Is Sustainable Competitive Advantage an Achievable Holy Grail: The Relevance Gap between Academia and Business

Competitive advantage, especially sustainable competitive advantage, is one of the most celebrated concepts in business research and strategic management fields in particular. It is a common belief that competitive advantage leads to superior performance, and sustainable competitive advantage leads to prolonged superior performance. To survive and prosper in an ever-competitive marketplace where firms operate on a global scale, businesspeople are in dire need of critical information and knowledge that will lend them a competitive edge over their rivals in search for regional, national, international, or global dominance. In fighting for their relevance, business scholars churn out volumes of research, trying their very best to discover, develop, and accumulate knowledge that may be useful for practitioners. This paper takes a close look at the relevance issue between management research and practice, pointing out that researchers must be realistic about their research agenda and practitioners must have reasonable expectations in order for both parties to foster a better and mutually beneficial relationship

An Exploratory Study of Consumer Adoption of Online Shopping: Mediating Effect of Online Purchase Intention

An exploratory study was conducted to investigate consumer adoption of online purchase using a survey data set. Based upon the theory of innovation and self-efficacy theory, risk aversion, online proficiency, shopping convenience, and product choice variety were proposed to influence consumer intention to shop online, which, in turn, affects online purchases. Results of regression analyses revealed that all but shopping convenience were significant predictors of consumer intention to purchase online. In addition, consumer intention directly determines consumer purchases online. Finally, consumer intention to purchase online mediates the relationship of risk aversion, shopping convenience, and product choice variety to online shopping. Research and managerial implications of the findings were discussed

R&D investment, business performance, and moderating role of Guanxi: Evidence from China

Highlights Relationship duration with major clients not only has a direct, negative effect on total income (sales). Relationship duration has a negative moderating effect on the association between research & development (R&D) and total income. Relationship duration with major suppliers has a positive moderating effect on the association between R&D and total profits. Relationship with government has a positive effect on total income, and it also has a negative moderating effect on the R&D-performance chain. Chinese firms over emphasize the importance of guanxi with the government by going overboard or overspending on it