Antonio Navarro-García, Marta Peris-Oritz and Ramón Barrera-Barrera
This paper has two objectives in the area of industrialised small- and medium-sized industrial company (SME) export activity. First, it responds to the gap in the literature on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper has two objectives in the area of industrialised small- and medium-sized industrial company (SME) export activity. First, it responds to the gap in the literature on the role of market intelligence in the interrelations between perceived psychic distance, marketing mix decisions and export performance. The second objective concerns the influence of resource heterogeneity (size and export department) in the proposed model.
Design/methodology/approach
The current paper tests a posited research model and its hypotheses using the data from a multi-sector sample of exporters (196 Spanish industrial SMEs). The data are analyzed using a partial least squares approach.
Findings
The results of the empirical study show that: strategic decisions to adapt marketing mix elements to suit foreign markets have a positive effect on export performance; strategic adaptations are more numerous when export managers perceive a greater psychic distance; an export department helps develop market intelligence ability, which positively moderates the impact of strategic adaptations on export performance; and size does not have a significant effect on the interrelations studied.
Practical implications
Export managers in industrial SMEs can use the results and conclusions of this present paper to systematise their decision-making in export activity.
Originality/value
This paper makes a significant contribution towards covering an important gap in research into industrial SME exporters, by demonstrating the importance of market intelligence in export activity.
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Marta Peris-Ortiz, Carlos Alberto Devece-Carañana and Antonio Navarro-Garcia
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between open innovation (OI) and radical and incremental innovation success in knowledge-based companies. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between open innovation (OI) and radical and incremental innovation success in knowledge-based companies. The company’s human resources and organizational learning capability are considered as the fundamental nexus of this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
At the conceptual level, the paper analyzes the relationships between dynamic capabilities and OI and between OI and innovation success. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to study how innovation is implemented in 29 companies.
Findings
FsQCA identifies combinations of factors that facilitate incremental innovations. These combinations reveal the path to implementing company policies that enable incremental innovation and foster radical innovation.
Research limitations/implications
The nature of the study sample means that the findings should be generalized with precaution. The most valuable implication is the identification of combinations of factors that help companies manage innovation.
Originality/value
Scarce literature links organizational learning factors and OI to different types of innovation. The use of fsQCA to analyze the cases also marks a breakthrough in the innovation literature.
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Francisco Javier Rondán‐Cataluña, Antonio Navarro‐García, Juan Gámez‐González and Carlos J. Rodríguez‐Rad
The objective of this paper is to improve the knowledge about ethical content of franchising associations at a worldwide level.
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this paper is to improve the knowledge about ethical content of franchising associations at a worldwide level.
Design/methodology/approach
To do this, the authors compared the content of 46 deontological codes of franchising associations from five continents to the standards established in the so‐called C‐40 or model of franchising deontological codes.
Findings
Results show that, in general, ethical content included in deontological codes of franchising associations is not very large, requiring progress in improving its structure and content. In any case, according to the contents of their deontological codes, there are two groups of franchising associations worldwide. On the one hand, those taking the archetype of the European Franchise Federation code (30 associations), which show a greater number of ethical issues and have a better structured code than the other group that do not follow the European code (16 associations).
Originality/value
Although currently the majority of franchisees and franchisors associations' have or are in the process of developing a deontological code, there is little knowledge about “how a good code should be”, “what is the content it must include to perform properly” and if “existing codes of franchise associations are appropriated”. The answer to these questions, given the existing gap in the literature, is the value of this work.
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Juan Gámez‐González, F. Javier Rondan‐Cataluña, Enrique C. Diez‐de Castro and Antonio Navarro‐Garcia
This work proposes to test the C‐40 deontological code of collective orientation specifically for franchise associations. The literature review revealed a lack of studies about…
Abstract
Purpose
This work proposes to test the C‐40 deontological code of collective orientation specifically for franchise associations. The literature review revealed a lack of studies about this type of codes.
Design/methodology/approach
This code adopts a semi‐normative approach in trying to standardize what form a deontological code of a franchise association should take. The study has been developed from an international perspective, making easier its spread and generalization. Furthermore, a novel methodology in this area has been applied to test the code: “The Experton Theory”.
Findings
As a consequence, from the review of ethical and deontological codes from franchise associations of 46 countries, some associations' statutes and the laws about franchising in some countries, 29 topics were identified. Additionally, 11 more have been added to these contents, making 40 items which conform with what should be integrated into whatever franchising deontological code.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitations of this work refer to the proposition and validation of some questions included in the C‐40 code. Specifically, some of them show opinion divergences of the experts' answers over 25 percent.
Social implications
The proposed code might be used as a background for franchise associations at an international level. It encourages the increase of ethical and business contents in the existing codes and, therefore, the improvement of the relationships among franchisers, franchisees and the rest of the stakeholders.
Originality/value
This study is focused on a scarcely treated topic in the literature: deontological codes in franchising. In addition, it has been developed from an international perspective, making its spread and generalization easier.
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Manlio Del Giudice, Elias G. Carayannis, Daniel Palacios-Marqués, Pedro Soto-Acosta and Dirk Meissner
José M. Merigó, Anna M. Gil-Lafuente and Jaime Gil-Lafuente
This special issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, entitled “Business, Industrial Marketing and Uncertainty”, presents selected extended studies that were…
Abstract
Purpose
This special issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, entitled “Business, Industrial Marketing and Uncertainty”, presents selected extended studies that were presented at the European Academy of Management and Business Economics Conference (AEDEM 2012).
Design/methodology/approach
The main focus of this year was reflected in the slogan: “Creating new opportunities in an uncertain environment”. The objective was to show the importance that uncertainty has in our current world, strongly affected by many complexities and modern developments, especially through the new technological advances.
Findings
One fundamental reason that explains the economic crisis is that the government and companies were not well prepared for these critical situations. And the main justification for this is that they did not have enough information. Otherwise, they would have tried any possible strategy to avoid the crisis. Usually, uncertainty is defined as the situation with unknown information in the environment.
Originality/value
From a theoretical perspective, the problem here is that enterprises and governments should assess the information and the uncertainty in a more appropriate way. Usually, they have some studies in this direction, but many times, it is not enough, as it was proved in the last economic crisis.
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Susanne Knoll, Antônio Domingos Padula, Julio Otávio Jardim Barcellos, Guilherme Pumi, Shudong Zhou and Funing Zhong
The purpose of this paper is to identify Brazilian and Chinese cultural, managerial and negotiation factors that can influence the beef trade between the two countries.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify Brazilian and Chinese cultural, managerial and negotiation factors that can influence the beef trade between the two countries.
Design/methodology/approach
First, a matrix based on reliable secondary sources was established created upon indicators of economic, financial, policy, administrative, cultural, demographic, knowledge, global connectedness and geographic distance between the two countries. This was combined with primary data from interviews conducted with two key stakeholders of the supply chain, namely, the Brazilian agricultural attaché to China, and the director of Apex-Brasil. The results were analysed in a qualitative descriptive manner.
Findings
Cultural and political distances between Brazil and China are the most profound origins of challenges in negotiations on both the private and public level.
Research limitations/implications
The interviews were limited in number and to the Brazilian portion of agents involved in the beef trade (diplomats and APEX representative). The low number of interviews might be a limiting factor of the investigation. However, the interviewees’ key position in the supply chain and data triangulation with secondary sources equilibrates the results’ trustworthiness.
Social implications
China and Brazil are becoming important players in the international market. Brazil has become a leader in the production and export of agricultural commodities. Brazil is the first producer or the second exporter of coffee, soybean, ethanol, poultry, sugar and beef. In 2009, China became Brazil’s top partner in trade (Xi, 2016). In 2015, Brazil exported $35.6bn to and imported $30.7bn from China. In the foreseeable future China will continue to be the most dynamic economy worldwide. This trade dynamic can be a source of opportunities for Chinese and Brazilian enterprises.
Originality/value
Information collected and conclusions drawn from the research are unique in scientific and management literature related to this specific topic, and can be of great value for stakeholders, traders and diplomats in the Sino-Brazilian trade.
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– The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day.
Design/methodology/approach
Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue.
Findings
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations.
Originality/value
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.
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Roberto Cerchione, Piera Centobelli, Elena Borin, Antonio Usai and Eugenio Oropallo
The effect of digital transition on knowledge management (KM) processes is becoming relevant for companies operating in different industries and the body of literature examining…
Abstract
Purpose
The effect of digital transition on knowledge management (KM) processes is becoming relevant for companies operating in different industries and the body of literature examining this impact is rapidly growing. This paper aims to critically analyse the literature on the impact of digital transition on KM by rethinking the SECI model proposed by Nonaka and proposing the WISED model for the digital knowledge-creating company.
Design/methodology/approach
The systematisation of existing studies on the topic and the analysis of the evolution of knowledge creation process in the era of digital transition was carried out through a bibliometric approach.
Findings
According to the traditional epistemological and ontological dimensions and considering the innovative KM processes identified by this study (i.e. webification, informalisation, systematisation, explicitation and digitalisation), the results highlight how the proposed WISED model can be adopted by organizations to manage knowledge through the use of digital technologies.
Originality/value
Digital transition seems to open up new horizons that can expand the potential use of the WISED model for organisations and society.