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Transforming variables before analysis or applying a transformation as a part of a generalized linear model are common practices in organizational research. Several methodological articles addressing the topic, either directly or indirectly, have been published in the recent past. In this article, we point out a few misconceptions about transformations and propose a set of eight simple guidelines for addressing them. Our main argument is that transformations should not be chosen based on the nature or distribution of the individual variables but based on the functional form of the relationship between two or more variables that is expected from theory or discovered empirically. Building on a systematic review of six leading management journals, we point to several ways the specification and interpretation of nonlinear models can be improved.
Purpose The negative stereotypes concerning late-career workers are found to prevail and lead to negative circulation of narratives and actions between individuals and societies. Using the context of late-career entrepreneurs, the paper aims to find an alternative and a more positive narrative concerning late-career work by focusing on entrepreneurs and the narrative positioning related to them. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a narrative-positioning analysis, cycling through three levels of analysis and then returning to level two, in order to study our sample of seven narratives written by Finnish late-career entrepreneurs. The authors present in detail one story-telling narrative, by Matthew, and then layer the remaining six narratives to present themes, positioning and actions surrounding being a late-career entrepreneur. Findings A more positive narrative circulation was found, which related to the master narrative of entrepreneurs as continuing “until the end” and taking care of themselves, their enterprises and different stakeholder groups even after exiting the enterprise into so-called “retirement.” The entrepreneurs were found to actively use this positive narrative to position themselves both in the story-telling world and in their local interactions. By positioning themselves as “never ending caretakers,” the entrepreneurs gave a strong account that their reasons to continue working centered on the factors social. Research limitations/implications The research findings and analysis should be interpreted in the context of the Nordic countries and especially Finland. Practical implications The results of this study can inform the ways in which these “never ending caretakers” can transition into retirement and adjust to life spent in retirement. Originality/value In the study, entrepreneurs' written answers were analyzed with narrative-positioning analyses. An alternative story of people at work was found, and a more positive narrative circulation was constructed based on their narratives.
Social media has become an important platform where users share, comment, discuss, communicate, interact, and play games. Aside from using social media for personal, social, and business purposes, the use of social media has gained attention, particularly for collaborative learning in the educational sector. This paper examines the role of social media in computing education based on the use of WhatsApp social media group. Additionally, the study explores how social media usage by students influences their perceived learning outcomes. Given these aims, the study formulated four research hypotheses and tested using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling. With the participants of three hundred and thirteen (n=313) students, the study found a positive relationship between social media usage for computing education and perceived learning outcomes. In addition, the study found a linear relationship between communication in- group and perceived learning outcomes. Finally, the study revealed that social media positively relates to tie strength, and that tie strength influences in-group communication.
In this study we identified and analyzed 75 articles in the family business (FB) literature between 2000 and 2014, focusing on the case study design they adopted. We found the positivistic case study approach to be the FB disciplinary convention. The two alternative approaches of critical realism and interpretivism were used to a significantly lesser extent. We anticipate that in the future the positivistic approach will continue to be used widely. The other two approaches could be employed to a greater extent, thus contributing to scientific pluralism in FB case study research.
Organizational research constitutes a differentiated, complex and fragmented field with multiple contradicting and incommensurable theories that make fundamentally different claims about the social and organizational reality. In contrast to natural sciences, the progress in this field can’t be attributed to the principle of truthlikeness where theories compete against each other and only best theories survive and prove they are closer to the truth and thus demonstrate scientific knowledge accumulation. We defend the structural realist view on the nature of organizational theories in order to demonstrate that despite the multiplicity of isolated and competing explanations of organization-environment relations these theories are still logically compatible and mutually consistent which, in turn, assures theoretical progress in the field. Although postulating different and incompatible ontologies, three most successful organization-environments theories, namely, contingency theory, new institutionalism and population ecology share the same explanations of the relations between organizations and environments at the structural level. Without this principle one would say that what occurs in the field of organization theory is a change rather than a progress.
This study investigates how entrepreneurs of biotech enterprises embed in domestic and international networks so as to internationalize. We advance a contextual framework of embeddedness of internationalizing entrepreneurs, providing a contribution (i) by synthesizing and applying existing conceptual insights from the networking literature to provide a more culturally sensitive view of getting embedded for international entrepreneurship in the biotech industry and (ii) by adding insights into the practices and (micro)processes of how and in what ways embeddedness integrates with the internationalization of biotech entrepreneurs. Our study involves six entrepreneurs from Canada, Finland, and New Zealand. Context-specific embeddedness was studied by exploring the (i) type, (ii) strength, (iii) locality, and (iv) importance of the international and national network ties among internationalizing entrepreneurs. We found differences in relation to the locality of universities and research institutes, role and type of financiers, and customer focus in internationalization. For instance, while customers were central to the embeddedness of Canadian and New Zealand entrepreneurs, Finnish entrepreneurs had no focus on their customers, but acted solely through sales channels and partners. The customer focus of New Zealand entrepreneurs was mainly international, whereas it was domestic in the case of Canadian entrepreneurs.
Purpose: The aim of this study is twofold: 1) to provide a meta-synthesis of the current state of knowledge in FB internationalisation research, adopting a network perspective; 2) to highlight emerging themes that may set the stage for future work on FB internationalisation, for the benefit of researchers adopting a network perspective. Methodology: In order to address the twofold purpose of the study, the current paper provides a state-of the art review of 25 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 1993 to 2014. It also presents a meta-synthesis of the theoretical approaches, key findings and concepts that were pinpointed in the review, and proposes emerging key themes that are likely set the stage for future work within this specific field. Findings: The results indicated that since the mid-1990s, research in the field from a network perspective has mainly focused on three aspects, namely: 1) the role of networks and relationships in the internationalisation process, 2) the factors that influence network formation, and 3) strategic/managerial issues in the formation and building of network ties. The current paper pinpoints emerging themes within these three aspects, and proposes future pathways. Research limitations: The review and meta-synthesis are restricted to 25 studies identified in this specific field. Originality: The study comprises an initial attempt to encompass the interface of FB internationalisation and networks.
Employee trust, and increasingly its absence, is a critical topic for researchers and practitioners interested in social relations in the context of work and organizing. Employee trust repair is particularly important in the current disrupted work environment, due to unpredictable changes such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the uncertainty those bring to our lives. It is not surprising that employee trust is attracting increasing interest among researchers and practitioners alike. In this article, we systematically review and take stock of the research on trust repair conducted in the past two decades to provide comprehensive insights and future research directions for researchers and managers. In our review, we propose that early use of trust repair strategies in response to small violations, prevents these violations escalating into larger violations, and hence, enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of trust repair with employees. We conclude by describing future directions.
This study explores the strategic thinking of managers from an accounting perspective. By building on interview data from managers working with strategic roles in various organizations, an understanding is offered of the experienced potentials and pitfalls of accounting in strategic thinking. The results are elaborated into a framework presenting the dual nature of accounting in strategic contexts. This study suggests that the benefits and pitfalls of accounting for strategic thinking constitute a paradoxical duality, which cannot be fully solved, but must be addressed by practising managers. The observed role of accounting in managers’ strategic thinking also offers implications for management control in organizations.
This paper summarizes the features of the functioning of e-commerce in Ukraine. It has been proven that the activity of e-shops as important subjects of the e-commerce market is under-regulated. This leads to consumer dissatisfaction with service quality in the online environment. The necessity of criteria creation was shown, which give them opportunities to e-shops management improve their service and enhance the level of satisfaction of target consumers, primarily based on the effective use of the newest method of promoting goods and services in e-commerce - inbound marketing on the example of infant nutrition. Rating evaluation of functional characteristics of infant nutrition e-shops was done using methods of multicriteria analysis, namely the COPRAS method. It is determined that the functionality and convenience of the e-shop are the main criteria that shape their competitive advantage. The focus of the paper is concentrated on the building rationale for promotion e-shops with the latest inbound marketing techniques. Peculiarities of using different inbound marketing tools on each stage were defined, which implicate a change of Internet-user status from visitor to promoter. An example of evaluating existing alternatives for promoting e-shop (inbound marketing, outbound marketing, or no promotion, in general, was provided). In particular, the decision-making process for choosing promotional tools for infant nutrition e-shop was schematized with the basis of alternatives evaluation by using one of the most common decision-making tools – decision tree. The economic effectiveness of using inbound marketing tools in comparison with outbound marketing tools was proven. The proposed methodological approach can be used by e-shop management for substantiation of management decisions on optimization of goods and services promotion and will increase the loyalty of target audience and popularize brands in e-commerce.
Purpose: Social entrepreneurship has become a growing field of research interest. Yet, past research has been held back by the lack of a rigorous measurement instrument. Rather than defining social entrepreneurship as an organizational form that a venture does or does not have, this paper agrees with Dees and Anderson (2006) that the construct is better thought of as a set of practices, processes and behaviors that organizations can engage in to a higher or a lesser degree. In other words, the construct is a set of behaviors that any organization can engage in. The purpose of the paper is to develop scale items to measure the construct of organizational social entrepreneurship (OSE). Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on previous literature, this paper first develops and then validates scales for measuring OSE as a third-order formative construct. As its second order, the scale includes three components that capture the heterogeneity of the OSE concept: social change intention, commercial activity and inclusive governance. Findings: The OSE scale is developed and tested through a sample of 182 nascent social enterprises from 55 different countries in the world and then revalidated using a second sample of 263 mature social enterprises from 6 European countries. Results suggest that the scale items exhibit internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. Research limitations/implications: The scale presented here offers an important new venue for social entrepreneurship theorizing. First, it allows scholars to take a broad approach toward a diverse field and to study OSE behavior in any empirical field in which it may occur. Second, the scales also allow for more focused theorizing. Scholars are encouraged to delve into the antecedents of all three components presented here and to study the different performance effects they have in terms of likelihood to survive, growth rate or potential to achieve financial sustainability. Originality/value: The paper develops a multidimensional construct for OSE. In particular, the authors propose scale items for three central components of social entrepreneurship, namely, social change intentions, commercial activities and inclusive governance. The scales thus measure the three formative dimensions identified by Dees and Anderson (2006) and Defourny and Nyssens (2010).
Background Studies in the health care sector indicate that good work time control is associated with better perceived wellbeing but also with non-ergonomic work schedules, such as compressed work schedules. Participatory working time scheduling is a collaborative approach to scheduling shift work. Currently, there is a lack of information on whether working hour characteristics and employees’ wellbeing in irregular shift work change after implementing participatory working time scheduling. Objective To investigate the effects of using digital participatory working time scheduling software on working hour characteristics and well-being among Finnish hospital employees. Participants and methods We compared changes in objective working hour characteristics and wellbeing between 2015 and 2017 among employees (n= 677, mainly nurses and practical nurses) when using participatory working time scheduling software (participatory scheduling, n= 283) and traditional shift scheduling (traditional scheduling, n= 394). The statistical analyses were conducted using the repeated measures general linear model and the generalized logit model for binomial and multinomial variables adjusted for age, sex, education, shift work experience, control over scheduling of shifts at baseline (where applicable) and hospital district. Results The proportion of long work shifts (≥12h) increased to a greater extent (F= 4.642, p= 0.032) with the participatory scheduling than with the traditional scheduling. In comparison to traditional scheduling, the perceived control over scheduling of shifts increased significantly with participatory scheduling (OR 3.24, 95% CI 1.73–6.06). None of the other wellbeing variables showed statistically significant changes in the adjusted models. Conclusions The proportion of long work shifts and perceived control over scheduling of shifts increased more among employees using participatory working time scheduling than among those using traditional scheduling. Otherwise, using participatory working time scheduling software had little effect on both objectively measured working hour characteristics and perceived wellbeing in comparison to traditional scheduling. The results merit confirmation in a larger sample with a longer follow-up.
Building on a historical case study on the first two stock exchanges to adopt the now globally dominant for-profit organizational form, the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1993 and the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 1995, we argue that interaction among socially proximate peers contributes to pioneering organizational form adoption within an industry, particularly when such forms are introduced by established organizations. Peer interaction can induce a search for technically efficient organizational forms through the sharing of collective experiences, the establishment of collective assumptions, and a joint search for solutions. Together, these factors contribute to the legitimization of novel organizational forms in the local setting before the adoption of the first instantiation of those forms. We propose a context-sensitive multilevel model of peer-interaction-induced pioneering organizational form adoption that considers shared macro environmental drivers, idiosyncratic local environmental drivers, and peer interaction as central social mediators between the two.
The paper aims to develop applied aspects of the methodological support of a reasonable selection of the company responsible for the formation and promotion of the employer brand using the tools of multicriteria analysis and evaluation of the functionality of outsourcing companies based on the criteria that determine their competitive advantage. Consequently, the need to attract external resources to manage the employer brand has been substantiated. The authors schematized the decision-making process on a reasonable selection of outsourcing companies. The system of the criteria for the implementation of such a choice, which includes the requirements for both the outsourcing company and the future project: the rate of successful previous projects, the rate of customer satisfaction, the experience of work in Ukraine, the average cost of project development services, project development duration, the comprehensiveness of the developed recommendations for the employer brand promotion, project duration, project flexibility, the complexity level of project implementation, average monthly expenditures during the project period has been formed. Moreover, the paper systematizes the main metrics of outsourcing companies' projects on the employer brand formation and promotion, which include: a range of services for attracting, selecting, retaining, developing and evaluating staff; competitor analysis, HR-advertising, HR-marketing, systems of search engine management, leadership development programs, adaptation programs; differentiation of those organizational metrics that distinguish the customer company as an employer from the nearest competitors and separation of competitive advantages of the customer, values and the emotional component of the brand; development of its unique brand identification system – corporate style, brand book, etc.; formation of the key employer branding metrics: Employer Value Proposition (EVP), Employer Brand Personality, Employer Brand Positioning; insight formation - deep understanding of the relationship between the brand and the target audience, positioning and repositioning the employer brand on the labour market. The outsourcing company's direct selection is proposed to be based on multicriteria optimization, particularly using the analytical hierarchy methods (Saati, T.) to determine the weight coefficients of criteria and VIKOR to construct the resulting indicator. Thus, the method application result is to make justified ratings of outsourcing companies, which will allow customer companies to choose the best alternatives on the market of outsourcing services.
The importance of understanding customers in order to sustain the long-term success of the company has been claimed by academics and practitioners for decades, to the point that the claim has turned into a truism. And still, the role of customer knowledge in organizational renewal, especially via explorative new product development (NPD), remains ambiguous. While existing literature generally emphasizes the value of customer knowledge, critics argue that a strong customer focus can also de-motivate and misguide exploration. This study adds clarity to our understanding of this tension by drawing from an intensive analysis of the corporate archives of a rapidly growing high-tech company. The authors trace the impacts of customer knowledge on twelve explorative NPD projects. The findings reveal three distinct mechanisms through which customer knowledge influences exploration: generating, guiding, and gatekeeping. The impact of customer knowledge on exploration depends on the selective deployment of these mechanisms. The authors further argue that managers should seek to find a fit between the deployment of customer knowledge mechanisms and the exploration project type in order to increase the likelihood of exploration project success.
Purpose This study reviews the literature on business-school (b-school) competition and competitiveness to extend our understanding of b-schools’ competitive strategies. Design/methodology/approach Both content and network analysis were used in the examination of the scholarly discourse. Findings The analyses distinguish three literature streams. The first concentrates on resources, capabilities and competencies; the second focuses on measures of competitiveness; and the third includes competitive dynamics and strategy discourse. The analysis shows that the conceptions of competitiveness are quite coherent concerning resources, capabilities and competencies. However, in the “measures of competitiveness” and “industry dynamics and strategy,” discourses were more diverse, indicating greater ambiguity in how the core competencies, capabilities and resources are portrayed as competitiveness outside the institutions. The literature suggests that the measures and indicators of competitiveness are ambiguous to external stakeholders and, furthermore, reflect institutional goal ambiguity. Originality/value The question of how, and to what extent, increasing competition in management education and research catalyzes unwelcome changes in the industry has been of great concern to management educators and scholars. This has given rise to a considerable body of literature referring to b-school competition. Despite its topicality, this discourse has remained theoretically fragmented and separate from the mainstream strategy literature. Therefore, this study provides a review and critical discussion of the current state of research on b-school competition, as well as proposes avenues for future research and tools for strategic management of b-schools.
Discriminant validity was originally presented as a set of empirical criteria that can be assessed from multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrices. Because datasets used by applied researchers rarely lend themselves to MTMM analysis, the need to assess discriminant validity in empirical research has led to the introduction of numerous techniques, some of which have been introduced in an ad hoc manner and without rigorous methodological support. We review various definitions of and techniques for assessing discriminant validity and provide a generalized definition of discriminant validity based on the correlation between two measures after measurement error has been considered. We then review techniques that have been proposed for discriminant validity assessment, demonstrating some problems and equivalencies of these techniques that have gone unnoticed by prior research. After conducting Monte Carlo simulations that compare the techniques, we present techniques called CICFA(sys) and χ2(sys) that applied researchers can use to assess discriminant validity.
Purpose Today, global warming is one of the most acute challenges in the world, prominently caused by greenhouse gases. The introduction of hybrid-vehicles (HVs) is thus, one of the industrial initiatives to tackle this challenge by allowing at least some proportionate reduction in global-gas-emissions. Such initiatives like HVs have also affected the consumers’ green-purchase-intention (GPI). Hence, underpinned into the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study aims to analyze consumers’ response in terms of GPI for HVs, in addition to exploring the moderating-effect of price-sensitivity between independent-variables (attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) and consumers’ GPI for HVs. Design/methodology/approach The data was collected from 266 automobile-consumers with the help of questionnaires. A two-step approach was used to analyse the given hypothesis with the help of partial least squares structural equation modelling (Smart-PLS 3.2.7). Findings First, significant empirical-evidence was secured regarding the impact of given independent-variables (i.e. attitude, subjective norms and perceived behaviour control) on consumer’s GPI for HVs. Second, the empirical-evidence for the moderating effect of price-sensitivity onto the association between given independent-variables (except for the perceived-behavioural-control) and the consumers’ GPI for HVs, also turned out to be quite substantial in this study. Originality/value In-line-with the TPB, this study extends the existing body of literature regarding consumers’ GPI as it was significantly contingent to the given independent variables of the study, whereby, the price-sensitivity has been recognized as a key moderator particularly in the context of developing countries such as Pakistan. The present study thus provides in depth-insights to guide automobile manufacturers and marketers to redefine their pricing strategies to further strengthen the consumer’s GPI for HVs within certain socio-contextual setup. Automobile establishments should thus, invest in HVs’ adoption that serves both the eco-system (particularly human-well-being) and sustainable-organizational-growth.
This exploratory study focuses on Finnish enterprises and examines how and why they are applying business intelligence today. Especially the process from data into knowledge and how business intelligence is utilized in decision making have been studied. We observed that BI tools improve the speed and quality of decision making and BI tools were coupled with actual decision making. BI tools are used frequently but those are only means to an end and in order to examine how they are used to attain specific outcomes. Most of the end users utilised the loosely-coupled approach, but half of the respondents also utilised BI with tighter coupling, structured human decisions, by using customised analyses and reports for certain problems and even creating ones themselves but the tightest form of coupling, automated decision making, remained rare.
This study examines how five moderating variables (the length of the customer relationship, following a company in print media and on social media, remembering online advertisements, and the customer’s age) affect the relationships between perceived value and loyalty and satisfaction and loyalty in the grocery retailing sector. A series of hypotheses were developed and tested with a sample of 2,072 discount retailer customers in Finland. The results support all the direct effects hypotheses and show that perceived value and satisfaction both have a positive effect on loyalty, measured as a share of wallet and word of mouth and that the effect of perceived value tends to be stronger in the study context. Also, the five moderating variables have a positive moderating effect on the linkages between perceived value and eWOM and between satisfaction and eWOM. Theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are presented.
This paper examines the impact of the introduction of the value-added tax on inequality and government revenues using newly released macro data. We present both conventional country fixed effect regressions and instrumental variable analyses, where VAT adoption is instrumented using the previous values of neighbouring countries’ VAT systems as an instrument. The results reveal – in contrast to earlier work – that the revenue consequences of the VAT have not been positive. The results indicate that income-based inequality has increased due to the VAT adoption, whereas consumption inequality has remained unaffected.
Several financial and banking sector reform programs were instituted in different countries over the last three decades. The underlining purpose of these reforms was largely to improve banking sector supervision and regulation, introduce bank privatization mechanism, introduce clearance and settlement systems, infuse competition and to stimulate financial innovation. The objectives of this study are to 1) review the relevant published literature and market survey reports on the financial & banking sector reforms undertaken in Pakistan and elsewhere, 2) analyze how these reform programs develop digital banking culture and increase financial inclusion in the country and 3) guide future research by putting forward a research agenda. The findings of the study suggest a link between the financial and banking sector reforms and the stimulation of financial innovation; the promotion of digital banking culture; and the infusion of financial inclusion in Pakistan. We discuss managerial/policy implications of the study, limitations and presents recommendations for future research.
Digitalisaatio on alentanut tutkimustiedon etsimiskustannuksia merkittävästi ja mahdollistanut tutkimustiedon tehokkaamman leviämisen. Tästä huolimatta tutkijoiden omat julkaisukäytäntöihin liittyvät valinnat vaikuttavat edelleen tutkimusjulkaisujen löydettävyyteen Internetissä. Tämä katsaus valottaa Suomen yliopistojen taloustieteen professorien tutkimusten julkaisukäytäntöjä ja avoimuutta verkossa. Katsauksen kolme keskeistä havaintoa ovat: 1) Suurin osa professoreista on rekisteröitynyt usealle eri tutkimusjulkaisuja yhteen kokoavalle alustalle: 72 %:lla on ResearchGate-profiili, 67 %:lla IDEAS-profiili ja 58 %:lla Google Scholar Citationsprofiili, 2) professoreiden eniten viitatuista artikkeleista noin kaksi kolmasosaa on avoimesti saatavilla verkossa ja 3) alustojen käytön ja saatujen viittausten välillä havaitaan positiivinen yhteys.
This study examines the impacts of democracy and political risk on stock market. Using annualized panel data for 49 emerging markets for 2000–2012 we find evidence that democracy and political risk do have impact on stock market returns and the relationship between democracy and political risk is parabolic, i.e., there is a threshold level of democracy after which political risk begins to decline. Also our results suggest that decreases in political risk lead to higher returns.
We construct multi-country employer-employee data to examine the consequences of last-in, first-out rules. We identify the effects by comparing worker exit rates between different units of the same firms operating in Sweden and Finland, two countries that have different seniority rules. We observe a relatively lower exit rate for more senior workers in Sweden in the shrinking firms and among the low-wage workers. These empirical patterns are consistent with last-in, first-out rules in Sweden providing protection from dismissals for the more senior workers among the worker groups to whom the rules are most relevant. Similarly, we observe a steeper seniority-wage profile in Sweden, suggesting that last-in, first-out rules may also be beneficial for more senior workers in terms of compensation.
This paper examines the plurality of ethical consumption and aims to illustrate how consumers cope with its complexity in the context of everyday food consumption. This study seeks to outline the tensions that consumers inevitably face when pursuing ethical choices and to shed light on the various ways in which they solve these tensions in the rhythms of everyday life. The research applies Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of orders of worth as an interpretive framework. The research data has been collected from Finnish online discussion forums in which consumers debate various aspects of ethical food consumption. The analysis indicates that the participants in the discussions recognize various understandings of ethical consumption that may be accompanied by insecurities about the ‘right’ ones. However, the research suggests that consumers are able to solve fundamental tensions in ethical food consumption by carrying out different types of practices.
Although conducting banking transactions via mobile phones, smart phones and tablets has become popular in many countries, major gaps exist in our understanding of those who use this technology, particularly how experienced users perceive mobile banking. Drawing from the literature on mobile banking adoption, continuous usage behavior and post-adoption of technology behavior, the authors shed light on the nature of experienced mobile banking users’ relationship commitment (RC) with their bank and personal finances. The study reveals changes in commitment and shows that mobile banking offers substantial added value to users. Overall, this research will help managers better understand the importance of mobile banking services in the light of customer RC.