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This paper aims to examine the effects of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on firm performance, considering the mediating effect of process innovation and the moderating effect of organizational innovation. Additionally, this study investigates both the direct and indirect effects of IPRs on firm performance.

We employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine proposed hypotheses. Our analysis attempted to analyze 3,750 Korean firms sourced from the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPI).

Process innovation mediates the relationship between IPRs and firm performance, and organizational innovation moderates the relationship between IPRs and process innovation. As a result, process and organizational innovation positively and indirectly affect firms’ financial performance. Also, IPRs can be regarded as a crucial resource for service firms, contributing to enhancing their performance.

The results of this study imply that IPRs can act as valuable intellectual resources for firms, improving financial performance. The mediating role of process innovation in the relationship between IPRs and firm performance highlights the significance of process innovation as a principal resource applicable to both the service and the manufacturing industries. Additionally, this study reveals that organizational innovation plays a vital role in determining firm performance by moderating the relationship between IPRs and process innovation. For the limitation of this study, it is important to acknowledge that the research primarily focuses on examining firms’ internal resources, while innovation activities can be significantly influenced by external knowledge resources as well. To address this limitation, future research should consider integrating the influence of external knowledge resources to provide a more well-rounded perspective on the relationship between IPRs, innovation, and firm performance.

This study holds two significant practical implications. First, from a corporate management perspective, service firms can improve their financial performance by developing or improving process innovations. This underscores the importance of investing in and fostering process innovation within an organization to achieve better financial outcomes. Second, from the corporate managers’ perspective, organizational innovation is crucial in improving firm performance, particularly when combined with IPRs and process innovation. This suggests that a holistic approach to innovation, encompassing both organizational and process-oriented initiatives, can lead to more substantial positive effects on firm performance. Finally, managers should proactively manage and regulate IPRs at various organizational levels, especially in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. By safeguarding and strategically leveraging their IPRs, companies can position themselves advantageously and capitalize on the opportunities presented in the digital realm.

This study shows that firm innovations can dynamically shape the relationship between IPRs and firms’ performance. This highlights the significant potential for firms to leverage their intellectual resources strategically to create novel and competitive products or services. Adopting a resource-based view, this study suggests that firms can enhance their competitive advantage and overall performance by effectively utilizing and collaborating with IPRs and innovations.

The aim of the research is to perform an accurate micromanipulation task, the assembly of a lens system, implementing safe procedures in a flexible microrobot‐based workstation for micromanipulation.

The approach to the micromanipulation research issue consists in designing and building a micromanipulation station based on mobile microrobots, with 5 degrees of freedom and a size of a few cm³, capable of moving and manipulating by the use of tube‐shaped and multilayered piezo‐actuators. Controlled by visual and force/tactile sensor information, the micro‐robot is able to perform manipulation with a motion resolution down to 10 nm in a telemanipulated or semi‐automated mode, thus freeing human operators from the difficult task of handling minuscule objects directly. Equipped with purposely‐developed grippers, the robot can take over high‐precise grasping, transport, manipulation and positioning of mechanical or biological micro‐objects. A computer system using PC‐compatible hardware components ensures the robot operation in real‐time.

The robots and the grippers described in this paper are highly interesting tools. Even if each specific application may require specific modifications, the proposed solution is extremely versatile, due to the ability to manipulate with a very large stroke (being the size of the base the robot works on) with a very high motion resolution. These positive aspects do make the robots very suitable also for working in a scanning electron microscope, for wafer inspection in a laboratory, and so on.

Future work will include modifications to the existing system in order to enhance the flexibility of the workstation: e.g. other robots and other tools with different characteristics will be designed and fabricated. Research efforts will be devoted in particular to further miniaturization of the actuators.

This workstation can be used as a platform for assembling novel prototypes, and as a test bench for testing new assembly procedures or new products, e.g. the lens assembly procedure described in this work, even if not suitable for mass production, was useful to assess the performance of the two‐lenses assembly system itself, compared to standard systems with just one lens.

The system proves that the development of mobile micro‐robots is a promising approach to realise very small and flexible tools useful for different applications. By means of its intuitive teleoperation mode, the system enables the user to work in the micro‐world; due to the force feedback the user is almost immersed into the micro‐world and gets a sense for the handled object.

Entrepreneurship, Corporate sustainability, CSR, Supply chain.

Master's courses: Entrepreneurship, Strategic management.

In 2002, potential risks deriving from emerging normative demands in the CSR debate prompted Axel Springer (AS) to rethink their supply chain strategy for Russian wood. Being one of the first movers in CSR in the publishing business, AS realized that current practices could spark future public discussion that might put pressure on AS, a key player in these supply chains. In early 2002, AS and one of their main suppliers, Stora Enso, started a joint initiative to redesign the supply chain processes in two of the major Russian logging regions to improve their social and ecological performance. Sometime later, other major players in the publishing sector as well as critical reviewers from several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were invited to participate in the design of the new voluntary sustainability initiative called “Tikhvin Chalna project”, the second phase of which was accomplished by the end of 2006.

Learn that organizations (specifically high-brand owners) are responsible for practices within their entire supply chains (social as well as environmental performance).

Explore proactive corporate sustainability, CSR strategies are market but also institutional driven; Strategizing involves forming and transforming the rules, norms and standard models of customers as well as institutions such as NGOs or governmental bodies. Whether the initiator of such strategy is successful in increasing or manipulating demands is dependent on its resources and capabilities as well as on its network position. The case supports students in understanding resources being used to successfully transform or create institutional arrangements.

Discover that the value of a business' relationships and its network position.

Teaching note, Video files

Tribalism is at the forefront of public discussion across the political spectrum in America today. Zombie stories have also risen to unprecedented popularity. Amid present-day racial, political, and otherwise tribal tensions, the story I Am Legend has particular resonance. As the original inspiration behind the modern zombie trope, it was published as a novella in 1954 and has been remade as a film multiple times, in 1964, 1971, and 2007. Using grounded theory, I explore each film regarding what moral attitudes are portrayed concerning confrontation between rival milieus. My findings center on four themes: identification, compassion, ambivalence, and condemnation. Overall, in chronological order, the different renditions of the story exhibit decreasing compassion for the other and decreasing ambivalence about relations with the other. The most dramatic change is between the 1971 and 2007 remakes. Implications for what the changes in the morals presented in the story might reflect in terms of social changes in America are discussed.

In recent years, the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTA) has led to rapid economic boons and political security among nations. This study investigates whether the percentage of expats or permanent foreign residents plays a role in deciding which countries to partner with in bi-lateral FTAs. Previously, the reasons for FTA formation were believed to be primarily based upon economic, geographic, and political reasons. However, through the use of social network analysis, a larger picture can be mapped which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of key players in the current state of FTA formation in relation to the immigrant network that they share between them. More specifically, through computerized social network analysis, centrality can be calculated to determine the key players and the most central immigrant populations. When analyzing both the immigrant centrality in relation to FTA centrality, it becomes evident that there is a high correlation between the two factors. Thus, the findings highlight that immigration trends can be used as a predictor of FTA formation. As a result, it emphasizes the weight of immigration policy on the formation of bi-lateral FTAs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Pakistani bank front-line employees’ intentions to behave ethically by using the extended theory of planned behaviour (ETPB) into which religiosity (i.e. religious activity, devotion to rituals and belief in doctrine) is integrated as a moderating variable.

The authors collected 234 self-administered questionnaires and analysed them using SmartPLS 2.0, a second generation structural equation modelling technique.

This paper demonstrates that the ETPB can explain intentions to behave ethically. Moral norms (i.e. the rules of morality that people believe they ought to follow) and perceived behavioural control (i.e. people’s perceptions of their ability to perform a given behaviour) are the best predictors of ethical behavioural intentions. The effects of injunctive norms (i.e. perceptions of which behaviours are typically approved or disapproved in an organisation) and of perceived behavioural control on behavioural intent are moderated by religiosity.

Leading by example, providing ethics training, empowering employees and encouraging the expression of religiosity are proposed as ways to foster an ethical culture in the workplace.

Even though numerous empirical studies have utilised variants of the theory of planned behaviour to explain consumer behaviour, its applicability to ethical behaviour in the workplace has scarcely been explored. Moreover, its tests in non-western contexts are scant. This study demonstrates the applicability of the ETPB in a broader circumstantial and cultural context and enriches it with religiosity, a pertinent characteristic of billions of people around the world. Finally, this is one of the very few ethics studies focusing on banking, an industry fraught with allegations of moral breaches.

International sales negotiations are fast becoming a major part of the marketeer’s mandate in an increasingly globalised economy. To be successful in that role, managers need to be aware of the limits of acceptability of their behaviours, able to anticipate their counterparts’ actions and understand the motivations behind them. Presents a cross‐national study of 332 experienced sales negotiators’ perceptions in Australia, the USA, the UK, Japan, Russia and Greece. It explores the degree to which different tactics are considered morally acceptable in each country and how the decision‐making frameworks the managers employ affect their evaluation. The results demonstrate that, although moral acceptability of specific practices, the overall level of tolerance and the effect of each one of a set of decision‐making variables vary among different nationalities, the mechanism of the evaluation can be analysed by a single explanatory model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged supply chains (SCs) around the globe unprecedentedly. This study aims to gain insights on the impacts of the pandemic on SCs and their management under consideration of different regional contexts on a global scale.

A Delphi study collects the expertise of global SC academics on the SC vulnerabilities and the measures for responding to disruptions, improving resilience, and restoring operations. Data from three polls are systematically analyzed by content, frequency, and cluster analysis.

The study identifies and ranks ten major issues related to SC vulnerabilities and management strategies for specific SC processes and geographical regions. Detected differences among the considered geographical regions point towards particular challenges and call for specific measures to integrate regional contingencies into SC management. In a regional comparison, China and Iran as well as Africa clearly stand out, but also Europe/North America, India/Pakistan, and Brazil show geographical particularities.

The responses are collected against the COVID-19 pandemic, while the findings show differences among the regions thereby arguing for taking regional contingencies into account in managing SCs.

SC resilience is a core aim, which was emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings provide insights and challenges that managers would have to meet in the different regions covered.

This paper contributes to existing knowledge on SC risks and SC resilience in context to extreme situations. Given that events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, will become more frequent in the future due to climate change and geopolitical tensions, insights into how to manage SCs under extreme conditions and into regional differences are crucial.

The purpose of this study is to explore the central users (hubs) in the dissemination of equity crowdfunding (EC) news on social media, with particular regard to Twitter. Specifically, the study explores some aspects related to the diffusion of news through social networks concerning EC.

Through a social network analysis (SNA) technique the authors define an understanding of the users' network that is created on Twitter when it comes to crowdfunding. Using Twitter data, the authors identify the central actors on the social network that produce and/or disseminate information about crowdfunding tools.

The results indicate that a large number of users tweeted about EC in relation to the introduction of the most important Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob) Regulation n. 20264 of 17/01/2018 on an equity model at the beginning of 2018; the growth in the use of this instrument in the first quarter of 2019 and the publication of Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob) Regulation n. 21110 of 10/10/2019. Moreover, the authors find that in the case of tweets concerning EC, the operators of the sector, with particular regard to crowdfunding platforms, are central to the network, followed by traditional and specialised media.

The results shed new light on a still unexplored research field concerning the diffusion of news about EC from a platform's perspective. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first explorative study that jointly investigates an EC model and social media in the Italian market, considering the impacts of two different and important regulations. In particular, this study contributes to the literature on EC by clarifying some new aspects related to the diffusion of news through Twitter.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and define dimensions of organizational learning and the way it affects small‐ or medium‐size enterprise (SME) performance.

The empirical research is carried out in Polish SMEs (the sample size is 211 enterprises). In order to test the constructed hypotheses we use factor analysis with varimax rotation, correlation analysis and cluster analysis. The sales and employment growth figures and synthetic McKenzie index are used to evaluate SME performance.

In the empirical study, 11 empirical dimensions of organizational learning are identified and defined. The empirical research shows that sales and employment growth is most dependent on the following dimensions: dialogue and empowerment of the employees, collaboration, team learning, leaders' attitudes. In this research, it is suggested that there is an empirical relationship between organizational learning and organizational performance. In practice it means that organizations reaching a higher level of organizational learning probably achieve higher performance.

This research uses a single‐respondent questionnaire. Further research could include analysis of other SME members and take into consideration subjective measures of SME development.

The research results in some important recommendations for SME leaders, who should make every effort to inspire the employees' confidence in each other and create an atmosphere of honest and frank exchange of information and ideas.

The results of the research fill a gap in the current knowledge of strategic management and can be used by managers, specialists, independent experts.