. From the relational embeddedness perspective, this study identifies the type and intensity of relational embeddedness that promotes users' VCC intention and contributes to theoretical research on VCC and relational embeddedness. This study also introduces CPO as an intermediary variable, thus opening the black box of this mechanism, and confirms the moderating role of regulatory focus as the key psychological factor motivating users' VCC intention.

This study aims to integrate entrepreneurship theories and acculturation perspectives into a unified lens to understand opportunity development by transnational entrepreneurs (TNEs).

This study uses a conceptual method, considering how acculturation strategies of TNEs influence cross-cultural arbitrage.

We develop six propositions that define how acculturation strategies relate to different levels of cultural embeddedness of transnational entrepreneurs and ultimately influence the process by which the entrepreneur engages in cross-cultural arbitrage.

We are one of the first to integrate the sociology of immigrants with entrepreneurship to better understand how TNEs engage in cross-cultural arbitrage.

This paper aims to investigate how emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) are integrating and expanding into other emerging market host countries, focusing on Chinese mining companies in Peru.

Adopting a qualitative approach, an in-depth analysis of two Chinese state-owned enterprises’ strategies was conducted, building on stakeholder theory and the business ecosystem perspective.

This study reveals a reliance on high-level political lobbying rather than localized engagement strategies. However, findings point to increasing grassroots resistance among local stakeholders, undermining EMNEs’ bargaining power.

This paper argues for a paradigm shift toward inclusive, cooperative “translocal governance” approaches as empowered communities gain voice. Key contributions include advancing theoretical understanding of changing stakeholder relationships and power configurations in emerging countries, underscoring the rising significance of microlevel sociocultural embeddedness for MNE success and highlighting practical imperatives for EMNEs to embark on rapid localization strategies in Latin America. By elucidating multilayered integration realities in Peru, this interdisciplinary study yields contextualized insights and enriches perspective on the conditions and pathways for EMNEs to build sustainability in Global South emerging market environments.

Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.

This paper responds to several calls for a cross-national comparative study of immigrant entrepreneurship throughout the longstanding discourse of this phenomenon. This study aims to comparatively analyze the nature of immigrant enclave entrepreneurship among one immigrant community across three different jurisdictional contexts (UK, Denmark and Norway) based on comparative ethnographic methods of inquiry.

The data was collected in person from April 2022 to June 2023 by the researchers to identify the similarities and differences of migrant entrepreneurial activities in three immigrant enclaves (Manchester, Oslo and Copenhagen). Comparative ethnographic narrative analysis methods and template analysis approaches were combined to analyze interviews, observations and secondary published data.

This study examines spatiality, sectoral occupation and market orientation for comparative analysis. Through detailed analysis, it uncovers the spatiality and nuances in market demands and sectoral similarities across diverse regulatory environments. Notably, it identifies traditional migrant sectoral occupations shared across regions and its relevance to immigrant enclaves.

This scholarly contribution explores immigrant entrepreneurship in various national contexts, emphasising their engagement in neglected and low-value sectors within immigrant enclaves. The study addresses the influence of the host economy’s conditions on immigrant entrepreneurs, impacting their strategic orientation and the extent of their “embeddedness”. It responds to the theoretical gap in immigrant entrepreneurship literature by conducting a cross-national investigation across countries, extending the comparative dimension to Norway and Denmark. The research employs a unique design focusing on a specific immigrant group and emphasizes spatial contexts, sectoral proliferation and market orientation within immigrant enclaves, offering insights into the mixed embeddedness perspective and the broader environmental forces shaping migrant entrepreneurial activities in the UK and Scandinavia.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the immigrant women entrepreneurship phenomenon by analysing management academic literature on the issue. Stemming from the most current data on immigration and from the awareness that entrepreneurship is a viable instrument of immigrant (women) integration and inclusion, this chapter analyses the most updated management results on the issue. The analysis is mainly centred on works published after 2019, and some interesting insights emerge. Among them, we can refer to the awareness that research on immigrant women entrepreneurship is still in its infancy. Although, indeed, immigrant entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs have been analysed considerably by researchers, it has been mainly in isolation. Therefore, room for investigating still exists, and this chapter uncovers some possible future research avenues. Moreover, by reviewing the selected papers, it clearly emerges that not all immigrant women entrepreneurs are alike; different targets (that is, different ethnicities) must be addressed differently by policy makers when policy measurements are identified. In other words, generic programmes aimed at increasing entrepreneurship among immigrant women cannot necessarily be successful.