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This paper aims to discuss the effect of Canada’s regulatory framework on the strategies of entrepreneurial businesses during the first phase of legalization of the recreational cannabis industry. Decriminalization of cannabis required a host of regulatory changes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. Each province developed legal markets independently, differentially impacting entrepreneurial strategies. This paper describes the value chain that emerged in the first phase of the nascent industry, focusing on the actions of the businesses.

The authors develop a qualitative narrative analysis using government publications, press articles (especially from the business press) and personal communications of industry insiders speaking in public settings. The paper includes four short case studies to illustrate the emerging value chain of the nascent industry.

The study’s findings highlight the effect of regulatory frameworks on entrepreneurial strategies. We find that public policies had a significant impact on entrepreneurs and startup strategies. Inter-jurisdictional differences limited expansion into different provinces, with implications for regional economic development. Achieving public policy goals was delayed as a result of regulatory challenges that impacted industry development.

The authors’ findings show enterprises may develop growth strategies that comply with regulations when participating in nascent industries, but they must cope with extra risks, capital costs and uncertainty. The analysis also illustrates the value of engaging in government-industry collaboration to improve emerging regulatory frameworks.

The originality of this research consists of the detailed description of the first phase of Canada’s legalized recreational cannabis industry and the insight gained into the dynamics of nascent industries.

Whenever social injustice tackled by social movements receives heightened media attention, charitable crowdfunding platforms offer an opportunity to proactively advocate for equality by donating money to affected people. This research examines how the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated social protest cycle after the death of George Floyd have influenced donation behavior for campaigns with a personal goal and those with a societal goal supporting the black community.

This paper follows a quantitative research approach by applying a quasi-experimental research design on a GoFundMe dataset. In total, 67,905 campaigns and 1,362,499 individual donations were analyzed.

We uncover a rise in donations for campaigns supporting the black community, which lasts substantially longer for campaigns with a societal than with a personal funding goal. Informed by construal level theory, we attribute this heterogeneity to changes in the level of abstractness of the problems that social movements aim to tackle.

This research advances the knowledge of individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding. Our results highlight the important role that charitable crowdfunding campaigns play in promoting social justice and anti-discrimination as part of social protest cycles.

This paper aims to explore the role of multi-national enterprises in addressing grand societal challenges, emphasising the need for integrating environmental and social aspects into business models. Drawing on the books of Geoffrey Jones (2023) “Deeply Responsible Business” and Rob van Tulder and Eveline van Mil (2023) “Principles of Sustainable Business”, the paper provides comments and analysis of how principles and values can guide engaged international business (IB) scholarship and responsible leadership to effectuate meaningful change.

The paper adopts a dialogical review, as a curated discussion of the books whereby the authors attempt to co-construct a research and teaching agenda for responsible and engaged IB scholarship.

The paper highlights the critical importance of aligning business strategies with societal needs. Companies that adopt ethical principles, or adopt the sustainable development goals (SDGs) via principles-based frameworks, can achieve significant positive impacts.

The paper follows a viewpoint/perspective format. It relies on underpinning historical case studies and selected theoretical frameworks, which may not capture the full complexity of contemporary business environments. Scholars should conduct future research to study the underpinning principles and frameworks deployed in various industries and regions.

The paper suggests that business leaders should learn from the past to adopt a values and principles-based approach to integrate sustainability into their core strategies. It also highlights the importance of transforming the higher education teaching experience towards a value and principles-based one.

This paper underscores the potential of businesses to drive positive societal change by addressing environmental and social challenges. By adopting ethics-based value systems and aligning organisations with the SDGs, companies can help mitigate pressing issues, such as poverty, inequality and climate change. The authors suggest reading “Deeply responsible business” and “Principles of Sustainable Business” to influence public attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and foster a more sustainable and equitable global economy.

The paper offers a curated discussion and synthesis of historical and contemporary perspectives on sustainable business practices. It bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing actionable frameworks and tools for business leaders and scholars.

Amidst calls for more research that combines the concepts of identity and strategy, particularly in a public sector context, this study explored the identity dynamics between two groups of managers within a multi-level perspective in a government department. The aim of this study is to provide a dynamic and holistic view of how middle manager identity is experienced and how best to utilise middle managers and their abilities.

Through a practice-based perspective, the study used a case study design, and 26 in-depth interviews were conducted with 2 groups, namely directors and middle managers.

Findings revealed that, whilst participating middle managers were viewed as critical strategists, there was a misalignment of expectations between directors and middle managers, and this reflected an ambiguous and complex environment where middle managers were situated. The findings also reflected tensions and power dynamics evident between middle managers and their direct supervisors, and these shaped the way in which middle managers responded to or were influenced by such tensions. Our research confirms the dynamic nature of identity at a multi-level perspective.

The findings of the current study may be useful in providing insight into how middle managers can be utilised to the best of their ability within a public sector department.

The study contributes to strategy-identity studies using a practice-oriented lens in an under-explored government context. We present a better understanding of the reciprocal tensions and inter-relationships between identity and strategy from the perspective of two levels and explore how this affects strategy practices and processes.

This study aims to understand stakeholders’ aspiration needs and analyse their role in shaping the articulation and formulation of Grand Challenges (GCs).

Using a comprehensive single case study approach, this paper investigates a GC at a local scale: the preservation and development of the Gergovia Plateau, a well-known French site of natural and historical interest. It analyses rich qualitative data according to Gioia methodology to understand the grounded needs of stakeholders.

This research deals with the “why side” of a GC when it emerges. First, it identifies four main dimensions regarding stakeholders’ aspiration needs: economic, cultural, environmental and reputational. Second, it highlights the articulation between these four dimensions and analyse their role for a better formulation and implementation of a GC.

This study helps public management practitioners to better understand the very nature of the GC they wish to address and to structure its foundations by including stakeholders’ aspirations.

This case is original regarding GCs literature by shedding a new light on how to deal with socio-environmental issues in a context of natural and cultural heritage.

This study aims to develop a theoretical framework that marketing practitioners and scholars can adopt to enhance their understanding of how firms can effectively deploy and use digital human avatars as part of their global digital marketing strategy. By doing so, we inform investors of ongoing digital transformations of marketing practices that will equip marketeers to provide scalable, tailored, reliable and relevant digital self-service interactions to users, consequently improving the user/customer experience.

Thematic analysis was used to discover factors to enable the successful implementation of digital human avatars, drawing on in-depth interviews with fourteen executives of digital human avatars developer companies worldwide and analysis of ten podcasts and webinars with artificial intelligence (AI) experts.

Digital human avatars revitalise the international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) of firms by integrating advanced technologies that transform user interactions, improve engagement and facilitate knowledge acquisition, dissemination and usage across various sectors and business units globally. This integration promotes a dynamic approach to international brands, customer relationships and marketing knowledge management capabilities, offering profound value to users and firms.

Our first limitation is a lack of diversity in data sources. As digital human avatars are an emerging field, we had to limit our study to 14 experts in AI and 10 podcasts. While this method provides deep insights into the perspectives of those directly involved in the development and implementation of digital human avatars, it may not capture the views of end-users or consumers who interact with these avatars, which can be an avenue for further research. Our second limitation is the potential bias in the interpretation of our interview data and podcasts. This study’s approach to data analysis, where themes are derived from the data itself, carries a risk of subjective interpretation by the researchers. Future studies are encouraged to investigate the impact of digital human avatars across different organisational contexts and ecosystems, especially focusing on how these technologies are integrated and perceived in various international markets.

The novel framework has direct implications for innovators and marketing practitioners who aim to adopt digital human avatars in their marketing practices to enhance the effectiveness of international marketing strategies.

The adoption of digital human avatars can alleviate loneliest elderly and vulnerable people by being a companion. The human-like characteristics can impact sense of presence and attachment.

The novelty of our study lies in exploring the characteristics of technologies and practical factors that maximise the successful adoption of digital human avatars. We advance and contribute to the emerging theory of avatar marketing, IDMCs and absorptive capacity by demonstrating how digital human avatars could be adopted as part of a firm’s global digital marketing strategy. We focus specifically on six dimensions: outcomes and benefits, enhancements and capabilities, applications and domains, future implications, foundational elements and challenges and considerations. This framework has direct implications for innovators and marketing practitioners who aim to adopt digital human avatars in their marketing practices to enhance the effectiveness of international marketing strategies.

The “VUCA world” is an environment characterized by unprecedented levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). In such a turbulent environment, corporate entrepreneurship is key for all businesses, especially family firms. Corporate entrepreneurship is a concept that enables innovation, growth, and competitive advantage over competitors. It is a driving force for organizations to make changes in their structures and operations to respond to changes by using the limited resources they have in the environments in which they operate and to reduce the negative effects of shortening product life cycles. Family firms, which have an important place in the economies of countries, are indispensable players in economic activities, they need to think more strategically, and innovative and have an entrepreneurial perspective in ensuring their adaptation for competitive and growth purposes. In this study, the relationship between the place of family firms in the VUCA world and corporate entrepreneurship was tried to be established, and the corporate entrepreneurship of family firms was examined in line with their corporate logic. For this purpose, the news on the corporate websites of seven family companies operating in Türkiye and included in the 2023 Family Business Index was analyzed by content analysis method. Data were coded with thematic coding and findings were revealed. Common types of logic in family firms are market logic and efficiency and savings logic, with a hybrid characteristic consisting of a combination of market logic and efficiency and savings logic.

This paper identifies how the operations of labour market intermediaries (LMIs) transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones. It reveals the change dynamics that LMIs engage in to bring about this transformation and that contribute to the projectification of work.

Drawing on an institutional-work lens and using interview data from both TempX, a German-based staffing service provider, and its client organizations, the analytical framework details the dynamics by which LMIs appropriate various HR tasks and different labour-market-organizing roles and thus create these triadic employment relationships.

TempX assumes a powerful position between its client organizations and workers by increasingly taking over HR tasks from its client organizations, alternating between profiting from market transactions and engaging as a buyer and seller of labour. This powerful position, gradually created through four distinct, sequential, institutional work dynamics, allows it to transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones and to promote project-based work.

By showing how LMIs capitalize on the multiple services they offer, and how they use these services to establish a powerful position in both the labour market and in their relations with client organizations, this paper contributes to research on how LMIs change their institutional environment. Second, by showing that LMIs switch between different labour-market organizing roles and HR tasks, this paper reveals how essential this switching is for LMIs to establish triadic employment relationships and to drive the projectification of work, and thus it also contributes to research on LMIs’ role in the projectification of work.

Digital innovation requires organizations to reconfigure their information technology infrastructure (ITI) to cultivate creativity and implement fast experimentation. This research inquiries into ITI generativity, an emerging concept demoting a critical ITI capability for organizational digital innovation. More specifically, it conceptualizes ITI generativity across two dimensions—namely, systems and applications infrastructure (SAI) generativity and data analytics infrastructure (DAI) generativity—and examines their respective social and technical antecedents and their impact on digital innovation.

This research formulates a theoretical model to investigate the social and technical antecedents along with innovation outcomes of ITI generativity. To test this model and its associated hypotheses, a survey was administered to IT professionals possessing knowledge of their organization's IT architecture and digital innovation performance. The dataset, comprising responses from 140 organizations, was analyzed using the partial least squares technique.

Results reveal that both dimensions of ITI generativity contribute to digital innovation performance, with the effect of DAI generativity being more pronounced. In addition, SAI and DAI generativities are driven by social and technical factors within an organization. More specifically, SAI generativity is positively associated with the usage of a digital application services platform and IT human resources, whereas DAI generativity is positively linked to the usage of a data analytics services platform, data analytics services usability and data analytics human resources.

This research contributes to the literature on digital innovation by introducing ITI generativity as a crucial ITI capability and deciphering its role in digital innovation. It also offers useful insights and guidance for practitioners on how to build ITIs to achieve better digital innovation performance.