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The case was developed in partnership with the focal entrepreneur, Michael Maher, and relies on primary data he provided.

This case is based on the experiences of Michael Maher, a Cincinnati, OH (USA)-based entrepreneur whose ecommerce business failed in 2016, largely due to a major change in Amazon’s marketplace. The case puts students in Michael’s position as this is happening. It focuses on the fact that although Michael knew, logically, that the failure was largely beyond his control, and that he “should” think about failure as a learning opportunity, emotionally and psychologically he felt terrible. The case forces students to confront this reality as they reflect on the situation and determine how Michael might best respond. The case is intended to help instructors address the often undiscussed “dark sides” of entrepreneurship, which can include financial hardship and intense stress, and also cause or exacerbate depression, substance abuse and other mental and physical health issues (Shepherd, 2019). These challenges frequently impact other involved stakeholders (e.g. family members) and, as a result, can negatively impact familial dynamics, friendships and other relationships. The goal of the case is not to discourage students from entrepreneurial activity, but to make them aware of these potential dark sides. In addition to awareness, the teaching plan is designed to provide students with tools and strategies to recognize and navigate the dark sides.

This case is appropriate for introductory entrepreneurship courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. It might also be used in more advanced courses focused on developing/launching a new venture (e.g. “New Venture Planning” courses). The case can be taught at any point within a given course, but it is recommended after students have developed an understanding of key entrepreneurship concepts in the focal course or in previous courses. In particular, students should have a working knowledge of the concept of “learning from failure” and other tenets of the lean startup and similar approaches (Blank, 2013; Ries, 2011). This background knowledge is important because the case confronts students with the reality that, although “learning from failure” is central to entrepreneurship, that does not necessarily eliminate the social and psychological challenges that often follow failures. Assuming students possess this background knowledge, the case is most effectively used early in a course to make students aware of the “dark sides” they might confront as an entrepreneur and set the stage for the development of strategies and skills to navigate those dark sides throughout the rest of the course. The case’s brevity means it can be assigned to be read in advance of class or during the class session in which it is being covered.

The purpose of this study is to test whether presenting organizational change in a way that promotes the status quo will result in increased employee support for the change.

Using quantitative methodology, categorical data were collected through an online cross-sectional survey in which 222 adult respondents participated. The items used vignette-based question blocks with fixed response options. Item responses were analyzed using an exact binomial test – focusing on the relationship between status quo bias and other responses to change communications.

The findings demonstrated that status quo bias has an association with employee sensemaking. These results suggest that status quo bias can be utilized by organizational leaders and change practitioners to endorse change efforts. Furthermore, it not only appears that promoting what is staying the same but also including a small reason to justify the change can bring additional advantage. Advertising a vision of radical transformation is problematic as it may actually heighten employee resistance.

This research explores and presents a convergence between organizational change management and behavioral economics – specifically, status quo bias. No other comparable study collecting data across a number of organizational change themes and critiquing existing change management models could be found during the preparation of this research effort.

Police corruption – the use or misuse of entrusted power for personal, institutional or third-party advantage – is widespread in emerging economies. Encounters with justice officials in developing nations often involve the payment of bribes, which undermines justice delivery and impedes socioeconomic development. Efforts to tackle or address corruption are usually complex due to the secretive nature of corruption, its perceived benefit to both victims and perpetrators and a lack of consensus on the causes. This article investigates the causes of police corruption from the viewpoint of Ghanaian police officers.

The study draws on data from a survey of police officers across three regions in Ghana. Descriptive, correlational and linear regression analyses are used to address the issues.

The results show that factors contributing to police corruption are classified into financial, cultural, institutional and oversight/guidance. We found that police officers’ consideration of a factor as a cause of police corruption is influenced by their perceptions of other factors as causes of corruption.

The results show that corruption causes should not be tackled in isolation as they depend on each other. This suggests that a holistic approach needs to be taken when developing strategies to address the causes of police corruption.

This paper contributes to the debate on the causes of police corruption from an African perspective, where there is little quantitative research exploring the causes of police corruption. Control variables do not impact officers’ perceptions of causes of corruption, which contradicts previous studies and contributes to the debate, literature and theory development.

This study aims to examine the performance outcomes of a store’s ownership concentration within a multi-unit franchise (MUF) network, emphasizing the nuanced effects under varying competitive conditions.

This study conducted a comprehensive analysis of all stores within the McDonald’s chain over an eight-year span. The research methodology incorporated a review of over 11 million customer evaluations to discern patterns in customer satisfaction and sales growth in relation to the store’s ownership concentration.

Stores with a pronounced ownership concentration showcased enhanced outcomes in both customer satisfaction and sales growth. However, the magnitude of these effects was moderated by the nature of competitive conditions, specifically focal market competition, non-focal market competition and legal safeguards.

The study’s concentration on McDonald’s stores introduces a specificity that might limit the universal applicability of the findings to all franchise models or sectors. Additionally, the emphasis on the store level of analysis potentially overlooks broader systemic factors.

For managers and franchise owners, understanding the nuanced roles of ownership concentration can provide strategic insights. Recognizing how different competitive conditions can moderate the effects of ownership concentration can help in making informed decisions about power dynamics and competitive positioning.

A store’s ownership concentration can have broader societal ramifications, potentially shaping consumer perceptions, community engagement and overall market health. As an owner’s stores concentrate spatially, they can contribute to a healthier market ecosystem, benefitting consumers and communities alike.

While the vertical power between the franchisor and franchisee owners have been studied, this study extends the discourse to power between MUF owners. This study provides novel insights by showing customer centric and firm centric performance outcomes of ownership concentration.

Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts.

A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management.

The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established.

The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research.

This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works” in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively.

This study analyzes whether a doping scandal occurring during a global major sport event has an impact on on-site spectator satisfaction.

The investigation was conducted among 896 on-site event spectators attending a minimum of one event at the Nordic Ski World Championships 2019. Furthermore, five members of the organizing committee were retrospectively interviewed about how they judged the doping scandals’ impact on the perception of the event and its organization.

Results revealed that the scandal did not affect the spectators’ satisfaction and perception of the event. Nevertheless, the doping scandal was mentioned as a lowlight after becoming public.

Even though the doping scandal did not affect spectator satisfaction, such undesirable situations should be avoided as best as possible and form part of the event organizer’s comprehensive risk management and communication strategy.

It can be concluded that spectator satisfaction remained quite stable while any negative impacts, if not directly affecting the spectator, seemed to be considered as somehow “part of the event.”

This paper aims to examine the structure and content of religious tourism destination image through the reviews of visitors to Makkah and Medina, two of the world’s most popular Muslim pilgrimage sites.

This is an exploratory netnographic study of the 913 reviews posted on TripAdvisor from 2018 to 2022. The structure (dimensions and attributes) and content (variables) comprising the construct of religious tourism destination image emerge through manual thematic analysis and confirmed through content analysis.

Religious tourism destination image is a three-dimensional – cognitive, affective and conative – construct comprising both religion-specific, generally sacred and secular variables in a single, indivisible crystallization of experience.

Destination marketing organizations and marketers of tourism enterprises should regularly analyze visitor reviews posted on social media and carefully manage all variables of the religious tourism destination image, specifically stressing the religious aspect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic analysis of the structure and content of religious tourism destination image based on detailed consumer evaluations and unprompted storytelling.

A key characteristic of powder bed fusion for polymers is that also the non-processed powder in the powder bed is exposed to elevated temperatures. This alters the properties of the remaining powder, which is compensated by refreshing the used powder with new powder. Nonetheless, it is discarded after a certain number of process iterations, which is economically and ecologically highly disadvantageous. Research works intensively to analyse and reduce the concurring effects responsible for powder ageing. This study aims to give a comprehensive overview of the cumulative changes in the powder and the printed parts when conducting several subsequent build cycles.

New polyamide powder (PA12) was used in a total of nine subsequent build cycles with constant sintering parameters and without powder refreshing. After each iteration, the powder and parts were tested for their morphological, thermal and rheological properties.

The results are related to three main changes in the powder during the build cycles: decreasing bulk density (through agglomeration), increasing melt viscosity (through polyamide post-condensation) and increasing melting peak and onset temperatures (through thermal annealing of the powder).

Even though the ageing of PA12 powder in powder bed fusion is well-known, it is not yet fully understood. Studies are not complete and due to different ageing conditions only partially comparable. The detailed study aims to help understand the related effects of powder ageing for process-relevant properties and to show which factors require control to limit the powder ageing.

The study investigates service quality in developing customer loyalty in Ghana’s auto detailing industry. The study also examines how customer satisfaction and service innovation indirectly and positively influence the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty.

A sample of 318 respondents, drawn from a convenience sampling method, was utilised for the analysis. Partial Least Squares (PLS) of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique was used to analyse the data to obtain results.

The study established a significant positive relationship between the tangibility dimension of service quality and customer loyalty; however, this influence is indirect through the mediation effect of customer satisfaction between service innovation and customer loyalty.

The study provides a useful guide for policy formulation and implementation by managers of auto detailing services to enhance customer loyalty as a basis of sustainable business performance.

The study is the first of its kind to investigate the role of service quality and customer loyalty being mediated by service innovation and customer satisfaction in the context of Ghana’s auto detailing industry.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of consumer impatience, empirically explore how it relates to time-based logistics performance (delivery speed and delivery timeliness) and discuss its impact on consumer satisfaction. This research argues that gaining insights related to delivery performance from a consumer’s perspective can help the development of more effective time-based logistics strategies for e-commerce home deliveries.

Hypotheses in this study are developed using attribution theory and tested with empirical data collected through an online behavioral consumer experiment. Middle-range theorizing is used to develop an understanding of the mechanisms that impact the relationship between time-based logistics performance and consumer satisfaction.

Findings indicate that consumer impatience with delivery speed and delivery timeliness play an essential role in the relationship between time-based delivery performance and consumer satisfaction. Issues with delivery timeliness are shown to have a more negative impact on consumer satisfaction than issues with delivery speed, while delivery communication is demonstrated to have a positive relationship with consumer satisfaction.

This empirical study adds to existing time-based competition literature by taking a consumer-centric perspective and bringing a largely overlooked but critical concept – consumer impatience – into the logistics and supply chain management setting. Middle-range theorizing allows for a conceptualized understanding of consumers’ delivery experiences that can help companies develop proactive actions in their time-based competition initiatives.