Alliance management capability and SMEs’ international expansion : The role of innovation pathways

Although alliance management capability (AMC) has been widely investigated as a firm-level performance driver, it is still unclear whether and how this distinctive type of relational capability can enhance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) internationalization activity. By integrating the alliance capability literature and resource-based view (RBV), as well as using data collected from a sample comprising 248 SMEs in UK manufacturing industries, we address this gap by examining the mechanisms through which SMEs can expand their internationalization via collaboration. We found support for our contention that AMC enhances radical and incremental co-innovation in SMEs, culminating in the international expansion of these firms. Additionally, we reveal the moderating effects of alliance partner diversity on the AMC and co-innovation relationship. The results offer both theoretical and managerial insights, contributing to a better understanding of how SMEs can leverage AMC to drive their global expansion strategies.© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Nonprofit-business collaboration strategy: operationalising a strategy for nonprofit organisations

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs)1 have become a key provider of public services (Kelly, 2007). In recent years, however, the environment in which NPOs operate has become increasingly challenging due to a number of factors, including an increase in uncertainty over government funding policy (Akingbola, 2004, Anheier, 2009), an intensification in rivalry between NPOs (Chew and Osborne, 2009), and a lack of employee commitment (Kong, 2008). Osborne et al. (2012) have found that in response to such challenges NPOs are, for instance, re-engineering their operations to reduce overhead costs, achieving economies of scale through merging with counterparts, emphasizing the leadership role of trustees, and replacing government funding with new and untraditional streams of income. This chapter concerns the latter in regard to nonprofit business collaboration (NBC), specifically how and under what conditions NPOs can collaborate with businesses to support their organizational sustainability. As a strategic option for NPOs, this aspect of NBC inquiry has been largely overlooked (Al-Tabbaa et al., 2014, Cantrell et al., 2008, Harris, 2012). The chapter is organized into three principal sections. In the first, we review the NBC literature and present the concept of NBC as a tripartite value-creation mechanism. Importantly, we use this review to identify a salient gap in the nonprofit and NBC literatures: NBC from the perspective of the NPO. In addressing this gap, the second section introduces a conceptual framework that we developed to assist NPOs in developing and operationalizing an NBC strategy. The framework is based on the three elements of strategy: context (the environment in which an organization operates), content (the choices to achieve the strategy purpose) and process (the formulation and implementation of the chosen strategy) (Pettigrew, 1985, Pettigrew and Whipp, 1991). However, using this concept of strategy to study public services providers (e.g., NPOs) can be criticized due to its manufacturing origins (Beck et al., 2008, Dart, 2004). Therefore, we review the service management approach (Osborne et al., 2013, Osborne, 2009, Thomas, 2012) to demonstrate how our framework, and it theoretical foundation , is still relevant to NPOs, thus enhancing its validity. We conclude the chapter with an evaluation of NBC-related risks and threats to NPOs and consider implications for future research and practice

R&D Alliances and SMEs Post-Entry Internationalization Speed : The Impact of Alliance Management Capability and Co-innovation Ambidexterity

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Academics engaging in knowledge transfer and co-creation : Push causation and pull effectuation?

Although academics are increasingly engaging with businesses, some fundamental aspects of this phenomenon (i.e., their motivations, decision-making approaches, and the interplay between the two) remain understudied. We therefore conducted a qualitative inductive study comprising 68 interviews with academics who had engaged in two forms of activities—knowledge transfer and co-creation. Whereas the entrepreneurship literature offers a resource-based argument, we made an original contribution to the literature by introducing an engagement-based argument in order to offer a more accurate prediction of the motivations and decision-making approaches of academics engaged in knowledge transfer and co-creation activities. We found that when the resource- and engagement-based arguments offer different predictions of the interplay between the motivations and decision-making approaches adopted, the cognitive proximity between academics and business researchers, which reflects whether the partners are from the same/different disciplines, resolves the puzzle. We captured these situational contingencies by developing six propositions that indicate how the engagement- and resource-based arguments jointly offer a more comprehensive explanation of the interplay. We discuss the implications of our findings with regard to how universities could offer customized training, rewards, and support structures based on the four types of interplay between the motivation and decision-making approaches.© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Corporate Foresight : A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research trajectories

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Exploring Consumers’ Discontinuance Intention of Remote Mobile Payments during Post-Adoption Usage: An Empirical Study

Despite being critical to continuous technology usage, research on remote mobile payments (m-payments) post-adoption usage has received much less attention. Furthermore, information systems usage research has traditionally been positively oriented, generally assuming that the inhibiting and enabling factors influencing technology usage as being the opposite sides of one dimension, which may result in overlooking antecedents to technology continuance. Therefore, this study aims to explore the inhibiting factors that may directly influence customers’ intention to discontinue m-payments during post-adoption usage. Drawing on behavioral theories, information systems and marketing research this study explores the inhibiting factors directly influencing consumers’ intentions to discontinue using m-payments. Survey data was collected from 254 current users in the UK and PLS-SEM technique is employed to test hypotheses. The results show that poor quality of system, information, and service, as usage inhibitors, directly influence consumers’ discontinuance intentions. Importantly, usage frequency is found to have no moderating effect on the inhibitors of continuance intention, supporting the notion about different and asymmetric effects that negative factors can have on technology usage compared to positive ones. This interesting finding suggests that negative user experience will have different and asymmetric effects on intentions to use m-payments than positive user experience

Collaboration and Internationalization of SMEs: Insights and Recommendations from a Systematic Review

This article performs a systematic literature review of the undeniably diverse – and somewhat fragmented – current state of research on the collaborations and internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We analyze key works and synthesize them into a framework that conceptually maps key antecedents, mediators, and moderators that influence the internationalization of SMEs. In addition, we highlight limitations of the literature, most notably in terms of theoretical fragmentation; extant theories are deployed and illustrated but rarely extended in a manner that significantly informs subsequent work. At an applied (but related) level, we argue the need for supplementary work that explores the distinct stages of internationalization – and the scope and scale of this process – rather than assuming closure around particular events. With this, we highlight the need for more rigorous and empirically informed explorations of contextual effects that take account of the consequences of developments in the global economic ecosystem

Technology-based inter-organisational relationships: new insights for social and innovation implications

This research expands theoretical and empirical understanding about the social and innovation implications of smart contracting on inter-organisational relationships. Smart contracting is a digital agreement recorded on blockchain and able to autonomously execute actions when encoded conditions are satisfied. Using the social capital perspective, authors analysed insights collected from field experts and executives of firms that either use this technology or facilitate its implementation. The findings revealed that smart contracting directly affects the formation and structure of inter-organisational social capital, which can subsequently contribute to innovation performance. Authors developed an evidence-based model that critically integrates factors influencing the relationship between social capital and innovation performance in the smart contracting settings. Interestingly, system trust, as trust in technology, is found to be the key contextual factor, driving most aspects of technology-based inter-organisational collaborations. The research advances our understanding of how inter-organisational relationships can evolve in the technology-based settings

Adaptive learning in cross-sector collaboration during global emergency: Conceptual insights in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

This paper addresses the important role of cross-sector partnerships and collaboration in global emergency management, relevant in situations such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and grand global challenges. We offer a conceptual discussion that explicates the vital role of such partnerships in global emergencies. We also highlight the instrumental role of adaptive learning in cross-sector partnerships, which can help multiple stakeholders create and deliver value in response to an emergency like a global health pandemic caused by the COVID-19. Along with the conceptual discussion, we further offer practical examples of cross-sector partnerships in emerging economies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Nigeria—undertaken in response to the recent pandemic—emphasizing that such partnerships are crucial to mitigate the emergencies and their consequences on society. Finally, the paper offers theoretical and practical implications for cross-sector collaboration and partnerships in response to the global crisis

Social capital to facilitate ‘engineered’ university–industry collaboration for technology transfer: A dynamic perspective

Over the last decade, social capital concept has received considerable amount of research being regarded as an important value creation mechanism. However, we still have limited understanding about the nature of interaction between the dimensions of this capital, and how it can be useful in mitigating the impediments evolving during government-sponsored (i.e., engineered) university–industry collaboration (UIC). In this paper, we address the previous gap by analyzing the dynamics of social capital dimensions during the preformation and postformation stages of UIC. The paper relies on a unique context that comprises five embedded case studies of UIC for technology transfer: the Faraday Partnership Initiative, a UK government-backed novel scheme for enhancing innovation. The analysis shows that the impact and interaction of the dimensions were not static but rather varying over time. Further, we present a new value creation framework for social capital through mapping its power in reducing the intensity of difficulties emerged during the collaboration lifetime. We also identify two facilitating factors as critical in creating and maintaining social capital in engineered UIC. The present study thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the value of inter-organizational social capital