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Archival institutions must make their holdings and services known to the public to ensure increased usage. It is the obligation of archival institutions to adopt strategies to market their services to increase the usage of their holdings. Therefore, this study aims to assess the National Archives of Zimbabwe’s (NAZ) decentralisation drive as a strategy to market its archival services.

The multiple case study research design, which is interpretive and qualitative, was used for the study. The study used interviews, questionnaires and document review as data collection tools. The collected data were presented, analysed and discussed using the thematic data analysis approach.

Findings revealed that the NAZ decentralised provincial records centres were actively involved in the marketing of archival services offered by the NAZ. The study also established that the decentralised provincial records centres perform activities such as records surveys, training, oral history, issuance of brochures, guided tours and career guidance, which increase their interactions with communities they serve. The decentralised offices took advantage of these interactions to market archival services offered by the NAZ.

The study illustrated that decentralisation of archival institutions and services to the lower tiers of government is a powerful strategy for the marketing of archival services. Therefore, there is need for archival institutions to adopt or enhance the use of this strategy to increase the usage of archives.

Gillette’s historically successful “razor and blade” business model (RBM) has been a promising benchmark for multiple businesses across diverse industries worldwide in the past several decades. The extant literature deals with very few nuances of this business model notwithstanding the fact that there are several variants of this business model being put to practical use by firms in diverse industries in grossly metaphorically equivalent situations.

This study adopts the 2 × 2 truth table framework from the domains of mathematical logic and combinatorics in fleshing out all possible (four logical possibilities) variants of the razor and blade business model for further analysis. This application presents four mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive possibilities on any chosen dimension. Two major dimensions (viz., provision of subsidy and intra- or extra-firm involvement in the making of razors or blades or both) form part of the discussion in this paper. In addition, this study synthesizes and streamlines entrepreneurial wisdom from multiple intra-industry and inter-industry benchmarks in terms of real-time firms explicitly or implicitly adopting several variants of the RBM that suit their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of evolution in situations that are grossly reflective of the metaphorically equivalent scenario of razor and recurrent blades. Inductive method of research is carried out with real-time cases from diverse industries with a pivotally common pattern of razor and blade model in some form or the other.

Several new variants of the razor and blade model (much beyond what the extant literature explicitly projects) have been discovered from the multiple metaphorically equivalent cases of RBM across industries. All of these expand the portfolio of options that relevant entrepreneurial firms can explore and exploit the best possible option chosen from them, given their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of growth.

This study has enriched the literature by presenting and analyzing a more inclusive or perhaps comprehensive palette of explicit choices in the form of several variants of the RBM for the relevant entrepreneurial firms to choose from. Future research can undertake the task of comparing these variants of RBM with those of upcoming servitization business models such as guaranteed availability, subscription and performance-based contracting and exploring the prospects of diverse combinations.

Smart entrepreneurial firms identify and adopt inspiring benchmarks (like razor and blade model whenever appropriate) duly tweaked and blended into a gestalt benchmark for optimal profits and attractive market shares. They target diverse market segments for tied-goods with different variants or combinations of the relevant benchmarks in the form of variegated customer value propositions (CVPs) that have unique and enticing appeal to the respective market segments.

Value-sensitive customers on the rise globally choose the option that best suits them from among multiple alternatives offered by competing firms in the market. As long as the ratio of utility to price of such an offer is among the highest, even a no-frills CVP may be most appealing to one market segment while a plush CVP may be tempting to yet another market segment simultaneously. While professional business firms embrace resource leverage practices consciously, amateur customers do so subconsciously. Each party subliminally desires to have the maximum bang-to-buck ratio as the optimal return on investment, given their priorities ceteris paribus.

Prior studies on the RBM have explicitly captured only a few variants of the razor and blade model. This study is perhaps the first of its kind that ferrets out many other variants (more than ten) of the razor and blade model with due simplification and exemplification, justification and demystification.

The purpose of this study is to examine how different innovation efforts can support multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) pursuits of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in emerging markets and under what circumstances they are applied.

The article comprises in-depth case studies on two high-profile Swedish MNEs: a telecom firm and a fast-fashion firm, with data collected both at the headquarter-level and local-market level.

The study shows that MNEs pursue a selection of prioritized SDGs in emerging markets. To overcome challenges related to attaining these goals, we find that MNEs engage in innovation efforts at different levels of commitment. In some instances, they engage in operational innovation aimed at relieving symptoms of sustainability misconduct and ensuring compliance. In other instances, they engage in systemic innovation efforts, which involve the actual market structures underlying sustainability problems.

MNEs are increasingly incorporating the United Nations SDGs into their innovation strategies. The study contributes to international business research on MNEs’ roles in realizing the SDGs by conceptualizing and discussing two pertinent approaches to innovation.

This study explores how companies’ operations and supply networks can induce social impacts such as enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The study focuses on social enterprises’ supply networks and examines the effects of supply network characteristics on the creation and resolution of social–commercial objectives tension.

A supply network that is divided into five embedded cases, where each case is the supply network of a social enterprise, was studied. Forty-eight interviews at social enterprises, corporate customers, distributors, suppliers, non-governmental organizations and charities were conducted.

The study highlights how social enterprises use their supply networks to help disadvantaged people gain employment, truly balance DEI and efficiency objectives and manage paradoxical tensions. The results reveal three types of social purpose supply networks, dichotomized, paired and blended, that hybrid and for-profit organizations can adopt to jointly pursue multiple, potentially competing, objectives and resolve the paradoxical tensions in their supply networks. The creation and resolution of tension are also clarified by considering dyadic, triadic and tetradic tie structures.

The study contributes to the literature by extending the analysis of paradoxical tension between commercial and social welfare objectives such as DEI to the supply network level and revealing three social purpose supply network structures that depict social enterprises’ different ways to resolve paradoxical tensions. The study contributes to social network theory by describing the dynamic interaction between strong and weak ties in multi-tie structures.

Audit firms have a strong historical tradition of professionalism, but they are also commercial entities. This study aims to investigate the relationship between auditor cash compensation and office-level financial performance.

This study uses proprietary compensation expense and financial performance data from audit offices in China. Using the ordinary least squares regressions, this study tests the association between per capita compensation and office-level financial outcomes.

This study provides evidence that audit offices offering higher compensation achieve more profitable performance, as reflected in increased market share, higher return on assets and greater operating profit margins. Mechanism tests suggest that reductions in auditor turnover, driven by compensation incentives, partially account for this performance improvement. Additional tests show that the benefits of compensation incentives are particularly pronounced in audit firms licensed to conduct listed firm audits or when accompanied by staff training and technical development. Furthermore, both partner-level and staff auditor compensation significantly enhance office-level financial performance. The results might be of interest to both practitioners and regulatory bodies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relationship between auditor cash compensation and audit-office profitability. The findings highlight important policy implications for audit firms seeking to retain high-caliber auditors and maximize their economic benefits through human capital investments, including compensation, education, training and technical development.

In order to determine whether the factors affecting office worker well-being are location dependent, this exploratory study analyses the relative importance of different “building well-being” factors for prime office workers in two leading but environmentally contrastive real estate markets: London and Hong Kong.

This paper adopts a mixed methods sequential explanatory design (follow-up explanations model), consisting of three phases: an exploratory phase to refine the building well-being factors, a quantitative phase utilising a questionnaire to assess the relative importance of these building well-being factors (N = 281: London = 171; Hong Kong = 110), followed by a final phase of follow-up interviews with respondents to explore the reasons behind the significant differences observed in the quantitative phase (N = 13: London = 7; Hong Kong = 6).

While London and Hong Kong share some highly-ranking factors in common, significant differences in importance are observed for 17 of the 31 identified factors as a result of contrasting physical, economic, and cultural environments.

Despite growing recognition of the importance of the built environment on well-being, to the authors’ knowledge there has been no previous research investigating how building well-being demands may vary systematically across geographies. Understanding these differences has important implications for interpreting building well-being research, effective business operations, real estate investment, building certification scheme design, and governance of the built environment.

As placemaking is rapidly changing the urban landscape, the way in which we view real estate assets and their value needs to adapt to meet evolving community demands, where people create places where they want to actually live, play, and work. Increasingly, space in the city is linked to younger generations and the emerging knowledge (gig) economy. This interconnection is shaping current and future cities skylines, with buildings that offer new working and living environments. Foremost are co-living/coworking spaces which are looking beyond the offering associated with traditional office and apartment complexes. Owners and investors need to understand the new avenues to create real estate value and seek opportunities to reap commercial rewards far beyond the historical property investment arrangements.

The new teleworking conditions imposed by extreme events such as the COVID-19 pandemic blur the border between home and official working space, amplifying the conflicting demands of family and work life experienced by employees across national cultures. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study explores cross-national variances in the underlying mechanism of how family–work conflict (FWC) affects employees’ operational and marketing productivity in the global epidemic-induced teleworking context.

This study conducts a large-scale and cross-national survey of 710 remote employees who worked from home partially or fully during the COVID-19 outbreak across three countries: the USA, the UK and Vietnam.

The results show that FWC drives affective commitment, leading to greater employees’ operational and marketing productivity when teleworking. We also find distinct moderating effects of organizational factors (i.e. task control) and employees’ psychological factors (i.e. emotional exhaustion) on the FWC–operational productivity link across the three countries. Moreover, centralization positively moderates the effect of operational productivity on marketing productivity in the teleworking context in Vietnam, while it is not the case in the USA and the UK.

This study fills a gap in the literature by revealing cross-national differences in the underlying mechanism of the FWC effects on employees’ operational and marketing productivity in the pandemic-induced teleworking conditions. It extends extant studies in the work–family literature by introducing affective commitment as an important mediator in translating the negative consequences of FWC to operational and marketing productivity gain in crisis-driven teleworking across national cultures. We also provide insights into the distinct moderating roles of task control and emotional exhaustion in determining the FWC effect on operational productivity as well as that of centralization in driving marketing productivity. The findings have substantive implications for teleworking design and management to improve employee productivity across different national settings.

In recent years, new and technologically innovative financial products and services, generally subsumed under the fintech umbrella, have permeated all areas of capital markets at an exponential rate. Primarily driven by developments in Web3 and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), fintech solutions offer valuable benefits to all existing markets and participants and are the basis for introducing wholly new segments to classic capital market ecosystems. However, this increasing fintech adaptation does not come without challenges. Due to the technologies' nascent nature and often unregulated status, many products are susceptible to manipulation and fraud. The result can be sizable investor losses and excessive regulatory and public scrutiny. This chapter highlights the most essential and prominent fintech solutions used in capital markets today, along with their features, value additiveness, and degree of adaptation.

This study aims to examine the influence of green feature adoption on building value within Jakarta, Indonesia’s market. It assesses the presence of green premiums or brown discounts through a supply-demand analysis, evaluates their impact on building values, and identifies factors influencing green features’ value reflection and development.

This study employs a qualitative approach to investigate the green feature reflection on building value in Jakarta, Indonesia. Data is gathered through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with appraisers, the GBCI, and developers.

The study’s findings reveal a positive acceptance of green buildings in Jakarta’s market, with most appraisers recognising a higher perceived value in these sustainable structures. Factors contributing to this higher value perception encompass green building certifications, reduced operational costs, and increased appeal to potential tenants. Conversely, hindering factors include a lack of law enforcement and limited availability of market data.

The study highlights practical considerations for construction and real estate stakeholders on the factors influencing green building development. Supporting factors for green building development include sustainability training, compliance with green building standards, and incentives. Conversely, obstacles encompass enforcement challenges, stakeholder expertise deficits, and resistance to change.

This study is the first in Indonesia, magnifying its significance and potential impact. It pioneers exploring green building features’ influence on building value in Jakarta, presenting a unique contribution to the existing literature. This originality emphasises the imperative for sustainable development in the region and sets the stage for future research and policy initiatives.