Abstract

Previous studies have addressed social media adoption in business-to-business (B2B) contexts, but limited research has focused on understanding social media marketing assimilation in the B2B context. Using an integrative model, this study examines how top management participation influences the assimilation of social media in the key marketing areas of product development, pricing decision-making, channel management, and promotion. Furthermore, it examines the resulting impact of these assimilations on B2B firms’ performance, particularly in respect of sales performance and relationship development. The study also examines the moderating impact of absorptive capacity on top management participation in the assimilation processes. The findings reveal that top management participation strongly influences social media assimilation into marketing functions. However, the impact of social media assimilation on B2B firms’ performance is varied. While assimilation for channel management positively impacts both sales performance and relationship development, assimilation for product development is only positively related to relationship development. Conversely, assimilation into the functions of pricing decisions and promotion activities shows no significant impact on either sales performance or relationship development. Finally, absorptive capacity positively moderates top management participation in social media assimilation into all key marketing functions except one. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Introduction

Social media have emerged as a “game-changer” (Kumar, 2015, p. 5), playing a leading role in the revolutions taking place in business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketing. B2C marketing uses social media marketing widely, and B2B operations have begun embracing it to streamline their internal marketing communication, generate leads, drive sales, and strengthen customer relationships. Chaffey (2018) found that 79% of B2B marketing specialists rated social media as the most effective marketing channel, with a further 38% indicating that, if they had surplus in their budget for marketing in the following year, they would devote it to social media marketing. Similarly, Elevation Marketing (2020) noted that 90% of B2B buyers use social media to engage with industry thought leaders, with a further 72% indicating that they use social media channels to research solutions.

B2B social media research tracks the increase in social media use in this business interface. Previous studies have addressed several aspects of social media use in the context of B2B, including salespersons’ social media use in B2B relationships (Bill, Feurer, & Klarmann, 2020; Bowen, Lai-Bennejean, Haas, & Rangarajan, 2021; Fraccastoro, Gabrielsson, & Pullins, 2021), B2B social media adoption (Dwivedi, Ismagilova, Rana, & Raman, 2021; Lashgari, Sutton-Brady, Søilen, & Ulfvengren, 2018; Siamagka, Christodoulides, Michaelidou, & Valvi, 2015; Veldeman, Van Praet, & Mechant, 2017), and B2B social media marketing and branding (Brennan & Croft, 2012; Juntunen, Ismagilova, & Oikarinen, 2020). In addition, social media in B2B entails several unexplored issues worth investigating. Although previous studies have addressed social media adoption in a B2B context, the current body of research shows an observable dearth of producing a nuanced understanding of the factors underlying the assimilation of social media in firms’ marketing functions and how they improve their marketing performance. The assimilation phase occurs after the initial implementation of the innovation. It involves the ongoing integration and use of innovation in the firm’s day-to-day operations. In the context of social media marketing, this phase focuses on leveraging social media platforms to support the attainment of the marketing strategy related to product development, pricing decision-making, channel management, and promotion activities, and on realising the anticipated benefits.

Conclusion

In many instances, technological innovations are introduced into firms with great enthusiasm, which may be occasioned by widespread initial acquisition. Nevertheless, these innovations may fail to be completely deployed in the operations of the acquiring firms. Research has shown that, unless innovations are assimilated, firms do not benefit fully from them. Social media are one innovation that B2B firms are adopting for their marketing activities. While social media adoption in B2B firms has received some research attention, a limited number of studies have focused on social media marketing assimilation in B2B firms, the conditions that enhance this assimilation, and how the assimilation contributes to firms’ performance. In this study we examined how top management participation influences the assimilation of social media in the key marketing functional areas of product development, pricing decision-making, channel management, and promotion activities. We also examined how the existing absorptive capacity of B2B firms moderates the influence of top management participation on the assimilation of social media in the key marketing functional areas. Finally, we analysed how social media marketing assimilation into these marketing functional areas improves a firm’s performance outcomes of sales and relationship development. The study’s results show that top management participation in the social media marketing assimilation processes has a strong and positive impact on the assimilation of social media for key marketing functional areas, namely product development decisions, pricing decision-making, channel management, and promotion activities. Furthermore, the findings indicate that top management participation in the assimilation of social media in the functional areas, except in the case of promotion activities, is positively moderated by the existing absorptive capacity of the firm. The results also show that social media marketing assimilation for product development has a significant impact on sales performance, while its assimilation for channel management has a significant impact on both sales performance and relationship development.

Abstract

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance management tool that analyzes the relationship between tangible and intangible assets. Its ability to render business strategy visible has earned it the distinction of being a strategic management model. Sustainability has become an important part of daily and business life today. With the increasing importance given by stakeholders to environmental and social issues, companies find it necessary to evaluate sustainability activities in their performance evaluations. In order to meet this need, the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) emerged with the addition of a sustainability perspective or parameters to BSC. The number of academic studies pertaining to the application of BSC, which numerous companies and subjects to research have utilized, is inadequate. Due to its hierarchical structure and the necessity to evaluate numerous criteria, BSC is suitable for using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. In this paper, an integrated approach consisting of SBSC, the Picture Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (PF-AHP), and the Objective Matrix (OMAX) method is proposed for the performance measurement of companies. The PF-AHP method has been reorganized for ease of application in determining the perspectives, strategic objectives, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) weights within SBSC. Additionally, the OMAX method has been employed for calculating the performance scores. This proposed approach was implemented in a factory operating in the glass industry. The SBSC created for the company includes five perspectives, 16 strategic objectives, and 34 KPIs. PF-AHP method was used to determine the weights of perspectives, strategic objectives, and KPIs to be used in the performance score calculation with OMAX. The weight of financial perspective is 0.267, the weight of the customer perspective is 0.247, the weight of the internal process perspective is 0.191, the weight of the learning and development perspective is 0.161, and the weight of the sustainability perspective is 0.134. The evaluations made by the decision-makers indicate that the company’s performance measurement still adheres to the traditional framework. The performance score of the company is 6.14 out of 10.

Introduction

The concept of sustainability, which includes economic, social, and environmental perspectives, has become an important issue in today’s world in order to cope with global challenges such as increasing poverty and climate change. This situation has brought pressure from stakeholders on terms of sustainability. At this point, the concept of corporate sustainability has emerged. Corporate sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of its direct and indirect stakeholders without compromising its ability to meet their future needs, taking into account both the administrative and operational activities of the organization (Nicoletti Junior et al., 2018). In addition, corporate sustainability also stands out as systematic management efforts for companies to voluntarily integrate environmental and social issues into management (Hansen and Schalteggar, 2016).

National and international legislation on sustainability perspectives is being developed (Kaplan and Norton, 2004), but reporting of social and environmental activities is still voluntary for companies (Huang et al., 2014). However, the importance given to the concept of sustainability will create a difference among competitors (Nicoletti Junior et al., 2018).

For a company to be successful in terms of corporate sustainability, it is not enough to be successful in a single perspective of sustainability. Corporate sustainability aims for companies to make progress in all three perspectives of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) (Eifert and Julmi, 2022). Companies adopt environmental management systems practices to achieve the goals they set in order to meet the social and environmental expectations of stakeholders. However, these applied environmental management systems cannot fully reveal the contribution of sustainability performance to economic performance (Tsalis et al., 2013). As technological developments towards sustainability are increasing, companies need an effective tool to achieve their sustainability goals (Al-Mawali, 2023).

Conclusion

In order to succeed in their competitive environment, companies should embrace strategic management and measure the effectiveness of their management systems. The BSC has emerged as a performance measurement method to assess this success. The traditional BSC consists of four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. With the growing importance of the concept of sustainability, which defines the measurement of environmental and social performance, the sustainability perspective has been added as the fifth perspective to the BSC, giving rise to the concept of SBSC. Since its introduction to the literature, the BSC has maintained its popularity and applied in numerous companies and investigated in various research studies. The multi-criteria nature of the BSC has led researchers to integrate it with MCDM.

In this paper, the modified PF-AHP method was used to weight the criteria in the SBSC. Additionally, the SBSC was combined with the OMAX method to express the performance numerically. Firstly, a team was selected within the company to create the SBSC, and strategic objectives, KPIs and indicators were identified through references from the literature and the company’s knowledge base. Existing data was collected for calculating the performance score, and based on this data, targets were established. The weights for SBSC perspectives, objectives, and KPIs were calculated using the PF-AHP method with the input of opinions from five DMs. The obtained weight values were then utilized in the OMAX method to determine the company’s performance score.

Abstract

This study presents a novel financial performance forecasting method that combines the threshold technique with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). It applies the threshold regression method to identify the factors within the board of directors that influence the financial performance of traditional industries in Taiwan. The findings indicate that the ANN method effectively predicts financial performance by using relevant board structure data. Furthermore, the empirical results suggest that boards with more members demonstrate increased profitability. Additionally, a more significant presence of board members with accounting expertise contributes to more consistent profits. In contrast, an increased presence of members with financial expertise has a more pronounced impact on profitability.

Introduction

Traditional industries, including sectors such as metal machinery, the chemical industry, and subsistence industries, have played pivotal roles in Taiwan’s economic development, trade, and industrial evolution over the years. However, in recent years we have witnessed the emergence of economic powerhouses and the rapid progress of regional economic and trade partnerships like ASEAN, resulting in significant changes to the global economic and trade landscape. As a result, these industries are now operating within a new and highly competitive environment. In this era of rapid transformation, these industries must identify the essential factors that will enable them to maintain and enhance their positions on the international stage.

Investors seek to achieve multiple objectives through the election of a company’s board of directors. They aim to enhance corporate governance, safeguard the rights and interests of shareholders, and anticipate that the board will contribute expertise to improve the decision-making prowess of the board itself. Ultimately, this is expected to enhance the company’s overall performance. Consequently, whether the board of directors can positively impact corporate performance has remained a significant research focus in management and academia.

While many studies have explored the relationship between the board of directors’ characteristics and company performance, a notable need exists for more in-depth articles examining the professional backgrounds of the board members and CEOs and how their leadership qualities influence financial performance. This gap in research underscores the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics between leadership, professional expertise, and corporate financial outcomes.

Conclusions

The research results show that, for companies in traditional industries that are listed on the Taiwanese stock market, the composition of the board of directors impacts the business’s financial performance.

Boards with more members may have a greater capacity for overseeing corporate governance. A greater representation of board members with accounting expertise tends to lead to more consistent corporate profits, whereas an increased presence of members with financial expertise results in more pronounced profit fluctuations. Additionally, in the case of companies with lower profits, managers may face pressure from loan contracts or receive limited attention from investors, potentially leading to heightened practices related to profit management. Managers may aim to maximize their benefits. At this time, the return on assets is high, and the managers obtain the expected benefits. Thus, to restrain the profit management behavior of managers, enterprises need to have a broader view and have specific judgments and analyses in each enterprise to build organizational structure and procedures. The operation of the board of directors is more effective because of the industry’s characteristics, the enterprise’s size, the capital structure, and the performance of the enterprise. Finally, this study used deep learning and big data techniques to build an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model that specializes in predicting the ROA of companies based on most factors related to board structure, with a prediction accuracy of over 78%.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies are increasingly recognized as essential catalysts for enhancing productivity due to their capability to transform nearly all operations within and outside firms. However, the empirical research on how AI assimilation may promote firm-level outcomes such as absorptive capacity (AC), customer agility (CA), and firm performance (FP) is still in its infancy. Drawing from the dynamic capability view and using 417 valid responses collected through cross-sectional methods from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lebanon, this study examines the effect of AI assimilation on firm performance. The mediating roles of AC and CA were investigated. The moderating role of organizational agility (OA) was also explored. The findings support the hypothesized assumptions that continual advancement of technology evolves the industrial organizations’ performance with CA and AC as parallel mediators, partially mediating the link between AI assimilation and FP and OA as a moderator, moderating the positive relationship between AI and CA and between AI and FP. The findings provide crucial insights for practitioners and advance the dynamic capability view framework. They provide compelling evidence that enriches the understanding of AI assimilation, demonstrating its positive impact on critical organizational outcomes and yielding performance benefits for SMEs.

Introduction

The modern era requires modern solutions, and existing businesses are deploying technologies to meet customers’ expectations [1]. Customers want quick responses, which necessitates the use of fast-moving systems and responsiveness. From this standpoint, firms are introducing AI technologies to establish a CA system that can quickly respond to an ever-changing business environment. Through such technologies, firms can improve problem-solving abilities, boost productivity and efficiency in customer service and other fields [2], and improve their performance and productivity [[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]].

The use of AI technology to assist organizations in attaining and maintaining a competitive edge relies on the complete assimilation of such technology throughout business processes [10]. This is due to IT assimilation’s crucial role in enabling end-to-end business operations to develop and maintain business value [10,11]. Existing literature has acknowledged that it can be counted on to enhance organizational performance [12] and foster supply chain agility and business value [13]. However, most of the existing literature focuses on only two facets of assimilation: the crucial factors of assimilation [10,14] and IT-based outcomes [10,15].

Conclusion, limitations, and future research

6.1. Conclusion
This article contributes to emerging studies on AI at the organization level by examining the effect of AI assimilation on FP, which so far has received limited attention, particularly in the context of developing economies, which remains under-researched, calling into question the generalizability of the findings and theories in this research area. Our study is an initial effort to address this issue. This study also offers insights into the mediating role of CA and AC on the link between AI assimilation and FP. We found that OA moderates the link between AI assimilation and CA and AI assimilation and FP in the SME context.

6.2. Limitations and directions for future research
This article has some limitations that future studies should take note of. First, the sample obtained is limited to SMEs in Lebanon because of cultural and technological disparities between nations; the conclusion of the present research may not be generalizable to other nations. Hence, future research should collect data from multi-cultural nations to boost the generalizability of the findings. Second, a complimentary qualitative or longitudinal study that gives more information about the causal relationship between AI assimilation and FP via CA could enhance our understanding of the topic. Third, several contextual constructs, such as uncertainty, structure, and culture, could exist between AI assimilation and FP and moderate this relationship. Finally, research regarding AI technologies in obtaining business value is still very scarce in developing economies; more empirical studies are required to broaden our understanding.

Abstract

The literature on working capital management (WCM) provides mixed evidence on the effect of working capital on firm profitability and performance. We use firms from developed and emerging economies to explore how working capital and its components relate to firms’ performance while controlling for firm-specific and macroeconomic factors. The findings show that the cash conversion cycle (CCC) is inversely related to firm performance in developed and emerging economies—however, there are differences in the CCC’s components. While firms in developed economies exhibit higher firm performance with longer days’ inventory on hand, firms in emerging economies have lower firm performance with longer days’ inventory on hand, extended collection periods, and longer payable periods. Company-specific factors, such as firm size, growth, profitability, and leverage, influence the efficiency of WCM. We also find that country-specific variables such as gross domestic product (GDP), interest rate, and inflation have varying impacts on a firm’s WCM.

Introduction

Working capital management is a critical aspect of financial management that is pivotal in determining a firm’s overall performance and sustainability. It entails managing payables and receivables and reducing inventory. The working capital cycle encompasses the conversion of raw materials into finished goods, the sale of goods, and the subsequent collection of receivables, known as the cash conversion cycle. Effectively managing this cycle is essential for maintaining liquidity, supporting day-to-day operations, and ultimately influencing a firm’s financial health. A company’s liquidity management is becoming increasingly complex with the rise of digital transformation, ever-changing market conditions, globalization, and geopolitical uncertainty.

The literature on WCM holds two opposing views about the impact of working capital investment on firm profitability. One view advocates that an extended cash conversion period and a relaxed receivable collection period increase sales and firm performance (i.e., Deloof, 2003; Sharma and Kumar, 2010; Charitou et al., 2012). Another view documents a negative association between higher working capital and profitability because additional working capital requires more financing, which increases financing and opportunity costs (i.e., Alipour, 2011; Ren et al., 2019; Kayani et al., 2019a; Banerjee and Deb, 2023; Kamlesh et al., 2023). So, having excessive working capital may drag a firm’s financial performance because of the high cost of carrying working capital.

Conclusion

Our research examines the impact of working capital management on corporate performance for a group of firms in developed and emerging economies. We find statistically significant differences between developed and emerging economies concerning working capital and firm-specific and country-specific variables. For example, the CCC is significantly higher for emerging economies than developed ones. Similarly, DSO and DSI are considerably higher for emerging economies, while there is no statistically significant difference in DPO. In our further analysis, we note the following similarities and differences between developed and emerging economies concerning the impact of working capital management on firm performance. First, CCC is a significant determinant of firm performance for both developed and emerging economies. Notably, a longer cash conversion cycle is associated with lower firm performance. These findings are supported by Jose et al. (1996), Kayani et al. (2019a), Kayani et al. (2019b) and Deloof (2003) for developed economies and by Lin and Wang (2021), Garg and Meentu (2022), and Jaworski and Czerwonka (2022) for emerging economies. We find significant differences between developed and emerging economies for the components of CCC. For example, only the DSI component of CCC has a statistically significant direct impact on firm performance in developed economies. For emerging economies, all components of CCC (i.e., DSI, DSO, and DPO) have a statistically significant impact on firm performance. In particular, a higher inventory holding period, receivable collection period, and days’ payables are associated with lower firm performance.

Abstract

This study investigates the roles of management experience and management practices towards innovation activities across ASEAN nations. Notably, the moderating role of the female CEOs in the management experience management practices—innovation relationship is also examined. The data came from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey, consisting of 180,000 enterprises worldwide. This study extracted data from seven economies in ASEAN (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Laos, and Cambodia). To deal with the hierarchical/multilevel structure of the study’s data set, the study uses the multilevel mixed-effects ordered logit model. The findings reveal that both management practices and management experience have positive impacts on innovation activities, particularly product innovation. Furthermore, this paper highlights the positive moderating role of female CEOs in the management experience management practices—innovation relationship.

Introduction

There is growing research on firm innovation in all sectors as it is a vital determinant of a firm’s growth and performance. Notably, the Covid-19 pandemic generates huge challenges and turbulence, and worldwide firms have to try their best to survive. Millions of businesses have to redesign and reconsider many aspects such as their business model (Dovbischuk, Citation2022), management leadership, or supply chain management (Sarkis, Citation2020). Among those determinants of business resilience, the innovation capability is emphasized by extant literature (Cuel et al., Citation2022; Li et al., Citation2021; Xie et al., Citation2022) as it provides a series of new ideas and models to match with uncertainties flexibly.

Prior studies regarding firms’ innovation have focused on broad topics, including determinants of innovation and outcomes of innovation. In the first line, scholars have found many determinants of innovation, consisting of inbound and outbound factors. The inbound factors include leadership, capabilities, firm structure, knowledge management, and gender diversity. On the other hand, the second line focuses on the results of innovation. Innovation is a fundamental driver of sustainable development and the survival and success of businesses (He & Shen, Citation2019; Zhong et al., Citation2021). Porter (Citation1992) and Solow (Citation1957) both emphasized how innovation is frequently seen as the most important factor in determining an economy’s competitiveness.

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics. There are nearly 7% of firms conducting “Innovation but only new the firm”, and more than 14% of firms had “Innovation and new to the market”. Nearly 18% of firms performed new management practices. The average management experience is nearly 18 years. Moreover, 30% of firms have female CEOs.

Table 2 reports the pairwise correlations. The pairwise correlation coefficients between independent and control variables are lower than 0.5, suggesting that there are no signals of multicollinearity (Dormann et al., 2013).

Table 3 presents the multilevel mixed-effects ordered logit estimation results. Regarding the hierarchical data issue, the likelihood-ratio tests comparing the multilevel mixed-effects ordered logit with standard ordered logit regression are reported in each model. It is interesting to find that the likelihood-ratio test statistics are statistically significant in all models. Therefore, the multilevel mixed-effects ordered logit is preferred to the standard ordered logit regression in estimating this specific data set.

Abstract

     This paper adds to the recent interest in the link between cash and firm performance, by studying how this relationship varies across boom- and bust cycles. We use data of Norwegian firms from a broad range of sectors in the period 2005–2015, and both replicate and extend previous findings on the relationship between cash and performance over the business cycle. We find that i) cash has a positive, but weakly diminishing effect on operational firm performance (ROA) throughout the entire sample period, and ii) that the curvilinear relationship between cash and firm performance is the most pronounced in the pre-recession years, while it is virtually linearly positive in recessions and post-recession periods. We conclude that cash indeed has an impact on firms’ operational performance, and especially so in recessionary times.

Introduction

     Traditionally, strategy scholars have disregarded cash as a strategic asset (e.g. Barney, 1986), while finance scholars have viewed cash holdings as a signal that a firm lacks profitable investment opportunities or have managerial issues (e.g. Jensen, 1986). Recent studies have questioned these views by documenting that cash may indeed be positively related to performance (Kim & Bettis, 2014), and that contextual factors such as state of the business cycle (Nason & Patel, 2016) and competitive dynamics (Deb et al., 2017, Jung et al., 2020, O’Brien and Folta, 2009) are important moderators for the strength of the cash-performance relationship.

     While this recent research stream has made important advancements to our understanding of the relationship between cash and firm performance, we know less about how these insights can be generalized to other contexts than large, listed (manufacturing) companies operating in relatively stable periods, and if relationships between cash and market-based measures of performance also holds for operational measures of performance. Currently, most studies on the cash-performance relationship use samples of large, listed, US, (manufacturing) firms (e.g. Deb et al., 2017; Jung et al., 2020; Kim & Bettis, 2014; O’Brien & Folta, 2009), study relatively stable periods and not more turbulent times such as economic downturns where financing constraints tends to increase (Forseth et al., 2015), and/or use market-based measures of firm performance such as Tobin’s Q as their dependent variables (e.g. Deb et al., 2017; Jung et al., 2020; Kim & Bettis, 2014; O’Brien & Folta, 2009).

Conclusion

     The purpose of this paper was to examine the relationship between cash and firm performance over the business cycle.

     Throughout our analysis we find that cash has a positive impact on firm performance across the different phases of the business cycle. The linear term of cash is highly significant in all our models and across all time periods. The quadratic term is less consistent; in some cases, we identify a curvilinear relationship, whilst sometimes the quadratic term is low and insignificant indicating a linear relationship between cash and firm performance.

     After running our full and expanded models, we conclude that the curvilinear relationship between cash and performance is weakly curvilinear for our sample of Norwegian firms, and that this curve-linearity is the most pronounced in the pre-recession period, and more or less linear during the recession and post-recession periods.

     In closing, we believe that our results add to an important stream of research at the intersection of strategy and finance. Mainstream theories, especially in strategy discard cash and other financial assets as less important drivers for heterogeneity and performance differences. Our findings, and the findings of the studies we build on, challenge these assumptions. It is, however, important to note that cash seems more likely as an indirect source of performance differences, through enabling firms to make investments and deploy strategies that in turn create performance heterogeneity. That is, cash appears to be less of a king, but more a key member of the court that pull some important strings.

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical underpinning and hypotheses

3. Research methodology

4. Results

5. Conclusion and implications

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Appendix 1

References

Vitae

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of firm-level research and development (R&D) and country-level innovation on the relationship between geographic scope and financial performance. Using econometric estimation to analyze data from a sample of 339 United Kingdom (UK) service companies over the period from 2011 to 2017, we found a concave relationship between geographic scope and financial performance. Moreover, the results indicated that UK service companies that increase their R&D expenditure accrue a higher performance from higher geographic scope. This is because the relationship becomes convex but the foreign country’s innovation has no direct effect on UK service companies’ performance. Additional results showed that performance differences from geographic scope and the influence of firm-level R&D and country-level innovation exist between SMEs and large firms, and between private and public firms.

1. Introduction

In today’s knowledge-based economy, innovation has emerged as the cornerstone of activities of many successful companies in both mature and emerging economies (see Afuah, 2009; Alnuaimi et al., 2012; Amankwah-Amoah, 2021; Dodgson et al., 2008; Mudambi, 2008). For many firms, innovation has long remained the “lifeblood” which buttresses their market competitiveness and ability to leapfrog market leaders (Alegre and Chiva, 2008; Balachandra and Friar, 1997;Biemans and Griffin, 2018). Accordingly, firms increasingly require innovation to not only revive failing products but to also avoid annihilation.

In recent decades, internet technologies coupled with declining cost of communication have provided ample opportunities for international businesses to innovate and create conditions that make success in foreign markets more likely (Amankwah-Amoah et al., 2021b; Cavusgil et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2018). Extant literature has sought to understand some critical factors and contemporary issues in the international business environment that act as enablers for firms to enhance their performance (Castellani et al., 2018; Perlmutter, 2017). Of these, innovation, which is a reflection of research and development (R&D) in both firm-level and country-level activities, has long been the subject of intensive research enquiry (Eggert et al., 2015; Hausman, 2005; Woodside, 1995). Despite the important insights offered by past studies, there remains lack of clarity concerning the potential effects of firm-level R&D and host-country-level innovation activities on the performance of foreign geographic scope (i.e., the total number of foreign countries in which a firm operates). Specifically, there remains limited insight on whether firm-level R&D and host-country-level innovation could moderate the association between foreign geographic scope (FGS) and financial performance. Indeed, cross-national integration of firm activities can be hampered by host-country and location-specific conditions such as access to talent and cost of labor (Cavusgil et al., 2020).

Abstract

     The mission of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) is to serve those who solve complex and critical problems of the world. Notably, the research–practice gap in Operations Management (OM) marginalizes the value and relevance of the IISE. To maintain and enhance the impact of the IISE, we identify major bottlenecks that limit the industrial installation of OM research outcomes. Ranked by the relative importance, the three bottlenecks are verifying the performance improvement, building trust with practitioners, and balancing model accuracy and simplicity, respectively, in the stages of value verification, implementation and development. We propose potential research opportunities and illustrate the challenges and opportunities using real case studies from three Fortune Global 500 companies. In particular, we emphasize the role of data-driven decision methods in dealing with the three bottlenecks.

Introduction

     It is crucial for the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) to guide Operations Management (OM) practitioners toward achieving OM practice excellence. The mission of the IISE is to serve OM practitioners who solve complex and critical problems encountered in the world, and often need to deal with complicated and integrated systems that suffer from customer dissatisfaction, excess inventory costs, and low product quality. Therefore, it is imperative for the IISE to capture the full potential of successful OM practice.

     However, the academia that studies OM has generally been following, rather than leading, business practices (Simchi-Levi, 2014). The inability to lead OM practices is often due to numerous failed implementations of OM models. After many years of OM projects with industry collaborators, we cannot emphasize enough how important a successful implementation is for a research project. Further, we are astonished by the difficulties associated with ensuring an OM implementation with precise and unified standards across different departments. Companies have been appropriately cautious about new OM models because they cannot fully reap its benefits (Ibanez et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2021).

Conclusions

     The future is promising as more OM research tends to bring the theoretical studies close to practical issues. The authors have extracted the data of all the 300 OM-related projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) from 2016 to 2021. Table 1 categorizes the subjects of all the projects by new business model, new technology & Supply Chain Management (SCM) finance, product & behavior, green & health-care & agriculture, and traditional SCM. It is surprising to see that almost all the subjects are driven by real practices, and few project proposals even involve preliminary plans for industrial implementations.

     The academic community has always emphasized novel and mathematically provable methods and reproducible results, yet none of which are required for complex realworld issues (Sodhi and Tang, 2008). To thrive, the ISE research community should focus on overcoming the challenges that hinder successful practical applications and embrace cooperation with data-driven decision methods so that our research community will stay relevant and impactful. Combined with real case studies, we list and analyze the key challenges. Ultimately, these challenges can stimulate research opportunities such as user-centric algorithms and explainability. We hope that this article will encourage more ISE researchers to embark on research that can help close the gap when it comes to implementing new OM research ideas into practice.

Abstract

     This paper explores the role that IT capability (IT-c) plays in firm innovation performance through the channel of organisational learning (OL) in Kenya. It frames OL in two dimensions: explorative and exploitative OL. The former entails seeking new knowledge, which mainly exists outside the firm’s competence. The latter is an activity or process that builds on existing competence and knowledge in the firm. Using mediation analysis of 481 firms drawn from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (2013) and Innovation Follow-up Survey 2014, it demonstrates that IT-c has a significant effect on innovation performance of firms (capability to simultaneously improve products, processes, organising and market development). It finds that the mediative role of OL in the relationship between IT-c and innovation performance is realised mainly through explorative learning, whilst enabling the firm exploit existing (in-house) knowledge base. The paper puts forward some managerial, policy and further research suggestions.

Introduction

     Information technology (IT)Footnote1 is changing how businesses are conducted and holds promise for firms. The deployment of IT in business is evident in the shift in business activities towards its use to create value in new ways for the firm and customers (Gobble, 2018). Whilst recognition of the adoption of IT amongst firms is not an issue, the fundamental questions arise in the empirical establishment of the business value of IT and the mechanisms through which it is realised in firms (Kuusisto, 2015). The business value or performance effect of IT refers to its benefit(s) for firms as may be captured in various ways, for example improvement in product development and process improvement, return on asset or any economic added value for the firm that derives from IT (Bharadwaj, 2000). In the context of this study, the business value of IT in focus is the contribution of IT to “product, process, organisational and marketing improvement”, for which this study applies the term innovation performance.

     Earlier studies provide evidence for the performance effect of IT (Bharadwaj, 2000; Wade & Hulland, 2004). However, it is insufficient to identify its direct impact on firms, without the complementary resources that account for the impact (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). Lee et al. (2014) support this position. They argue that there is evidence for the effect of IT on firms, but “we still have limited understanding about the process through which IT contributes to business value” (p. 111). This is rooted in the thinking that IT has little or no significance for firms if not integrated with firms’ resources and processes. An established firm process that accounts for differences in firms’ performance is organisational learning (OL).Footnote2 Accordingly, Tippins and Sohi (2003) argue that OL could be a missing link in the business value of IT. OL is important because it is a source of competitive advantage. Firms that learn are able to gather information about the market and tend to be more flexible hence can respond to changes in the business environment (Jiménez-Jiménez & Sanz-valle, 2011). Such firms are also able to build on their existing knowledge and modify internal practices to improve product development, process and find new markets. This positions OL as a key mediator of the impact of IT on firms.

Conclusions and Reflections

     This study sets out to explore the role that IT capability (IT-c) plays in firm innovation performance through the channel of organisational learning (OL) in Kenya. It establishes that IT-c has a significant effect on innovation performance of firms, enhancing their capability to simultaneously improve products, processes, organising and market development. This effect is mainly realised through the OL orientation of firms. It finds that the mediative role of OL in the relationship between IT-c and innovation performance is realised mainly through explorative learning in form of research-oriented and experimentation-oriented learning whilst enabling the firm exploit existing knowledge. The study has managerial and policy implications.

     Top management who make decisions on investment in IT such as software acquisition, website development and other shared platforms and IT skills should think of integration with internal processes. IT-related investment and activities must take into account the competence and practices that encourage research, staff training and re-using knowledge for innovation. The business value of IT lies in its capability to enhance these activities and practices. Investing in IT infrastructure whilst keeping organisational culture that discourages new ideas can weaken the expected outcome.

Abstract

     A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) launched by the Bank of England could enable businesses to directly make electronic payments. It can be argued that digital payment is helpful in supply chain management applications. However, the adoption of CBDC in the supply chain could bring new turbulence since the CBDC value may fluctuate. Therefore, this paper intends to optimize the production plan of manufacturing supply chain based on a volatility clustering model by reducing CBDC value uncertainty. We apply both GARCH model and machine learning model to depict the CBDC volatility clustering. Empirically, we employed Baltic Dry Index, Bitcoin and exchange rate as main variables with sample period from 2015 to 2021 to evaluate the performance of the two models. On this basis, we reveal that our machine learning model overwhelmingly outperforms the GARCH model. Consequently, our result implies that manufacturing companies’ performance can be strengthened through CBDC uncertainty reduction.

Introduction

     Cryptocurrencies, represented by Bitcoin, have exhibited a significant impact on the current financial system (Easley et al., 2019, Zhang and Li, 2020, Huynh et al., 2021, Jin et al., 2021, Prat and Walter, 2021), especially after the outbreak of COVID-19 (Guo et al., 2021, Diniz-Maganini et al., 2021) and Fintech development (Le et al., 2021, Chaudhry et al., 2022). As a result, to confront and replace such an emerging private digital currency system, the Bank of England announced the launch of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which served as a new form of digital currency issued by the Bank of England and can be used by households and businesses (BenDhaou and Rohman, 2018, Vessio, 2021).

     Since CBDC is still under development, copious of scholars advocate the adoption of blockchain techniques into CBDC systems, which can yield a number of benefits, such as increased payment safety and information transparency (Sun et al., 2017, Sethaput and Innet, 2021). Moreover, several countries have already signified the adoption of blockchain in their CBDC payment systems (Xu and Zou, 2021). On the other hand, bitcoin is an exceedingly representative digital coin based on the blockchain technique (Hughes et al., 2019, Jiang et al., 2022). Consequently, we use bitcoin to depict blockchain-based digital currency, which aligns with the future development trend of digital currency like CBDC.

Conclusion

     In summary, the main issue for this paper to accommodate is to deliver a sensible production plan based on the volatility clustering model regarding manufacturing companies with the application of CBDC in the supply chain. We unravel the fact that CBDC volatility can generate considerable effect on the supply chain management for manufacturing companies. Consequently, manufacturing companies formulate the production plan based on volatility clustering model can be helpful in the reduction of uncertainties from both CBDC and BDI. Our framework is based on the volatility clustering model, and we schedule company-related activities into low-volatility periods. Under such a framework, we can thereby reduce the overall uncertainty levels faced by manufacturing companies, as both CBDC and BDI uncertainties can be lessened through rescheduling.

     To capture the feature of CBDC volatility, we meld both BTC volatility and GBP volatility in the rescheduling model, where BTC represents the digital currency side of CBDC and GBP represents the sovereign currency side of CBDC. We first used the GARCH model as the volatility clustering model for production planning, where the model performance is inferior. We argue that if we can consider volatilities in both time series simultaneously and filter the noise from the time series, the model performance could be enhanced. Hence, we adopt the DBSCAN technique, which is a type of machine learning approach to achieve these two goals, and the performance actually has been improved. Thus, we can conclude that manufacturing companies’ production plans can be strengthened through uncertainty reduction. We combine BTC volatility with GBP volatility to reveal the CBDC volatility effect on SCM, and we schedule the production plan within those low volatility periods for both BTC and GBP accordingly. On this basis, our model verifies that the enhanced production plan can help companies to have better cost and revenue management, as it reduces costs and increases revenue.

Abstract

     Although franchise and management contracts constitute the dominant way of organizing business-to-business relationships within hotel chains, no study has compared their relative performance. This paper aims to explain their differences and assess their impact on online scores, currently a key performance indicator in the hotel industry. We argue that franchises are less effective than management contracts for operating upscale hotels due to the relative advantages that the latter have in transferring and enforcing tacit knowledge, typically embedded in skilled staff and very relevant in such quality-tier hotels. Conversely, franchising is better for large hotels because, first, its incentive structure better addresses managerial shirking (typically more severe as hotel size increases) and, second, it offers advantages when the standardization of business procedures is key to success (as is true for large establishments). Our empirical findings broadly support these arguments in a dataset of 467 Spanish hotels, also providing evidence that no single organizational solution fits all situations.

Introduction

     Like the tourism industry, the hotel sector has grown significantly in recent decades. According to the World Tourism Organization, international tourist arrivals rose worldwide from 686 million in 2000 to 1461 million in 2019.1 This growth has facilitated hotel firm specialization, driving companies to focus on fewer supply chain stages (Stigler, 1951). A clear example is the move by the world’s leading hotel groups to divest properties (i.e., real estate business) and specialize in hotel operations and brand management (Blal & Bianchi, 2019).

     This tendency has resulted in the so-called asset-light and fee-oriented (ALFO) strategy (Li & Singal, 2019; Sohn, Tang and Jang, 2013, Sohn, Tang and Jang, 2014), which relies critically on the development of effective business-to-business relationships between hoteliers. Started years ago by US market leaders, such as Marriot and Hilton, the ALFO strategy is currently a dominant industry trend (Balyozyan, Perret, & Martin, 2017; Mercier, 2020). Its aim is to grow by developing brands and business concepts and then incorporating affiliated hotels that pay a fee for their use. However, this affiliation means that several independent firms must cooperate by contributing the assets that are necessary to offer a full lodging service.

Conclusion, managerial implications, and limitations

     In sum, this work shows that differences in performance exist between the two main business-to-business organizational solutions that constitute the ALFO strategy, so one size does not fit all (i.e., solutions are contingent on organizational problems). Management contracts prove more effective than franchising in upscale hotels. We argue that this is because transferring tacit knowledge within the organization (as management contracts do) is less costly than transferring it between companies (as franchising does). Conversely, we also find that franchise agreements outperform management contracts for operating large hotels in terms of online scores, arguably because they provide high-powered incentives to prevent managerial shirking and facilitate the standardization and codification of business procedures.

     The theoretical implication of this work is that to explain the choice of the business-to-business relationship, it is necessary to understand not only the problem we want to solve (the replication of a business concept without large capital investments) but also the comparative advantages of the organizational solutions applied (i.e., management contract vs. franchising). Hua et al. (2020) have recently shown that management contracts provide value, and we qualify this by stating that part of this added value is because they guarantee the transfer of tacit knowledge better than a franchise contract does. Overall, a deeper analysis of governance choice is necessary to disentangle the still fuzzy category of so-called hybrid governance solutions (Williamson, 1991). Studies comparing extreme governance mechanisms (i.e., hierarchy and market) with specific hybrid solutions are relatively frequent. However, the delimitation of hybrids and their differences have been much less studied (Cuypers et al., 2021). In this sense, these results help advance understanding of the two leading hybrid solutions of the hotel industry (ALFO).