Women to women: Enabling innovation and firm performance in developing countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 100879
Author(s):  
MuhammadMasood Azeem ◽  
Alison Sheridan ◽  
Sujana Adapa
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charilaos Mertzanis ◽  
Mona Said

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of access to skilled labor in explaining firms’ sales growth subject to the controlling influence of a wide range of firm-specific characteristics and country-level economic and non-economic factors. Design/methodology/approach The analysis uses a consistent and large firm-level data set from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys that includes 138 developing countries. An instrumental variables model with a GMM estimator is used for estimating the impact of access to skilled labor on firm performance. In order to obtain more robust estimators, the analysis introduces country-level controls reflecting the influence of economic and institutional factors, such as economic and financial development, institutional governance, education and technological progress. Findings The results document a significant and positive association between access to skilled labor and firm performance in the developing world. The explanatory power of access to skilled labor remains broadly robust after controlling for a wide range of firm-specific characteristics: sectoral and geographical influences matter. The results also show that the association between labor skill constraints and firm performance is mitigated by country-level factors but in diverse ways. Development, institutions, education and technological progress exert various mitigating effects on firm-level behavior regarding access to skilled labor. Originality/value The paper’s novel contribution is threefold: first, it uses joint firm, sector and country-level information to analyze the role of access to skilled labor on firm performance; second, it uses consistently produced information at the firm level from 138 developing countries; and, third, it considers the controlling impact of a wide range of country-level factors that reflect a country’s overall development, institutions and evolution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (04) ◽  
pp. 1350010 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEI LIN ◽  
GUISHENG WU

Service-based differentiation competitive strategy has been hugely adopted by manufacturing firms in both developing and developed countries, which would influence firm performance and resource allocation mode. Against the background of developing countries such as China, this empirical study has two purposes. The first is to investigate the impact of service competition on firm performance. The second is to summarize the resource allocation mode which executives would adopt to implement service competition. Based on service-dominant (SD) logic, resource-based view (RBV) and service marketing theory, this paper constructs a theoretical framework to link the organizational resources (product-related resources and service-related resources), competitive advantage (product quality and service quality) and firm performance (financial performance and non-financial performance), and proposes several hypotheses about the relationships among these constructs. Based on the survey data obtained from manufacturing firms in China in 2006, this paper employs a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach with interaction effect involved to test the hypotheses. Several findings are found through data analysis. First, service competition has positive and significant impact on firm performance, and the contribution of product-related inputs on performance is much larger than that of service-related inputs. This implies that though the impact on performance of service competition is comparatively lower, service can still be the source of product differentiation and act as a positive complement to product-based competition. Second, consistent with our theoretical expectation, the finding indicates that there is a substitutive relationship between service-related resource and product-related resource to a certain degree, though weakly supported by data. This can be explained by the factors such as China's initial resource endowment, low-level stage of the market and the industry, etc. Finally, the paper discusses the theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings, which would provide empirical supports for the implementation of service-based differentiation strategy in manufacturing in developing countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-6
Author(s):  
Marco Tutino ◽  
Áron Perényi ◽  
Alexander Kostyuk

The recent issue of the Corporate Ownership and Control journal (volume 19, issue 1) covers the following key themes: accounting standards, corporate governance and social responsibility, public sector governance, financial management and firm performance. The authors represent a range of developed and developing countries, making this issue of the journal truly international.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Mungai ◽  
Madara Ogot

Micro-enterprises (MEs) have been shown to collectively be the largest employer in most developing countries thus playing a significant role in the countries economies. Using informal sector micro-enterprise furniture makers (wood and metal) in Nairobi, Kenya and based on Porter's competitive business strategies typology, this study sought to determine if the strategies employed by the informal sector MEs fit within the typology framework, and if membership within the strategic groups in the typology are a predictor of better business business performance. From the study, although membership within the two focus strategic groups of differentiation and low cost was confirmed, unlike studies done with medium and large enterprises, membership was not found to be a predictor of better business performance. Porter's typology may therefore not adequately capture the competitive business activities relevant to and directly by MEs, presenting an opportunity for research into the development of competitive business strategy typologies directly derived from their activities and therefore applicable to them.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 302-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Moreno ◽  
Leonardo Marques ◽  
Rebecca Arkader

Purpose In recent years, “servitization” has been studied extensively; however, as studies of the impact of servitization on firm performance offer mixed results, the conditions under which the relationship between servitization and performance becomes more significant are contested in the literature. These mixed results have led to the term “service paradox.” The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This study investigates servitization in the assembly industry based on a multi-country survey covering 539 industry plants in 22 countries. Findings The study contributes to the research on servitization by adding a contextual perspective to this relationship, taking into account level of development of the country in which a firm is located. Besides confirming the correlation between the servitization and performance, our study unveils a counter-intuitive result: a medium level of development of the country in which a firm is based corresponds to a stronger relationship between servitization and firm performance, whereas higher levels of development seem to diminish the increase in performance. Social implications This study balances out the focus in servitization on advanced economies and help to unveil its benefits in developing countries. Fostering servitization in developing economies can lead to social impact resulting from job shifts from manufacturing to service and the correlated implications for workers’ training and higher motivation experienced in service-based jobs. Originality/value Our study unpacks the “service paradox” and indicates that industry plants in developing countries can still harness the benefits of being first-movers, whereas, in developed countries, servitization may have become an order qualifier rather than a factor of differentiation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2388
Author(s):  
Qianqian Hu ◽  
Tianlun Zhu ◽  
Chien-Liang Lin ◽  
Tiejun Chen ◽  
Tachia Chin

In a globalized and digital world, manufacturing firms have used internet technology to conduct value appropriation (VA). However, during the COVID-19 crisis, export-led manufacturing firms around the world, particularly those in developing countries, have been forced to lay off workers and cope with VA-related problems, and serious survival problems have resulted in critical corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related challenges. Whereas limited research has discussed relevant issues in nonwestern contexts, we adopt a global perspective of business model and transactional cost theory, aiming to fill this gap by investigating the mechanisms among different dimensions of CSR implementation, firm performance, and VA herein. Based on a sample of listed Chinese manufacturing firms, the results show that the CSR technique dimension is negatively related to firm performance, that the CSR content dimension is positively related to firm performance, and that VA positively moderates the relationships of all three CSR dimensions to firm performance. The main contribution here is providing a more comprehensive understanding of how different CSR dimensions reflect firms’ multiple ethical behaviors, which influence their sustainable performance, respectively, thus enriching the existing knowledge of CSR studies in a new digital era riddled with uncertainties and complexities. We also offer practical implications for other export-led manufacturing firms in developing countries facing turbulent times.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afzalur Rashid

This study examines if the CEO duality influences firm performance in Bangladesh. It also examines the interaction of industries in influencing the relationship between CEO duality and firm performance. From an observation of 825 firm years the study uses a 2-stage least square regression (2SLS) analysis. The finding is that there is a negative (non-significant) relationship between CEO duality and firm performance. However, when the industry interaction terms (the role of industries as moderating variable) are added, the CEO duality and firm performance is found to vary across industries. The findings of this study suggest that the CEO duality and firm performance is contingent; no single leadership structure is universal; both the leadership structure has cost and benefits. It is beneficial in some situation supporting the stewardship theory while it is not in other situations supporting the agency theory. This study contributes to the literature on CEO duality and firm performance in the context of developing countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Mejbel Al-Saidi

This study examined the relationship between board size and firm performance using a sample of 110 non-financial listed firms on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) from 2009 to 2017 (9 years). Empirical tests were conducted using OLS and 2SLS regressions as well as two performance measures to control the issues of endogeneity and causality; the study found that board size negatively affected firm performance. Thus, a small board size is better for non-financial Kuwaiti listed firms, which is consistent with agency theory and the majority of previous studies conducted in developed and developing countries. However, the causality issue does exist. The study makes a number of contributions to the corporate governance literature—namely, it provides a good understanding of the relationship board size and firm performance. In addition, examining such variables without considering the issues of endogeneity and causality would lead to misleading results. Finally, this study provides clear evidence for regulators in Kuwait to design an optimal board size to improve listed firms.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnson Bosco Rukundo

This paper investigates the relationship between firm performance and innovation in developing countries using micro data from enterprise surveys. The purpose is to empirically test the importance of firm performance in terms of sales, for a firm’s proneness to innovate specifically in developing countries. A two-stage least squares (2SLS) model is applied to a sample of 2356 firms from the manufacturing and service sectors. Results show that firm performance, defined as sales, is found to be a significant factor contributing to innovation among firms. This relationship holds in manufacturing firms even when distinguished from the services sector. The findings underline the importance of firms’ performance through increased sales. The paper adds to the existing limited research literature on performance and innovation studies in developing countries especially Africa. The paper results differ from previous research studies where focus has been on innovation impact towards performance. As a policy option, developing countries need to improve and promote an increase in firms’ sales that would spur them to introduce a new or substantially improved product or process.


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