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This empirical study aims to explore how actors in specific human resource practices (HRPs) such as line managers (LMs) impact employee productivity measures in the context of financial institutions (FI) banks.

This cross-country study adopted a qualitative methodology. It employed semi-structured interviews to collect data from purposefully selected 12 business facing directors (BFDs) working in the top 10 banks in Nigeria and the UK. The data collected were analysed with the help of the trans-positional cognition approach (TPCA) phenomenological method.

The findings of a TPCA analytical process imply that in the UK and Nigeria’s FIs, the BFDs line managers’ human resources practices (LMHRPs) resulted in a highly regulated workplace, knowledge gap, service operations challenges and subjective quantitatively driven key performance indicators, considered service productivity paradoxical elements. Although the practices in the UK and Nigerian FIs had similar labels, their aggregates were underpinned by different contextual issues.

To support LMs in better understanding and managing FIs BFDs productivity measures and outcomes, we propose the Managerial Employee Productivity Operational Definition framework as part of their toolkit. This study will be helpful for banking sectors, their regulators, policymakers, other FIs’ industry stakeholders and future researchers in the field.

Within the context of the UK and Nigeria’s FIs, this study is the first attempt to understand how LMHRPs impact BFDs productivity in this manner. It confirms that LMHRPs result in service productivity paradoxical elements with perceived or lost productivity implications.

This chapter explores how perceived product innovation influences brand loyalty among UK Apple users, extending the technology acceptance model. Using a quantitative approach, data were collected from 101 respondents via an online survey and analysed using SPSS. Objectives included examining the mediating role of perceived product usefulness and ease of use, exploring the relationship between product/brand attitudes and brand loyalty and assessing gender's impact on loyalty perceptions. Findings reveal a significant positive relationship among variables, with perceived product usefulness and ease of use jointly mediating the link between product innovation and attitude, affecting brand loyalty. Gender was found to have no moderating effect. The research contributes by highlighting these mediating effects and deepening understanding of product innovation's impact on loyalty. Managerially, prioritising innovation, usefulness and ease of use can enhance satisfaction and loyalty. Future research could explore additional variables to enrich understanding further.

The purpose of this study is to identify the business strategies that entrepreneurs have formulated to establish the business with the intention of scaling up in the information technology (IT) sector in Chile, given that they have managed to scale up sustainably at an average annual rate of 73.3% and an average annual employee growth rate of 37% for four consecutive years after an establishment period of 25 months.

Three methodological steps were used to identify which strategic initiatives are relevant to the establishment of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the path to scaling up. The first part consisted of identifying the literature and defining the research propositions and research questions. The second part was to prepare, collect and analyse the data to conduct the research by applying, transcribing, reviewing and coding the sources of evidence to explore how SMEs are able to develop strategic initiatives for the start-up process. The final stage was to validate the research proposal to identify potential strategic initiatives identified during the multi-case study.

As a result of the data analysis and empirical findings, three deliberate strategic initiatives were identified: staying engaged with customers, delivering successful business solutions and articulating social capital. However, in crisis situations, entrepreneurs readjust their strategies based on their management skills and an emergent strategic initiative was identified as securing the financial structure and revolutionising change. While this research was not designed to identify personal attributes, it did highlight the importance of adaptation and learning as a skill to drive the business model for scaling up during the establishment of their business.

It is clear that the study focused on Chile and cannot be replicated in other regions or sectors due to the characteristics of the sample itself, but it provides empirical evidence that there are cycles prior to scale up that need to be understood. The findings were empirically validated during the establishment phase, but the deliberate and emergent strategic initiatives that consolidated the SME to prepare for its scale-up process are not evident in the theory.

The IT sector will continue to grow and change after the pandemic, and the global economy will use more digital systems, creating new ways of working with the use of IT. This context will impact on SMEs where strategies, whether deliberate or emergent, will need to be part of the new business models, and therefore, caution should be exercised when using the results of this study. Public and private institutions should educate and guide entrepreneurs for the potential scaling up of their SMEs without having to wait 42 months, according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021-2022 (Hill et al., 2022). Scaling up can begin as early as 25 months after establishment, breaking the paradigm of the theory that the SME must be established in a period of 3.5 years. This period cannot be generalised as business opportunities in the IT sector are faster. The research also contributes by reporting that contingency planning is relevant during the establishment phase.

Educational institutions and the public sector have made efforts to change business cultures regarding the importance of strengthening entrepreneurship, but teaching the emergent strategies that often challenge SME creation is not yet widespread in educational formats. This is a challenge not only for institutions but also for entrepreneurs trying to anticipate the constant changes in the global economy. This research provides an opportunity to create more dynamic business models with more conscious risk planning.

Although the literature has confirmed the findings, this research has provided a pre-scaling picture that links these two important stages on the axis of deliberate and emergent strategies. The findings confirm the importance of correctly embedding five strategic initiatives for the establishment of the SME if it is to continue on its journey towards business scale-up. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence in emerging economies on how entrepreneurs have found the right path to scale-up.

The research study provides empirical insights on the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership (EL), entrepreneurial passion for founding (EPF), entrepreneurial bricolage (EB) and project success (PS), in the case of freelancers. The study aims to get a better understanding of whether freelancers, who behave like entrepreneurial leaders, can successfully complete projects through EB.

The study collected data from 209 freelancers through snowball sampling, in two waves, with a time-lag of fourteen days, to better examine the causality of variables. Data were analyzed by Model No. 4 and 7 (i.e. mediation and moderation, respectively) of Process macro.

Drawing on the effectuation theory, the results show that EB mediates the relationship between EL and PS and EPF moderates this relationship.

The freelancers can formally establish businesses later, after knowing whether they can complete these new types of projects. These online freelancing platforms can provide special services to freelancers who first want to test their skills on unrelated projects. In sum, the paper suggests that freelancers can be successful entrepreneurial leaders.

The EL, EPF, EB and PS are studied in the context of the informal sector, i.e. freelancing, which is the emerging working style in the world. It provides an in-depth understanding of phenomena in freelancers that lacks background literature.

Grounded in social cognitive theory, social exchange theory and “cognition-emotion-behavior intention” analysis framework, a theoretical model of cause-related sport marketing (CRSM) affecting consumers’ purchase intentions was constructed through a case study. This model was then empirically validated to confirm CRSM's impact on consumers' purchase intentions.

This study embraces a mixed-methods approach that combines both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to investigate the mechanisms through which CRSM influences consumers' purchase intentions.

The results indicate that: (1) consumers’ perception of CRSM has no direct impact on purchase intentions; (2) consumers’ perception of CRSM directly affects gratitude; (3) consumer gratitude acts as a complete mediator between perceived CRSM and purchase intentions.

These findings shed light on the role of gratitude in CRSM and offer practical guidance for sports enterprises in improving their philanthropic marketing strategies.

This chapter describes the redevelopment of the Open Language Chief Executive Personality Tool (OLCPT), a language-based machine learning (ML) tool for assessing executives' traits along the five factor model (FFM) of personality (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism). Whereas the initial release of the OLCPT demonstrated the viability of using supervised machine learning to unobtrusively assess executives' personality traits, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) related to large language models (LLMs) warranted revisiting its development. After applying LLM embeddings and performing other updates, including expanding the training sample, the redeveloped tool (available at https://zenodo.org/records/10800801) achieved substantially higher convergent validity than the initial release. The updated tool also demonstrates strong discriminant validity and reliability, and it can measure traits not included in the initial version (narcissism and humility). These improvements demonstrate the potential value of continuously updating existing, computer-aided measures in strategy and management research. Yet, such efforts may not always be feasible or even necessary. Thus, we also use this chapter to offer guidelines for determining when updating similar measures is worthwhile, urging scholars to carefully consider how existing tools perform and the relevance of advancements to the technologies underlying them. We conclude with additional suggestions for advancing measurement in our field, including keeping up with emerging technologies, encouraging complementary approaches to enable triangulation, avoiding the use of advanced techniques without carefully considering their applicability in a given context, and being realistic about what we ask for during the review process and what we consider a meaningful contribution in our field.

This study aims to conceive and develop a pricing model for the Ijara contingent convertible contract (ICCC, hereafter), considering the possibility that the lessee may default. The ICCC model grants the lessor the option of converting the unpaid amount into equity or recovering the leased equipment and selling it at market price in case of financial distress.

The ICCC is consistent with the profit-sharing approach and the new risk management techniques, which are compatible with Islamic philosophy. Relying on real options theory and the contingent claim approach, a closed-form solution of the firm’s assets is developed in a dynamic environment, where the rate of return is generated by a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross stochastic process.

Examining the numerical analysis reveals the impact of the firm value, the conversion or sell decision and the conversion ratio and volatility on the ICCC value. The value of the ICCC can increase substantially as the value of the firm approaches the conversion threshold. The conversion ratio as well as the asset market price play equally an important role in the decision to convert or sell.

This paper develops a pricing model for a contingent Ijara contract, which incorporates a conversion option to mitigate the lessee’s credit risk during periods of economic instability. The ICCC is a cooperative strategy that would be advantageous to all parties, including the lessor and lessee. In the event of a conversion, businesses may be able to continue operating thanks to this financial innovation, and the lessor may profit from the company’s recovery by freeing up more resources for the use of more profitable ventures.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) (2019) explicated there are four dimensions of poverty, and they include (1) resources, (2) opportunities and choice, (3) power and voice and (4) human security (e.g. violence issues and concerns). Contrastingly, Ellis (1984) postulated dimensions of poverty are social, economic, legal and political poverty. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2015) stated poverty is not always about income, indicating ‘income poverty’. Deprivation factors can be broad, but reported poor health, inadequate living standards and lack of education are dimensions of poverty (OECD, 2015). Also, according to the World Bank, the world's extremely poor are people who live on less than $1.90 USD per day (Beck et al., 2020). The $1.90 amount is at 2011 purchasing power parity levels. Additionally, the $1.90USD amount has decreased significantly over the last decades (Beck et al., 2020). Nevertheless, entrepreneurship, UN SDGs and technology can be strategies for sustainable alleviation of poverty and pandemic global economic recovery, in the 21st century.

In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences doing ethnographic inquiry to argue that a critical ethnographic onto-epistemology must be central for culturally responsive evaluators who work from ethnographic and social justice orientations. An onto-epistemology can be understood as the “hybridized ways of knowing and being” used to “navigate…our lived experiences” (Boveda & Bhattacharya, 2019, p. 8). A critical ethnographic onto-epistemology illuminates potential strategies for culturally responsive evaluators to more authentically, critically, and reflexively engage with the communities and actors implicated in their evaluations. This reflexivity considers different theories of culture shaping the design, implementation, analysis, and outcomes of ethnographically oriented evaluation. I chart how theories of culture in culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) have evolved from a view of cultural difference to focus on a group's behaviors, values, and shared customs. As the concept of culture is central to CRE (Hood et al., 2015), I argue that it must align itself with contemporary anthropological literature that theorizes culture as a fluid set of unevenly dispersed resources that actors construct, use, and connect as they make meaning of and organize themselves within larger societal arrangements and institutions (Levinson et al., 2015). I ground this argument in reflections around three components of my critical ethnographic onto-epistemology: criticality, politicality, and internal and relational forms of transparency. Culturally responsive evaluators may benefit from exploring how a critical ethnographic onto-epistemology can shape theories of culture in CRE, moving toward more critical theories and epistemologies that counter the residues of coloniality which shape both ethnography and evaluation.