Entrepreneurial orientation and international performance: the moderating effect of decision-making rationality

This research examines how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) influences international performance (IP) of the firm taking into account the moderating effect of decision-making rationality (DR) on the EO–IP association. Such an investigation is significant because it considers the interplay of strategic decision-making processes supported by the bounded rationality concept in the entrepreneurship field. Drawing from a study on activities of 216 firms in the United States and United Kingdom, the evidence suggests that DR positively moderates the EO–IP association. The findings suggest that managers can improve IP by combining EO with rational (analytical) processes in their strategic decisions

Towards a co-creation framework in the retail banking services industry: a cross-cultural analysis

An underlying theme in modern marketing is the notion that value is not solely created within the boundaries of the firm, it is created co-jointly with outside parties. This paper aims to study the outcomes of co-creation from a customer perspective. Specifically, it examines the effects of co-creation on customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth (WOM) within the banking services industry. Furthermore, we consider potential differences between consumers from Spain and the UK, thus incorporating cross-cultural aspects in our research. The research demonstrates that firms should not only respond to the differences that exist within different cultural contexts and incorporate these in co-creation initiatives; more importantly, firms should undertake co-creation activities themselves as these can result in customers who are more satisfied, loyal to the company and more likely to carry out positive WOM, which can ultimately lead to new customers

Business students\u27 personal branding: An empirical investigation

Personal branding is the process by which an individual actively tries to manage others’ impression of their skills, abilities and experiences (Johnson, 2017). It is the marketing of oneself to society (Lair, Sullivan, & Cheney, 2005; Peters, 1997; Shepherd, 2005). While the current job market is touted as being the best in years, employment opportunities for business aspirants in the U.S. economy changed little from 2017 to 2016 when comparing a United States Department of Labor annual report (“United States Department of Labor,” 2018). This suggests that new business graduates continue to face the harsh reality of a challenging environment in terms of future employment prospects. This accentuates a great need for business schools to arm students with the personal branding skills requisite for today’s competitive employment landscape

Mobile Service and Phone as Consumption System -the Impact on Customer Switching

Mobile telecommunications service sector is, in spite of providing high service quality and striving for customer satisfaction, characterized by dynamic customer activities and provider switching. In this research with data from Slovenia we explore the impact of usage, budgetary constraints, involvement and customer characteristics on customers\u27 intention to switch mobile service provider. By using the consumption system perspective on mobile services and mobile phone, we seek to provide explanation on the factors of customer switching. It is shown that the mobile services usage effect on switching intentions is curvilinear (positive linear and negative quadratic) and that only the budgetary constraint regarding the service matters and not the one related to the mobile phone. Past mobile service providers switching experience also contributes to the intention to switch. Mobile phone ego involvement has positive impact on customer retention, however purchase involvement (both mobile phone and mobile services) increases customer risk. This research thus emphasizes the studying of the mobile services system together with its phone subsystem and it based on extensive survey. Managerial implications are discussed

Tone from the Top in Risk Management: A Complementarity Perspective on How Control Systems Influence Risk Awareness

Prompted by the weaknesses of standardized risk management approaches in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, scholars, regulators, and practitioners alike emphasize the importance of creating a risk-aware culture in organizations. Recent insights highlight the special role of tone from the top as crucial driver of risk awareness. In this study, we take a systems-perspective on control system design to investigate the role of tone from the top in creating risk awareness. In particular, we argue that both interactive and diagnostic use of budgets and performance measures interact with tone from the top in managing risk awareness. Our results show that interactive control strengthens the effect of tone from the top on risk awareness, while tone from the top and diagnostic control are, on average, not interrelated with regard to creating risk awareness. To shed light on the boundary conditions of the proposed interdependencies, we further investigate whether the predicted interdependencies are sensitive to the level of perceived environmental uncertainty. We find that the effect of tone from the top and interactive control becomes significantly stronger in a situation of high perceived environmental uncertainty. Most interestingly, tone from the top and diagnostic control are complements with regard to risk awareness in settings of low perceived environmental uncertainty and substitutes at high levels of perceived environmental uncertainty.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie

Before Turning into Ashes: A Study of Entrepreneurial Cognition, Learning, and Exit

Entrepreneurial practices such as discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities, decision-making, and problem solving are influenced by mental processes and cognitive mechanisms. Decision-making studies in the field of entrepreneurship confirm that entrepreneurs have strong tendency to use cognitive mechanisms such as biases and heuristics to simplify their decision-making processes. Compared to non-entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs show higher levels of cognitive bias. By focusing on cognitive mechanisms of entrepreneurs, this study answers the question of why some individuals insist on continuing their entrepreneurial journey while failure-related phenomena such as critical setbacks and counterfactual thoughts exist. Unlike the prior research that have focused on the antecedents of failure and learning outcomes of failure, the current research takes a different approach and studies failure and learning as entrepreneurial journeys rather than simply considering them as incidents or outcomes of a new venture. Therefore, instead of studying ventures that are rising from the ashes, the author investigates the behavior of entrepreneurs before their ventures turn into ashes

Consumer aggression in marketing

Digitalization has changed the ways consumers interact with brands and has led to increasingly empowered consumer markets, where some consumers engage in activities that deliberately try to harm a brand. Against this background, this dissertation introduces a conceptual framework of aggressive consumer behavior toward brands and examines the antecedents leading to such behavior, its outcomes, and how managers can respond to diminish its damage. Paper 1 (Kähr et al. 2016) introduces the phenomenon of consumer brand sabotage (CBS) as a form of hostile aggression and develops a conceptual framework of aggressive consumer behavior toward brands. It explains the psychological mechanisms leading to such aggressive behavior and distinguishes between instrumental and hostile aggression. Manuscript 2 examines the brand damage of CBS as a form of hostile aggression. It studies whether, when, and how a CBS activity affects other observing individuals. Finally, Manuscript 3 investigates how a company should respond to negative electronic word-of-mouth as a form of instrumental aggression depending on its credibility

Crisis Communication in the Public Sector: Influences on Stakeholders’ Experience of Psychological Effects as U.S.-Russia Tensions Rise

As war in Ukraine rages on and the U.S.-Russia relationship becomes increasingly hostile, the need to better understand public sector communication in times of international crisis is once again rising. For years, the public and private sectors have been treated largely the same in crisis communication research and practice. In the context of international crisis, specifically rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia, this study looks at where these differences lie and what that might mean for future research and practice. In contribution to this broader topic, this study looks at the influence of domestic stakeholders’ perceptions of the Biden Administration’s adapting information about the crisis on their experience of psychological effects, anger and anxiety. It was also hypothesized that involvement and political ideology would have moderating effects on this relationship. Through a survey of 644 U.S. citizens and residents, adapting information was shown to have a strong positive correlation with psychological effects. The moderation was insignificant; however, both political ideology and involvement correlated significantly to psychological effects. Findings support treating public and private sector organizations differently in research and practice. Further research is suggested for defining more differences and determining best practices for public sector crisis communication

Role of Trust and Involvement in the Effectiveness of Digital Third-Party Organization Endorsement

In this research, an online experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of the mere presence of digital third-party organization (TPO) endorsement and the quality of information conveyed by a digital TPO, referred to as the endorsement information value effect. Involvement and institution-based trust were tested as moderators of the endorsement information value effect. The results confirm the intuitive belief of managers that the mere presence of a digital TPO endorsement benefits websites by reducing risk perceptions, improving attitudes and increasing choice likelihood. The findings from this research revealed that effectiveness of digital TPO endorsement information value was contingent upon the level of involvement with the effects being found only among high involvement consumers but not among low involvement consumers. Similarly, effectiveness of digital TPO endorsement information value is also contingent on institution-based trust, with the effect of endorsement information value emerging only for low institution-based trust consumers but not for high institution-based trust consumers. Thus, a higher information value digital TPO will increase choice over a low information value digital TPO only if the consumer is highly involved or has low institution-based trust

TEAM AGILITY AND TEAM PERFORMANCE – THE MODERATING EFFECT OF USER INVOLVEMENT

Software development organizations increasingly adopt agile software development (ASD) in order to react to manifold challenges and respond to increasing user expectations. User involvement is men-tioned as the most important success factor in software development projects. However, little is known about the right intensity of user involvement for development teams. The paper investigates the mod-erating effect of different dimensions of user involvement intensity are investigated, i.e. types, practic-es and continuity. While prior research in ASD focuses on the project or method, this paper adopts a team-theoretical view towards agility. In addition, the effect of user involvement on the relationship between team agility on team performance is investigated. A model for team agility and its empirical survey-based investigation is proposed. The expected results extend the nomological net of team re-search in IS and help scholars to extend ASD theory. Practitioners benefit by identifying the right in-tensity of user involvement for their development team