Dark side of sharing economy: examining the unethical practices and its impact on coopetition and firm performance

The business model for the sharing economy is becoming popular in business-to-business marketing literature. Firms can utilize resources of other firms lying idle and reduce cost, optimize resource utilization and achieve greater flexibility. Some organizations also share their resources with rival firms. However, there are concerns about unethical practices by rival firms, which may be due to the misuse of data, human resources, and intellectual property, and so on. Few studies have investigated the unethical practices that may take place in the sharing economy, but there is a growing interest among the practitioners, researchers, and academicians in this area. Therefore, this study examines the unethical practices that could take place in the sharing economy and their impact on B to B cooperation and competition among rival firms and on firm performance. From the literature review and theories, a theoretical model has been developed. The model is later validated using the structural equation modelling technique considering samples from 16 firms involved in sharing resources. The study found that there is a significant negative impact of unethical practices in the sharing economy for B to B coopetition, which in turn negatively impacts firm performance

Adoption of ubiquitous crm for operational sustainability of the firms: Moderating role of technology turbulence

Ubiquitous CRM (UCRM) enhances customer relationship management. It can sense customer needs and demands, to which firms can respond quickly. Therefore, UCRM helps to improve a firm’s agility. There is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners to understand how the adoption of UCRM impacts the sustainability of firms’ operations, but not many studies have investigated this issue. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine how firms’ absorptive capacity and dynamic capability could impact the adoption of UCRM to influence the operational sustainability of the firms and their performance. The study also investigates the moderating role of technology turbulence on the relationship between a firm’s operational sustainability and its per-formance. Using absorptive capacity theory and dynamic capability view theory and reviewing the existing literature, we developed a conceptual model. The model was then validated using a structural equation modeling technique considering 309 usable respondents from different firms that use UCRM for their operational activities. The study found that firms’ absorptive capacity and dynamic capability significantly and positively impact the adoption of UCRM, which in turn significantly and positively impacts firms’ operational sustainability and improves their performance. The study also shows that there is a significant moderating role of technology turbulence on the relationship between operational sustainability and firm performance