The use of social media by exporting B2B SMEs, implications for performance

Previously held under moratorium from 1st December 2016 until 1st December 2021.The evolution of social media enables the creation of virtual customer environments where online communications have impacted increasingly on the marketing environment. As such, 21st century firms need to consider the many opportunities that social media present. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the SMEs Business-to-Business (B2B) context, this thesis aims to “empirically investigate SMEs B2B firms’ actual use of social media and how it impacts their export performance”. This study contributes to the emerging SMEs B2B digital marketing literature by determining, firstly, the factors that affect SMEs B2B firms using social media and, secondly, the mechanism through which SMEs B2B firms can potentially benefits from using social media in their exporting efforts. A number of hypotheses were developed building on the available literature. These hypotheses were examined using data from a sample of 277 British firms from different industries. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that the usage of social media is affected significantly by perceived ease of use; perceived relative advantage; and subjective norms. Additionally, both the firm’s training and innovativeness enhance the relationship between subjective norms and social media use. The results reveal, also, that the social media use influences export performance indirectly through the quality of international business contacts; understanding customers’ views and preferences; and understanding competition in different markets. However, the link between social media use and export performance is not indirectly influenced by the number of international business contacts and brand awareness. Furthermore, customer engagement enhances the relationships between social media use and the aforementioned factors through which social media use indirectly influences export performance. Cultural adaptation enhances, also, the relationships between understanding customers’ views and preferences;understanding competition in different markets; and export performance. Important implications for how SMEs B2B firms may benefit best from using social media for their exporting efforts and future research are derived from the findings.The evolution of social media enables the creation of virtual customer environments where online communications have impacted increasingly on the marketing environment. As such, 21st century firms need to consider the many opportunities that social media present. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the SMEs Business-to-Business (B2B) context, this thesis aims to “empirically investigate SMEs B2B firms’ actual use of social media and how it impacts their export performance”. This study contributes to the emerging SMEs B2B digital marketing literature by determining, firstly, the factors that affect SMEs B2B firms using social media and, secondly, the mechanism through which SMEs B2B firms can potentially benefits from using social media in their exporting efforts. A number of hypotheses were developed building on the available literature. These hypotheses were examined using data from a sample of 277 British firms from different industries. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that the usage of social media is affected significantly by perceived ease of use; perceived relative advantage; and subjective norms. Additionally, both the firm’s training and innovativeness enhance the relationship between subjective norms and social media use. The results reveal, also, that the social media use influences export performance indirectly through the quality of international business contacts; understanding customers’ views and preferences; and understanding competition in different markets. However, the link between social media use and export performance is not indirectly influenced by the number of international business contacts and brand awareness. Furthermore, customer engagement enhances the relationships between social media use and the aforementioned factors through which social media use indirectly influences export performance. Cultural adaptation enhances, also, the relationships between understanding customers’ views and preferences;understanding competition in different markets; and export performance. Important implications for how SMEs B2B firms may benefit best from using social media for their exporting efforts and future research are derived from the findings

Exploring the link between sustainable development practices, institutional pressures, and green innovation

Academics, business leaders, and policymakers are paying more and more attention to sustainable development. The influence of external forces on sustainable development practices, which could predict green innovation, is, however, still unexplored. This paper seeks to explore the role of external pressures on sustainable development practices in the driving of green innovation in Saudi Arabia. We took a quantitative approach through an online survey to collect the required data from manufacturing companies in Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. The results revealed that institutional pressures (i.e., governance pressure, customer pressures, and competitive pressure) are key drivers of sustainable development practices and green innovation. They also indicated that sustainable development practices (i.e., environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic environmental sustainability) have a significant influence on green innovation. Our findings lead us to propose that green innovation is influenced by external pressures and sustainable development practices

Ensuring a sustainable hospitality and tourism industry in the COVID-19 era:using an open market valuation technique

Tourism has always been one of the most profitable service industries. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry is facing some big problems. As a result, the tourism industry lost a lot of money. This paper aims to find and rank recovery solutions to help the tourism industry. This article investigates two key areas: firstly, how government aid can best be prioritised among the various subsectors of the hospitality and tourism industry, and secondly, whether public assessment of the measures the US government took against the pandemic is related to the outlook for recovery, including the role played by perceptions of government performance and efficacy at handling the crisis and self-efficacy in terms of avoiding infection. Two studies were conducted among US consumers, using different methods of data collection and analysis. The first study utilised an open market valuation technique to explore how governmental aid might be prioritised among the tourism and hospitality industries. The second study used AMOS/SEM to examine travellers’ positive perceptions of the likelihood of hospitality and tourism industry recovery. Study 1 found that all six industry subsectors investigated (hotels, airlines, restaurants, car rentals, casinos and cruise lines) had been influenced negatively by COVID-19, with the heaviest impact felt by hotels and cruise lines. Study 2 indicated that the level of public satisfaction with the US government’s performance in addressing the pandemic was positively related to expectations of hospitality and tourism industry recovery. The findings could guide policymakers in deciding how best to allocate public funds between the different subsectors of the hospitality and tourism industry

Understanding the Relationship between Big Data Analytics Capabilities and Sustainable Performance: The Role of Strategic Agility and Firm Creativity

The most successful organisations create businesses that can respond to sudden and unexpected changes in the market. The purpose of this research is to examine how big data analytics capabilities might, through strategic agility, impact on sustainable performance. We grounded our theoretical framework in two perspectives: the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities view. In order to gather data from Saudi Arabian managers, we used the positivist methodology of a survey. Data were collected from 410 managers. The data were analysed using the SEM method. The findings indicated that big data analytics capabilities have a significant effect on economic, environmental, and social performance. They also revealed that strategic agility partially mediates the relationship between the capabilities of big data analytics and sustainable performance. Furthermore, the impact of big data analytics capabilities on strategic agility is stronger in a creative environment, while the strategic agility–sustainable performance relationship is more pronounced in more creative environments. The findings offer firms an insight into the actual benefits that big data analytics may generate and how firms may align the use of big data analytics with industrial conditions to foster sustainable performance

Brand safety: the effects of controversial video content on pre-roll advertising

Newspapers have reported instances of famous brands' ads running as pre-rolls to terrorist videos on YouTube. Subsequent brand safety fears have led to advertisers pulling their YouTube ads. This study, a lab experiment, tested the effects of program quality and content—particularly violent, sexual or extremist content—on pre-roll ads. The experiment used measures from studies showing significant broadcast TV content effects on mid-roll advertising, using more extreme cable TV content to increase the chances of finding significant effects on pre-roll ads. Overall, the effects were minimal, with no effects on brand attitudes, ad liking, or three ad memory components—encoding, storage, and retrieval. In contrast to research showing program context effects on mid-roll advertising, context effects (e.g., on brand safety) do not seem an issue for pre-roll ads. A brand's reputation might suffer negative effects from pre-roll advertising in other ways, however. A limitation is that this study did not re-test the effects of controversial content on mid-roll advertising