scholarly journals “Don’t leave me this way!” Drivers of parental hostility and employee spin-offs’ performance

Author(s):  
Egle Vaznyte ◽  
Petra Andries ◽  
Sarah Demeulemeester

AbstractMany entrepreneurs commercialize an idea they initially developed as employees of an incumbent firm. While some face retaliatory reactions from their (former) employer, others are left alone or even supported. It is not clear, however, why some employee spin-offs face parental hostility while others do not, and to what extent this parental hostility affects employee spin-offs’ performance. Integrating the resource-based view with insights on competition and retaliation, we propose that parental hostility increases with the (perceived) competitive threat posed by an employee spin-off. Specifically, we advance employee spin-offs’ initial strategic actions (offering substitute products, hiring employees of the parent, and attempting to first develop the idea inside the parent) as key drivers of parental hostility and consequent spin-off performance. Results from a pooled dataset of 1083 employee spin-offs in Germany confirm that these initial strategic actions trigger parental hostility, which in turn, and contrary to expectations, positively affects employee spin-offs’ innovation and economic performance. These results advance the literature on employee spin-offs in several ways and have important practical implications.

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asbjørn Følstad ◽  
Cameron Taylor

AbstractThe uptake of chatbots for customer service depends on the user experience. For such chatbots, user experience in particular concerns whether the user is provided relevant answers to their queries and the chatbot interaction brings them closer to resolving their problem. Dialogue data from interactions between users and chatbots represents a potentially valuable source of insight into user experience. However, there is a need for knowledge of how to make use of these data. Motivated by this, we present a framework for qualitative analysis of chatbot dialogues in the customer service domain. The framework has been developed across several studies involving two chatbots for customer service, in collaboration with the chatbot hosts. We present the framework and illustrate its application with insights from three case examples. Through the case findings, we show how the framework may provide insight into key drivers of user experience, including response relevance and dialogue helpfulness (Case 1), insight to drive chatbot improvement in practice (Case 2), and insight of theoretical and practical relevance for understanding chatbot user types and interaction patterns (Case 3). On the basis of the findings, we discuss the strengths and limitations of the framework, its theoretical and practical implications, and directions for future work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-35

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings This research paper concentrates on the capacity of procurement digitalization to pump up supply chain effectiveness and competitive advantage levels. Data from the examination of the strategic actions of an environmental charity, an IT multinational, and an Australian SME reveal that increasing procurement effectiveness translates into marked performance enhancements in terms of productivity gains and reduced costs. Wiping away boundaries between buyers and suppliers produced procurement processes with greater scalability, agility, and flexibility, all of which also enhanced the firms' capability to mitigate their risks. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 619-642
Author(s):  
Seck Tan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply a methodology (drawn from the literature) to value the environment as a capital. Design/methodology/approach – The main analytic framework considered is a factor utilization function, which traditionally deals with labour and manufactured capital. The development of a three-factor function in terms of labour, manufactured capital and environmental capital enables the display of mistaken notions of economic performance. Findings – The purpose of this illustration is to identify the patterns of environmental capital utilization as an economy grows. Although there are some differences in the patterns of environment utilization between Australia and Canada, the patterns observed are in line with that of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Practical implications – This illustration is made with reference to two commodity-driven economies, namely, Australia and Canada. The findings could be used as a point of reference for resource rich economies. Originality/value – This paper illustrates an approach for valuing the environment as an economy grows. This approach is applied to two selected resource rich economies and the findings demonstrate traits similar to that of the EKC.


2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1390-1409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiayu Tu ◽  
Shiuh-Nan Hwang ◽  
Jehn-Yih Wong

Purpose – This research investigates how micro-enterprises cooperate with external parties in order to promote innovation and entrepreneurial success. The purpose of this paper is to describe supplier and consumer cooperation and analyzes how these two behavioral modes influence the product and service innovations of micro-enterprises. Based on the resource-based view of the firm, the authors show that micro-enterprises help the source of innovation by tapping into the resources and abilities of suppliers. Design/methodology/approach – This research used a questionnaire to randomly sample micro-entrepreneurs that run stalls at night markets. Before distributing the final questionnaire, the authors in-depth interviewed ten micro-entrepreneurs and asked them to openly describe their entrepreneurial processes and success stories. Findings – The results of this study show that cooperation with consumers does not improve product and service innovations. By contrast, the cooperation of micro-enterprises with suppliers was found to increase the generation of product and service innovations in the present study. And the findings show that the effect of innovation approaches on entrepreneurial success indicates that product innovation positively improves firm performance. Last, from the perspective of cooperation behavior, product innovation mediates entrepreneurial success through cooperation with suppliers. Research limitations/implications – Because of respondents were night market vendors and thus the results are not necessarily generalizable to other types of micro-enterprises. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test multiple types of micro-enterprises. Second, this research aimed to differentiate the relationships between innovation approaches and entrepreneurial success by focussing exclusively on product and service innovations. Therefore, other variables should be included in future studies. Practical implications – As for practical implications in the field of cooperation behavior, the authors have shown that it is crucial to maintain long-term cooperative relations with trusted suppliers. Social implications – As for practical implications in the field of cooperation behavior, the authors have shown that it is crucial to maintain long-term cooperative relations with trusted suppliers. Originality/value – This paper fulfills an identified need to study how innovation in micro-enterprises.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1228-1252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Li ◽  
Xunhua Guo ◽  
Xue Bai ◽  
Wei Xu

Purpose Considering the popularity and addictive attributes of microblogging, the purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of the microblogging addiction tendency, and to investigate the causal relationship between microblogging usage and addiction tendency through the lens of the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory. Design/methodology/approach By extending the U&G theory to accommodate the negative consequences of gratification, a research model that explains the relationships among microblogging use, gratification and addiction tendency was developed and empirically examined based on the data collected from 520 microblogging users in China. Findings The results showed that different types of microblogging use lead to different categories of gratification to different extents, while different categories of gratification play different roles in determining the level of addiction tendency. Specifically, the effect of content gratification on addiction is marginal, while social gratification has significant effects on all dimensions of addiction tendency. Originality/value The present study has both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, unlike many previous studies applied the U&G theory to explore the positive outcomes of media uses, this paper extends the U&G by including addiction tendency as a negative psychological outcome of U&G., resulting a research framework (use-gratification-addiction framework). Meanwhile, this paper contributes to the extending literature by examining the constructs of U&G at a granular level and investigated the causal relationship between “uses” and “gratifications.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 803-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Pascoe ◽  
Ingrid Van Putten ◽  
Eriko Hoshino ◽  
Simon Vieira

Abstract Rights-based management has been advocated as a means of improving the biological sustainability and economic performance of commercial fisheries. The most common forms of rights-based management implemented are individual transferable catch quotas (ITQs) and individual transferable effort quotas (ITEs). Perceptions of success of these management systems vary, however, with some being considered successful while others have been criticized, especially when broad social outcomes are taken into consideration. In this study, we develop a Bayesian belief network model that considers the underlying governance and social environment in which the fishery operates, along with the characteristics of the fishery. We use data derived from a survey of fishers, managers, and scientists to populate the model from 47 Australian fisheries currently managed through ITQs and ITEs. As well as capturing the characteristics of the fisheries, the survey asked respondents for their perceptions on the overall performance of the management system, as well as its performance against social, economic, environmental, and governance objectives. The results suggest that positive perceptions of management performance are related to the quality of social relationships between fishers, the efficiency in the functioning of quota markets, and the degree to which economic information is used in quota setting.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (10) ◽  
pp. 2544-2561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitish Singh ◽  
Jieqiong Ma ◽  
Jie Yang

Purpose Corporate environmental expenditure has been a growing concern in recent years, yet mixed findings exist regarding its economic impact. The purpose of this paper is to explain the mixed relationship between environmental expenditure and economic performance from the natural-resource-based view. Design/methodology/approach Using Global Reporting Initiative survey data from 120 firms in 30 countries, this study uses PROCESS, a path-based analysis software, to test the moderation and mediation hypotheses in an integrated analytical model. Findings The findings show that environmental expenditure has a negative impact on economic performance through pollution prevention capability. In contrast, environmental expenditure has a positive impact on economic performance through product stewardship capability. Both effects are significantly strengthened when the firm is located in an environmentally munificent country. Practical implications This study intends to inform firm managers, especially those in environmentally munificent countries, to relocate their environmental expenditure to enhance firms’ economic performance. In particular, firms should focus more on the reduction of input, such as raw materials, energy, and water, instead of output, including emissions, effluents, and wastes. Originality/value The contrasting indirect effects of pollution prevention and product stewardship offer a viable explanation for the mixed findings in the existent literature on environmental expenditure from a new perspective.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Gessuir Pigatto ◽  
Giuliana Aparecida Santini Pigatto ◽  
Eduardo Guilherme Satolo ◽  
Amanda dos Santos Negreti

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how Brazilian food companies in the State of São Paulo determine the importance of and the need to adapt their internal resources as a competitive advantage for internationalization. Design/methodology/approach From a resource-based view (RBV), 35 different factors grouped into four categories were identified and presented to 24 companies. The data were analyzed through a gray relational analysis to establish all factors’ order of importance. Findings Factors linked to human and organizational resources present greater adaptability and allow companies competitive and sustainable advantages but have not yet been explored thoroughly. Identifying and adapting internal resources do not guarantee achieving competitive and sustainable advantages, as the access to international market is also a consequence of commercial agreements developed by countries and economic blocks. Practical implications The analysis highlights the fragility of competitiveness among the companies analyzed in exporting products with commodity characteristics, with none or little differentiation. Such products are traded mainly through trading companies, which allow the access of the same market to internal competitors and other countries. Thus, any lapse promoted by the company may be enough for it to lose its competitiveness and, hence, market space. Originality/value This paper stands out in the field of strategic management, specifically in the research on RBV, exportation and competitiveness, by making use of the theory of gray correlation system in an innovative and original way.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-346
Author(s):  
Hilary Omatule Onubi ◽  
Nor’Aini Yusof ◽  
Ahmad Sanusi Hassan

Purpose This study aims to examine the effects of green construction site practices on the economic performance of projects executed by “class A” contractors in Nigeria. The effects of stormwater management, materials management waste management and energy management on economic performance were examined. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through a survey of class A contractors in Nigeria, and 168 usable responses were received. The partial least-squares structural equation modelling technique was used to analyse the collected data. Findings It was observed that all the green construction practices studied had significant effects on the economic performance of construction projects with the greatest effect from energy management. Practical implications The results imply that green construction practices generally lead to economic performance. The study has both theoretical and practical implications, as it helps both policymakers and contractors better understand the relationships between these variables of green construction practices and economic performance to better plan for their projects and for the government to formulate appropriate policies. Originality/value The study’s findings makes significant contributions to the ongoing discussion on the relationship between green construction practices and economic performance. The relationship established between stormwater management, waste management, materials management, energy management and economic performance in this study is different when compared with those in other similar studies.


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