Work engagement and the impact of a social identity crafting approach to leadership: A case from Africa's air transport industry

Purpose Managers of public organizations in liberalized sectors face the dual imperative of retaining skilled employees who might be poached by commercial competitors, and improving service performance levels, without a free hand to invest resources. While employee work engagement has been previously suggested as a solution to such management challenges, limitations in its ability to retain employees have been identified. We therefore examine how a social identity crafting approach to public leadership that confers a sense of group identity among team members, can enhance and extend beyond employee work engagement in addressing this dual imperative. Design/methodology/approach We report findings from a survey of employees (n = 199) in 'ATCO' a state-owned national airline that is facing challenges from commercial rivals within a new, competitive environment.Findings We confirm previously identified limitations of employee work engagement and, further, demonstrate that a social identity approach to leadership offers a promising avenue for public managers not only by enhancing employee engagement but more importantly enhancing retention and service performance. Originality We contribute to studies of leadership, particularly for managers operating in the public sector and resource constrained environments, demonstrating how social identity crafting, which does not require costly investment to attain, can deliver improved service performance and reduced employee turnover intention, operating beyond employee work engagement which reaches a plateau in respect of the latter

Digital sales channels and the relationship between product and international diversification: Evidence from going digital retail MNEs

Supporting information: Additional supporting information can be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of this article, available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1465.Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Research Summary: We argue that in the era of e-commerce, retail firms can simultaneously grow their product and international portfolio by adopting a multichannel strategy, that is, using digital and physical channels. Drawing on the resource bundling perspective, we argue that the previously advocated negative relationship between product and international diversification is mitigated by the retail firm's digital sales intensity. By separately examining product and international diversification across digital and physical channels, we find that while increased product diversification in physical channels relates negatively with international diversification in both physical and digital channels, increased product diversification in digital channels relates positively with international diversification in both channels. Our hypotheses are tested against a sample of 122 born physical - going digital retail MNEs over the period 2006–2016. Managerial Summary: The decision on how firm resources should be allocated for growing a firm's product and international scope has been a continuing debate in corporate strategy. While our research supports the conventional wisdom that product portfolio growth relates negatively to international market growth, we show that firms which increase their digital sales are able to mitigate the costs associated with this relationship. Based on longitudinal data of some of the world's largest retail MNEs, our research shows that retail firms with increased digital sales activity are more capable of mutually benefiting from simultaneously growing their product portfolio and international market presence. Therefore, if a retail firm aims at simultaneously growing its product portfolio and international market presence, it is advisable that they increase their proportion of digital sales (i.e., e-commerce activity)

Architectural marketing capabilities of exporting ventures: the contingent effect of the distributor

Purpose The importance of architectural marketing capabilities (i.e. marketing planning and implementation) in exporting ventures has been recognised. However, extant literature has not taken into account the explicit roles and required synergy between the exporter and their foreign distributor in delivering these capabilities. Drawing from the resource-based theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the complementarity of distributor implementation capability and market orientation with exporter planning capability. Design/methodology/approach The study was carried out using a survey. Data were collected from 147 Greek exporters who replied to our questionnaire and the hypotheses were tested using the full information maximum likelihood estimation procedure. Findings The results support the hypotheses about the importance of exporter planning capability on financial performance and the complementary role of distributor market orientation. Further, the authors find that the distributor’s implementation capability partially mediates the impact of the exporter’s planning capability on financial performance. Originality/value This study contributes to a better understanding about the complementarity of exporter and distributor capabilities. It demonstrates the crucial role of the distributor in the deployment of architectural capabilities for the export venture: the distributor’s market orientation and implementation capability have the final say in achieving higher levels of export performance

Green business strategy and export performance: an examination of boundary conditions from an emerging economy

Purpose: Building upon the insights of the resource-based view and contingency theory, this study investigates the boundary conditions of green business strategy on the export financial performance of firms from an emerging economy. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative study was conducted to test our conceptual model. In total, 224 questionnaires were collected from exporting manufacturing companies and were analyzed using full information maximum likelihood. Findings: The results of the study demonstrate that green business strategy has a strong and positive relationship with export financial performance. Also, environmental orientation and cost leadership play a significant and positive moderating role in this relationship. However, green product differentiation is complementary with green business strategy only when a cost-leadership strategy is also maintained. Practical implications: The study has practical implications since it identifies green business strategy as an important lever for emerging export managers. More specifically, they have to be aware of the challenges when they operate outside the cost leadership boundaries and should actively seek to develop the environmental orientation of employees and managers. Originality/value: This study reveals the relationship between green business strategy and export success for emerging country exporters that are understudied and face unique challenges. In particular, we explore the contingency factors that strengthen or weaken the relationship and provide additional insight to the question: “when does it pay to be green?” for exporters from emerging economies

Internationalization and digitalization: Their differing role on grocer and non-grocer retailer performance

Supplementary materials are available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022435923000337#sec0030 .Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This study investigates the interplay between two critical phenomena in retailing, i.e., internationalization and digitalization, while accounting for retail sector differences. On one hand, internationalization allows retailers to access a wider range of markets, and on the other, digital channel expansion enhances customer reach and convenience within international markets. More specifically, we examine the relationship between retailer internationalization and performance (I-P relationship), and how this relationship is contingent upon the idiosyncrasies of retail sectors (i.e., grocery vs. non-grocery), digitalization, and their combined effects. Building on the liability of foreignness perspective, we first argue that the I-P relationship is U-shaped, because internationalizing retailers initially incur greater costs in their international expansion owing to their unfamiliarity with foreign markets, but as their foreign presence increases, they benefit from greater market power, experience, and scale economies. Then, we contend that as grocers suffer from higher levels of liability of foreignness due to increased requirements for host country embeddedness, non-grocers benefit more from internationalization with any gains and losses further amplified by digitalization. Hypotheses are tested against a panel of the 234 largest international retailers in the world over a 21-year period (1997–2017) and findings support the conjectures

Analysing the macrostructure of spoken strategic communication: an application of argumentation analysis on high-technology newly-public firms’ earnings conference calls

A firm's ability to fulfil their strategic goals largely depends on how they communicate their strategies with stakeholders. Argumentation plays a prominent role in the process of communicating with stakeholders, with the intention of persuading them and achieving goals of strategic significance. In this respect, analysing argument structure is of particular importance, since determining the components that comprise an argument is a prerequisite for evaluating its acceptability and, consequently, its ability to persuade. Therefore, employing a framework that is specifically developed for the analysis of argument structure can help address questions that are not otherwise tractable. The relatively few available empirical studies in strategic communication employ frameworks that are not optimized for spoken communication. As such, there is scope to adapt/refine existing frameworks to facilitate meaningful analysis of spoken strategic communication. In this paper, therefore, we draw on existing frameworks and posit an adaptation that enables us to analyse the macrostructure of spoken arguments. We demonstrate the application of this adapted framework by analysing earnings conference calls involving three high-technology firms and financial analysts. By doing so, our study contributes to management practice and the literatures on strategic communication, as well as financial communications and investor relations

Rules versus Discretion in Committee Decision Making: An Application to the 2001 RAE for UK Economics Departments

The question of rules versus discretion has generated a great deal of debate in many areas of the social sciences. Recently, much of the discussion among academics and stakeholders about the assessment of research in UK higher education institutions has focused on the means that should be used to determine research quality. We present a model of committee decision-making when both rules and discretion are available. Some of the predictions of the model are tested empirically using the UK RAE 2001 results