Business and management
Recent Submissions
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Passion and intention among aspiring entrepreneurs with disabilities: the role of entrepreneurial support programsPurpose: This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial support programs and entrepreneurial intention, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial support programs in the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention, among students with physical disabilities in Nigerian tertiary institutions. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a closed-ended questionnaire survey, composed of previously validated scales, to sample 209 students with physical disabilities at tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Hierarchal regression was performed to assess the relationships between the variables and test the hypotheses. Findings: Both entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial support programs were found to be significantly positively related to entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial support programs also moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention. Research limitations/implications: This research paper identifies that developing entrepreneurial passion and providing accessible and inclusive entrepreneurial support programs are valuable in supporting and facilitating a passage into entrepreneurship for those with disabilities. Originality/value: This research paper addresses calls for further understanding of how those with disabilities can be supported into entrepreneurship, by identifying supporting factors. The research paper provides further understanding of the entrepreneurial passion and intention nexus by exploring the relationship within those with a physical disability, where significant barriers exist and within a developing country context where entrepreneurship might be a necessity rather than driven by passion.
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Assessing place experiences in Luton and Darlington on Twitter with topic modelling and AI-generated lexiconsPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the in situ place experiences of people in Luton and Darlington. Design/methodology/approach: The study used 109,998 geotagged tweets from Luton and Darlington between 2020 and 2022 and conducted topic modelling using latent Dirichlet allocation. Lexicons were created using GPT-4 to evaluate the eight dimensions of place experience for each topic. Findings: The study found that Darlington had higher counts in the sensorial, behavioural, designed and mundane dimensions of place experience than Luton. Conversely, Luton had a higher prevalence of the affective and intellectual dimensions, attributed to political and faith-related tweets. Originality/value: The study introduces a novel approach that uses AI-generated lexicons for place experience. These lexicons cover four facets, two intentions and two intensities of place experience, enabling detection of words from any domain. This approach can be useful not only for town and destination brand managers but also for researchers in any field.
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How do existing organizational theories help in understanding the responses of food companies for reducing food waste?Food waste is a serious global problem. Efforts to reduce food waste are closely linked to the concepts of circular economy and sustainability. Though food organizations across the world are making efforts to reduce waste in their supply chains, there is currently no theoretical explanation that would underpin the responses of food companies in reducing food waste. Based on interactions with food companies over a nearly 5-year period, we explore the applicability of some well-known and not so well-known organizational theories in the operations management literature to underpin the observed responses of companies in reducing food waste. This paper is one of the first attempts to study food waste from an operations and supply chains point of view, especially from the lens of existing theories in the operations management literature and newer sustainability theories borrowed from other disciplines. Our research findings not only show that existing organizational theories and societal theories can help explain the motivations of firms engaging in food waste reduction, but also call for more research that could help explain some interesting observations that are not apparent when existing theories are used. This paper contributes to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2 and 12.
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The mediating role of thriving at work between organizational inducements and work outcomesThe study intends to assess the underlying mechanism of thriving between organizational inducements (OIs) and health care workers’ (HCWs) mental health and work effort based on social exchange theory and the socially embedded model (SEM) of thriving. This study tested a conceptual model regarding the antecedents and outcomes of thriving at work (TW). According to the results of structural equation modelling, both dimensions of OIs predict TW among HCWs. Employees who receive OIs display enhanced levels of thriving, which plays a key role in HCWs’ mental health and their work effort. This research adds important insights to the thriving literature by empirically examining its mediating role between workplace resources and HCWs’ health and work-related outcomes.
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What does the mid-1990s soybean liberalization tell us about the role of foreign investment in China's rural industrialization?This article reassesses the role of foreign investments in China’s rural industrialization in the 1980s and the early 1990s. It draws upon the power disputes between agribusiness transnational corporations (TNCs) and central domestic players in the country’s soybean complex. I follow Chris Bramall’s argument that food processing infrastructure grew progressively since the Maoist era in the 1960s and 1970s, instead of springing from foreign investments or pro-business local state officials during the reform and opening up. However, I go beyond this assumption by suggesting that foreign investments often had a detrimental role in rural industrialization, depending on their political action. I show through in-depth empirical analyses that due to the Maoist industrial legacy, soybean processors from Northeast China consolidated an endogenous form of accumulation based on local circuits of production and consumption under state protectionism. This specific industrialization trajectory has put them on opposite sides from agribusiness TNCs. The liberalization agenda pushed by the TNCs through bilateral and multilateral levels of influence culminated in the opening of China’s soybean imports in the late 1990s, allowing the consolidation of their global trade monopoly to the detriment of domestic players.
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The entrepreneurial academic: leveraging finite resourcesThis presentation was delivered at the Business and Management Research Institute Seminar series on the 6th of February 2024. Academics adopting an entrepreneurial mindset can leverage more resources to further their research and scholarly objectives. The theories and philosophies of entrepreneurship to the role of an academic using an author-ethnographic method to narrate the research journey of the presenter.
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Wenhua dacai (great cultural talent): paradoxical discourses and practices in the revival of Confucian classical education in contemporary ChinaCultivating wenhua dacai (great cultural talent) is a central goal of the ongoing dujing (classics reading) education movement, which is an integral part of the broad Confucian revival in contemporary China. Focusing on the concept of wenhua dacai, this article explores three interrelated issues. First, as a term used in the context of dujing education, wenhua dacai refers to an idealized Confucian subject shaped by an interweaving of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Moreover, it is expected not only to revive Confucian/Chinese culture but also to contribute to human cultural exchange. Second, the tendency of students to embrace individualistic virtues in their experience of classics reading poses a challenge to the lofty and sacred ideal of wenhua dacai, which reinforces the need for rigid discipline in learners. Finally, contextualizing the idea of wenhua dacai into the general transformation of education in China can contribute to a more thorough understanding of it. This article concludes that the cultivation of wenhua dacai dreamed of by Confucian dujing education activists is constituted by paradoxical discourses and practices embedded in the ideological complexities of Chinese education.
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A visual overview of key developments of international family business research in the past three decadesThe family business is an important form of economic organization. In 1988, the authoritative aca- demic journal of the research field, the Family Business Review, marked the official formation of the family business research field. With the development of the research field, it is particularly important to systematically sort out the research status and development of the field and grasp the development trend of future research. We use the citation visualization software CiteSpace to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the 2054 family research literatures from SSCI sources from 1988 to 2017. The study found that from the perspective of the law of scientific development, the research institute of the family business in 2000 was in the sporadic exploration period, which just started to attract the attention of the academic circles. From 2000 to 2006, the family business field began to learn from the mature theoretical analysis phenomenon of other disciplines in the social science field. The research literature has grown rapidly and entered the development period. After 2007, it entered the emergence period of the paradigm. The new leading research perspective showed the socioemotional wealth framework, and the research results began to show an exponential upward trend. From the research theme, entrepreneurship, succession, and corporate governance are the key areas for family business research. From the perspective of leading theory, the agency theory in the first two decades is the most important mainstream theory in family business research. In the past ten years, the framework of socioemotional wealth has sprung up, which has opened up a new direction for family business research. From the geographical distribution of research literature, the current focus of family business research is in North America represented by the United States and Canada and Western Europe represented by the United Kingdom, Spain, etc. Australia, China and other countries/regions are also widely distributed. Among them, scholars such as Chrisman, Chua and Miller are representative scholars in North America, and Gomez-Mejia and De Massis are representative scholars in Europe. This paper has the following contributions: (1) In terms of methods, this paper uses CiteSpace, a citation visualization software, as a research tool to help readers understand the current situation and development trend of family business research intuitively, comprehensively and deeply. (2) In terms of sample source, the sample papers of this paper come from a wide range of sources, including 2054 articles from 1988 to 2017. (3) In terms of theoretical cognition, this paper identifies families with scientific law theory and four-stage model, and helps researchers to understand the current development stages and development requirements of family business research. This study provides a clear presentation of the results of the research through visualization techniques, providing a basis for family business researchers to quickly and intuitively understand the domain's profile and progress. Regardless of the theoretical aspect or the empirical method, there are still missing "puzzles" in the research field of family business. Therefore, the article provide four recommendations for future research directions. First, family business researchers need to focus on the accumulation of core knowledge. And future researchers can use meta-analysis and other methods to analyze, collate and summarize core knowledge on the basis of many documents that do not reach consensus conclusions, and promote further research. Second, the socioemotional wealth (SEW) of family businesses requires more direct measurement. Call on future researchers to use the grounded theo- ry and other methods to explore more direct SEW measurement methods, and also integrate into the Chinese con- text, further refine the SEW dimensions and explore its unique situation. Third, family business research can be more integrated into Chinese contextual factors. At present, the results of family business research are mainly based on Western research results, most of which are used in domestic research, ignoring some unique Chinese situational factors. Finally, new concepts in this field are difficult to guarantee external validity based on the lack of cross-country research. The future research can add more evidence of transnational research.
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How do the successors’ training patterns affect the succession performance of family business: mediation of successors’recognitionInternal experience and external experience are common patterns for family business to train successors. This paper focuses on the differences in the effects of these two different patterns on firm performance after successors have exerted significant influence on the firm. Based on the learning theory, this paper proposes a partially adjusted mediation effect model, and uses the 2016 survey data of 183 family firms in Zhejiang province to empirically test the hypothesis models. The results of data analysis show that the influence of the successors' training patterns on the succession performance of firms is completely mediated by the successors’ recognition, and this is a typical indirect mediating effect. Specifically, the internal experience pattern plays a positive role in the successors’ recognition and can promote the firm performance. While the external experience pattern has a negative effect, which will have a negative impact on firm performance. However, the tutor can effectively alleviate or even reverse the negative impact of the external experience pattern. This study uses the learning theory for the first time to integrate the research on the succession process and results of family business successors, and finds that the successor’s recognition is the intermediate mechanism between the successor training patterns and firm performance, which will help to improve the systematic understanding of the training process of family business successors.
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Cognitive cohesion, family commitment and organizational creativityAlthough issues about innovation and entrepreneurship have drawn growing attention recently in family business research field, organizational creativity, which could be a significant and supportive factor in the above issue, seems still ignored to a large extent. This paper focus on the link among family features, family’s involvement in firm and organizational creativity, as well as the moderate effect of intergenerational relationship. The finding shows that: ( 1) family cohesion enhances family’s cultural commitment on firm; ( 2) family’s cultural commitment is positively related with creativity; (3) family’s cultural commitment play a mediate role in the above mechanism; (4) intergenerational attention strengthen the positive relationship between family cohesion and family’s cultural commitment, but intergenerational authority does not play a significant role. These findings suggest that ( 1) family features are important antecedents in family business research; ( 2) both family and firm factors should be taken into consideration in intergenerational succession process, and positive climate in family is meaningful for family firm’s prosperity.
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Family business and corporate fraud in a transitional economyResearch on family firms often assumes them to be long-term oriented and care about their reputation, but this assumption is not investigated in transitional economies. We propose that family firms in transitional economies may commit more corporate fraud compared to other privately-controlled firms. Due to the lack of legitimacy, family firms face more resource limitations and thus have a lower possibility of survival, which leads them to risk committing fraud in order to survive. To verify our logic, we explore the tendency of family firms to engage in fraud when they are subject to greater survival pressures, when they have social-political sources of support, and when the intensity of external monitoring changes. Our argument is supported by examining publicly listed private firms in China from 2003 to 2015. Our research contributes to the literature on family businesses by showing how institutional contexts impact family business attributes, and to research on corporate fraud by understanding the influence of organizational legitimacy and family governance.
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Underperformance duration and strategic change: an attention-based view of the firmPerformance feedback, especially underperformance feedback, is a vital factor influencing a firm’s strategic change; yet, there is little evidence on underperformance duration. Drawing on attention-based view and cognitive literature within psychology, we argue that the length of time that a firm has been underperforming leads to firms’ strategic change, while this effect could be moderated by the TMT stability, the firm’s goals, and the family governance of a firm. Specifically, we proposed that the TMT stability will weaken the effect of underperformance duration on strategic change, while the firm’s growth orientation will strengthen this effect. Furthermore, both of these moderating effects will be flattened by family ownership. Our hypotheses were supported by a ten-year panel data of 2070 firms listed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ) in China. We also discussed the statistical and practical significance of the results.
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Family firms and regional development: evidence from ChinaThis chapter provides an overview of family business and regional development in the Chinese context. Motivated by the line of “contextualizing” family business studies, this chapter begins by discussing the Chinese context and regional development, and how these contribute to the unique challenges faced by Chinese family firms. The chapter discusses the historical development, current status, and future prospects of family firms in China. Finally, we conclude by exploring the theoretical and practical implications of this study and its limitations, which provide opportunities for future research aimed at extending knowledge about family business and regional development.
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Endogeneity issues in family business research: current status and future recommendationsAlthough the family business research field and related disciplines are paying increasing attention to improvements in methodology, there is still insufficient attention being paid to endogeneity issues. We therefore raise awareness of endogeneity and suggest ways to reduce biased results in family business studies. We review publications in the family business literature in terms of (1) the consideration of endogeneity issues, (2) sources of endogeneity for different research topics, and (3) various methods that researchers have used to control for endogeneity. We discuss important lessons learned from the review and offer methodologically oriented recommendations for future family business studies.
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Fly green: environmentally specific servant leadership and its impact on green performance outcomesA careful examination of the pertinent literature denotes that no empirical study has tested the consequences of environmentally specific servant leadership (ESS) among cabin crew so far. This is surprising because the airline industry has long been at the forefront of green debate for its significant environmental problems (e.g., climate change, CO2 emission, and waste). With this realization, drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework and social learning theory, our paper explores climate for green creativity (CGC) and green creativity (GC) as the serial mediators linking ESS to green recovery performance (GRP). Data came from cabin crew in major European low-cost carriers. The results from the PROCESS plug-in for statistical package for social sciences reveal that CGC or GC mediates the influence of ESS on GRP. More importantly, CGC and GC mediate the positive association between ESS and GRP in a sequential manner. The presence of ESS results in the establishment of the climate where cabin crew can offer novel green ideas and feedback that in turn enables them to display better GRP. Theoretical implications are discussed and implications for managers are given in the paper.
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Institutions and macroeconomic indicators: entrepreneurial activities across the worldPurpose: Entrepreneurial activity is a phenomenon that boosts the economic growth of countries and improves social welfare. The levels of economic development in countries have significant effects on these entrepreneurial activities. This research examines which institutional and macroeconomic variables explain early-stage entrepreneurial activities in developed and developing economies. Methodology: We conducted panel data analysis on data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and International Monetary Fund surveys covering 2009–2018. Findings: To begin with, our results reveal that cognitive, normative, and regulatory institutions, as well as macroeconomic factors, have differential effects on early-stage entrepreneurial activity in developed and developing countries. Moreover, our findings indicate a stronger positive impact of cognitive, normative, and regulatory institutions on early-stage entrepreneurship in developed countries compared to developing countries. Finally, our results suggest that macroeconomic factors play a more significant role in early-stage entrepreneurial activity in developing countries than in developed countries. These findings have important implications for institutional theory, macroeconomics, and the entrepreneurship literature. Originality: This study provides a better understanding of the components that help explain the differences in entrepreneurship between developed and developing countries regarding institutions and macroeconomic factors. In this way, it contributes to developing entrepreneurship literature with the theoretical achievements of combining institutional theory and macroeconomic indicators with entrepreneurship literature.
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Alternative-fuel station network design under impact of station failuresIn this paper, we have formulated a mixed-integer non-linear programming model for alternative-fuel station location problem in which each station can fail with a site-specific probability. The model aims to maximise the total expected traffic volume that can be refuelled by the unreliable alternative-fuel stations. Based on the linearisation techniques, i.e., probability chains and piecewise-linear functions, we linearise the non-linearity of compound probability terms in the non-linear model to solve this problem efficiently. An efficient Tabu search algorithm is also developed to solve the large-size instances. In addition, we extend the model to deal with reliable multi-period alternative-fuel station network design. Computational experiments, carried out on the well-known benchmark instances where the probability of station failures is uniformly generated, show that the proposed models and algorithm can obtain the optimal solutions within a reasonable computation time. Compared to a standard station location model that disregards the potential for station failures, our model designs more reliable alternative-fuel station network under risk of station failures. A sensitivity analysis of failure probabilities in the station network design is investigated to demonstrate the robustness of our model and study how variability in the probability of station failure affects solution robustness.
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An efficient heuristic algorithm for the alternative-fuel station location problemWe have developed an efficient heuristic algorithm for location of alternative-fuel stations. The algorithm is constructed based on solving the sequence of subproblems restricted on a set of promising station candidates, and fixing a number of the best promising station locations. The set of candidates is initially determined by solving a relaxation model, and then modified by exchanging some stations between the promising candidate set and the remaining station set. A number of the best station candidates in the promising candidate set can be fixed to improve computation time. In addition, a parallel computing strategy is integrated into solving simultaneously the set of subproblems to speed up computation time. Experimental results carried out on the benchmark instances show that our algorithm outperforms genetic algorithm and greedy algorithm. As compared with CPLEX solver, our algorithm can obtain all the optimal solutions on the tested instances with less computation time.
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A network flow approach for tactical resource planning in outpatient clinicsThis paper introduces a deterministic model to plan the physician requirements for outpatient clinics to achieve service targets for the appointment lead-times of patients. The Ministry of Health of Singapore has established targets for the median, 95th percentile, and 100th percentile of appointment lead-times for patients, since long appointment postponements are regarded as being unacceptable for health care services. The study is to match the capacity of the healthcare providers to the patient demand for a re-entry system, subject to restrictions on the appointment lead-times for patients. We propose a mixed-integer programming model for planning capacity with the minimization of the maximum required capacity as its objective. In the model we assume a finite planning horizon, deterministic arrivals, multiple types of patients, identical physicians, and dependent demand between types of patients. We solve this model with a Branch and Cut algorithm. We test the model with numerical experiments using real data from the chosen specialty at the outpatient clinic of the studied hospital. The results show the value of the proposed model via a systematic push-pull mechanism in scheduling patients’ requests to minimize the objective. The clinic should use one of the appointment lead-time targets to determine the patients’ appointment dates. Finally, from the sensitivity analyses we demonstrate that the objective is negatively correlated with first-visit patients’ appointment lead-time targets, the discharge rates, and the re-visit patients’ mean appointment lead-time; we find a positive correlation between the first-visit patients’ mean appointment lead-time and the appointment lead-time targets.
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Optimising parcel deliveries in London using dual-mode routingLast-mile delivery operations are complex, and the conventional way of using a single mode of delivery (e.g. driving) is not necessarily an efficient strategy. This paper describes a two-level parcel distribution model that combines walking and driving for a single driver. The model aims to minimise the total travelling time by scheduling a vehicle’s routing and the driver’s walking sequence when making deliveries, taking decisions on parking locations into consideration. The model is a variant of the Clustered Travelling Salesman Problem with Time Windows, in which the sequence of visits within each cluster is required to form a closed tour. When applied to a case study of an actual vehicle round from a parcel carrier operating in London, savings of over 20% in the total operation time were returned over the current situation where 144 parcels were being delivered to 57 delivery locations.