Exploring the Role of Agile Operant Resources in the Facilitation of Strategic Orientation: The Case of Family-owned Businesses in Pakistan

Purpose: No one can deny the pertinent role of resources in each era. Over time, its usefulness enhances, which facilitates firm sustainability in today’s volatile business world. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has been done specifically in the context of Family-Owned Businesses (FOBs) in Pakistan regarding the owner’s ability to possess agile operant resources. The purpose of this study is to explore the hidden agile operant resources of the family business owners which facilitate FOBs in strategic orientation. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study resides in a relativistic school of thought based on the interpretive paradigm. It is used as an exemplar of the nature of research. Purposive sampling is used for data collection. Interviews were conducted through open-ended questionnaires and observation of family owners. This study is based on the abductive research approach, which along with Gioia methodology, has been used to develop broader themes for discussion. Findings: This research article provides sound conceptual insights on the strategic orientation of family firms through the pertinent role of learning and observational resources, agile entrepreneurial phronesis and agile sensing skills. The authors proposed a conceptual model for shedding light on the pertinent role of agile operant resource supports to facilitate the strategic orientation of FOBs. Practical implications: This study proposes a framework for FOBs operating in Pakistan by providing novel insights for establishing sustainable firm performance by indicating the pertinence of agile operant resources. FOBs may adopt these agile operant resources to ensure firm strategic orientation in today’s dynamic business world. It also opens new avenues of innovation and growth for FOBs by determining the primitive, significant role of individual FOB owners operant resources. This study can apply to all FOBs. Originality value: In this research, the authors have discussed the iterative themes interactions and their significant role in the context of family firms to understand how learning and observational resources, agile sensing skills and agile entrepreneurial phronesis strengthen firm strategic orientation that drives firm sustainable performance in today’s competitive business world. As Pakistan, like other Asian countries, is considered fertile land for family businesses, such studies can enrich insights through surfacing the FOB owner-possessed resources-based framework and how it supports catering to effective strategic orientation.

Expanding understanding of family social capital in crowdfunding of migrant entrepreneurial ventures

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the migrant entrepreneur’s social capital and specifically their family social capital in the success of their crowdfunding ventures. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops an exploratory single case study of the Persu Bag started by a Chinese migrant entrepreneur in the USA, which was documented through in-depth interviews, email communication, social media interactions and secondary documents publicly available. This paper draws on crowdfunding and social capital literature to fulfil the purpose and adopt the perspective of the migrant entrepreneur in the study. Findings The study shows that the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneur’s family network contributes with their operand and operant resources from both the country of residence and country of origin. Besides having financial capacity, institutional knowledge and experience from both the host and home countries, the family network in both countries make the crowdfunding immigrant entrepreneur’s families more resourceful, providing additional benefits to the crowdfunding migrant entrepreneurs in the development of the campaign and crowdfunded venture. Originality/value This study broadens the understanding of the ways migrant entrepreneurs can rely on their family social capital for building financial capacity and starting a crowdfunded venture.

Institutions and technology in the value co-creation process of restaurant consumers: a service-dominant logic perspective

PurposeThis study aims to examine the influence of institutions and technology on value co-creation outcomes. These outcomes include strategic benefits, value-in-context and novel operant resources. The problem in this study is analyzed based on the perspective of service-dominant logic or the service ecosystem.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data collection was carried out using a questionnaire through an online survey. All indicators are measured using a seven-point Likert scale. The exploratory factor analysis technique was applied to test the construct validity. We obtain data from 358 McDonald's restaurant consumers. Furthermore, nine hypotheses were tested using simple and multiple linear regression.FindingsThe results of this study proved that the nine proposed hypotheses were not rejected. Technology has been shown to significantly influence institutions, and both institutions and technology have also been shown to influence strategic benefits. Furthermore, institutions, technology, strategic benefits and novel operant resources are shown to influence value-in-context. Finally, institutions and technology are proven to influence novel operant resources.Research limitations/implicationsThe research focused solely on the fast-food restaurant sector of Indonesia, and thus, the results may not be applicable to other service sectors. Manager engagement is needed in the value co-creation process and the sustainability of the service ecosystem. Furthermore, technology and institutions need to be built through dialogical interactions and shared understanding to more effectively implement the corporate strategy.Originality/valueThis research offers several novel contributions: the design of new instruments and an empirical model. Besides, the authors analyze several relatively new constructs, such as technology, institutions, novel operant resources, strategic benefits and value-in-context.

Enabling Cocreation With Transformative Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Conceptualization of Consumer Boosting

Service research emphasizes the relevance of consumers’ participation in the cocreation of transformative outcomes like health and well-being. However, in complex services, consumers’ limited operant resources and lacking resource integration efficiency hinder transformative value cocreation. Service research on mechanisms that facilitate well-being through efficient resource integration is sparse, but several disciplines elaborate cognitive interventions with that target. These interventions have been validated in various contexts. Nevertheless, concerns persist that they can hurt, rather than help, individual consumers. Overcoming such limitations requires an interdisciplinary effort. The present article outlines the new research area “transformative consumer interventions” (TCI) by integrating interventions theory, consumer psychology, and transformative service research in a health context. TCI provide theory-driven principles for the selection and design of interventions that facilitate operant resource integration in complex services. Additionally, we conceptualize consumer boosting, the first TCI-based intervention construct. Consumer boosts are efficient, context-specific, and personalized interventions that enhance individuals’ operant resources. Consumer boosting provides a pathway to transformative cocreation and alleviates the risk of unintended consequences and value co-destruction. This research illustrates that the transformative service domain stands to benefit substantially from getting involved in the discussion on consumer interventions and offers a unique perspective for further conceptual elaboration.

Co-owned resources: IP and data in smart cities

PurposeSmart city projects typically operate in consortia of actors that lead to the co-creation of jointly owned intellectual property (IP) and data. While IP and data are significant for economic development, there are very limited studies on their co-ownership regimes especially on co-ownership of open data and open intellectual property. This study address this gap.Design/methodology/approachThis study is qualitative. In total, 62 in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out, with predominantly senior members of organisations actively involved in smart city projects. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.FindingsThere are three models of co-ownership of IP and data: contractual joint ownership, undetermined or not-yet-determined ownership and open ownership. Each ownership model impacts differently the value-in-use. The relationships between actors in the consortia affect the way in which they co-create IP and data.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates how projects that operate in new models of innovation-led consortia produce new types of resources that are not simply co-created but co-owned. Co-owned resources have different value-in-use for each one of the different actors, independently of the fact that they jointly own them. This is influenced by the type of ownership model and predisposition of the actors to initially share resources and be flexible. Co-owned resources may generate future value propositions, act as interconnected operant resources and lead to the creation of new business models.

Explicating Open Innovation Using Service-Dominant Logic

This article conceptualizes open innovation using service system view and service-dominant logic (S-DL) to specify the generic characteristics of open innovation of service, which eliminates the discrepancy of open innovation between product and service. The main objective is to explicate the tripartite framework proposed by Lusch and Nambisan into six generic characteristics to serve as vocabulary in formulating open innovation of service strategies. The business cases are categorized by 2x2 grid according to the institutionalization of actors into the service ecosystems. There are six essential characteristics of open innovation of service grounded in S-D logic: (1) interaction within and among service systems, (2) integration of operand and operant resources, (3) open platform, (4) exchange mechanism, (5) value proposition, and (6) network of actors. To summarize, the strategies are formulated using the six characteristics for each category of business in three layers, micro, meso, macro, to sustain the practice of open innovation in various industries.

Citizen Participation in Political Markets: Extending Service-Dominant Logic to Public Policy

While service-dominant logic prescribes consumer participation with firms, some theorists of elitist democracy oppose citizen participation in governance because these theorists perceive citizens as being incompetent in political matters. This study, grounded in political marketing theory, suggests that citizens do, indeed, have the competence for participating in governance through the thin-participation methods (i.e., those not requiring citizen interaction in groups) presented herein. These methods feature relatively short amounts of time needed for individual respondents to learn about issues in an online environment and to take a survey including trade-off tasks as part of a discrete-choice experimental design. Set in the context of a budget crisis for a state (Wyoming), this study assessed citizens’ thoughts about the state’s political processes as well as about policy preferences for seven important policy areas of state budgeting. The results of this study provide evidence that citizens have the crucial operant resources (knowledge and skills) to participate in all types of political markets (electoral, governmental, and intragovernmental). The study offers researchers knowledge for further developing service-dominant logic in government ecosystems of service.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF OPERANT RESOURCES ON CO-CREATION EXPERIENCE: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM AIRBNB CONSUMERS

This study aims to empirically analyze the direct and indirect effects of operant resources on co-creation experience of Airbnb consumers. Specifically, this study examines operant resources’ impact on perceived benefits, trust, and co-creation experience. In addition, this study also investigates the effect of perceived benefits, and trust on co-creation experience. We managed to collect a sample of 201 respondents obtained through online surveys. Respondents were consumers who have used Airbnb service offerings. Data were gathered using a questionnaire developed on the basis of a literature review. A convenience sampling was adopted in inviting consumers to participate in this study. The hypotheses were analyzed using simple and multiple linear regression analysis. The results show that operant resources are proven to influence perceived benefits, and trust of consumers. Likewise, perceived benefits, trust, and operant resources have been shown to influence the co-creation experience. The novelty and the most important contribution of this study are that it has succeeded in proving empirically the existence of the Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) perspective.