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Firms are adopting Web 2.0 technologies to improve collaboration, participation and communication; however there are few empirical studies testing the impact of this adoption. The purpose of this article is to analyze if there is a linkage amongst market orientation, Web 2.0 adoption and innovativeness.

Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships amongst the variables. A sample of 244 firms of the hospitality industry was used. The theoretical approach is based on the market orientation and innovativeness, concepts, which have been studied by various authors in the literature.

A positive relationship was found between market orientation and Web 2.0 adoption and between Web 2.0 adoption and innovativeness.

The study was developed in one industry, so in order to generalize the findings, additional testing in other industries should be developed. In addition a longitudinal study is encouraged.

Managers are advised to adopt Web 2.0 technologies to strengthen market orientation behaviors and innovativeness.

This article empirically tested the relationship between market orientation and Web 2.0 adoption and the impact of Web 2.0 adoption on innovativeness. Although some managers and researchers have reported some positive impacts of Web 2.0 on different aspects of the organization, there are still few empirical studies, and the authors contributed to fill this void.

The purpose of this paper is to explore new banks ' market niche position choices at the time of founding.

The authors used data on the establishment of new banking organizations in California, over 1979-1988, to test the hypotheses. During that time, banking within California experienced dramatic deregulation, which provided ample opportunities for new bank start-ups.

New banks were found to enter more often in specialist market niches when the market was highly concentrated, but less often when there were more non-bank financial institutions active in the market. The frequency of new specialist entries displayed an inverted U-shaped pattern as the number of established specialist banks in the market increased.

The findings confirm the idea that elements of market structure influence the niche positioning decisions of new ventures. The paper contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurial decision making in response to environmental conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating effect of business strategy (BS) on intellectual capital (IC) and financial performance (FP). The impact of financial crisis is also a major topic of this research.

This study applies BS as mediator to explore the relationships between IC, BS, and FP. Partial least squares is employed to test the reliability and validity of measurements and the significance of path coefficients, and therefore to examine the hypotheses.

IC has significant impacts on BS and FP in all samples, as well as in those years before and after the financial crisis. BS has a partial significant mediating effect between IC and FP. BS has significant effects on FP in all samples and pre-financial crisis, but has not in post-financial crisis.

IC has significant impacts on BS and FP. Moreover, the relationships of IC, BS, and FP are different during pre- and post-financial crisis. The direct effect of IC on FP is confirmed and consistent, and the indirect effect of IC on FP by BS is dependent upon the environment status.

Enterprises should pay attention to IC, BS, and the related changes in environment status. These help enterprises develop appropriate strategies, maintain competitive advantage, and upgrade FP.

This study applies BS as mediator, and explores the relationships between IC, BS, and FP. The impact of financial crisis is also discussed. The results may serve as the criteria for strategic performance management.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework, based on empirical research, to explain the strategic processes of post-entry development in international retailing through consideration of the dynamic capabilities attributable to retailers.

Case study approach of five international retail firms using secondary data and primary data gathered through interviews with firms ' executives and financial analysts.

The research findings, in the light of the existing literature, suggest a framework that makes a distinction between first level or generic dynamic capabilities relevant to the internationalization process and second level or specific dynamic capabilities that are linked to particular strategies used by individual retail firms as they internationalize.

Research in international retailing has focused on empirical studies despite calls for a more conceptual approach. This paper responds to this call by applying the dynamic capabilities approach to the post-entry international activity of apparel retailers.

The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the effect of the current financial crisis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and CSR assurance strategies that companies disclose online to stakeholders, by dividing the time horizon into two periods, before 2008 and from 2008.

The sample includes Spanish listed companies, differentiating CSR reporters from non CSR-reporters. Also distinguished in the CSR-reporters sample, are those companies that assure the CSR report from those that do not. The authors contrast whether there is a trend as regards CSR reporting and CSR assurance, depending on whether the crisis has already begun or not. Next the authors focus on companies that change their CSR reporting strategy or change their CSR assurance strategy and see if there is an impact on performance (both from an accounting and from a market perspective).

Even though the financial crisis has raised the question whether assurance of CSR reports could be a threat for business, bearing in mind the generalized initiatives to cut costs, the results show that the number of CSR reports increased significantly with the crisis (indeed, significant differences were found in ROE from CSR adopters to CSR discontinuing companies). Nonetheless, no significant impact was found regarding the changes in assurance strategy, even though there are no grounds to expect cuts in this area because the absolute number of assured reports is increasing, yet not significantly.

In spite of the current financial crisis, this study identifies a business in a stage of expansion, not only CSR reporting but also assurance of CSR reports, and confirms the stability in time of the CSR assurance decision by companies as an added-value strategy to CSR reporting. There seems to be an investment view of CSR reporting and CSR assurance, which can help companies differentiate their products or services from the competition and reinforce stakeholders ' trust.

This is a pioneering study on the actual effects that the financial crisis has had on CSR reporting and assurance strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how satisfaction is generated towards e-learning platforms.

This work aims to analyse the differences in the functioning of the model that explains how satisfaction is generated among users of e-learning platforms if expectations are measured before entering into contact with the service or afterwards. The statistical analysis was completed by developing a structural equation model using the SmartPLS 2.0.M3.

The results show that, if the expectations are measured before entering into contact with the good or service, disconfirmation plays a major role in the model. If the expectations are measured after entering into contact with the good or service, the main role is played by expectations in the model. Of the variables included, perceived usefulness and effort expectancy affect satisfaction, not thus enabling conditions and social influence.

The authors study the difference between the results obtained when using the cross-sectional design, where all the variables are mediated once the consumer has entered into contact with the good or service, and the half-longitudinal design, where expectations are measured beforehand.

A mobile office can be defined as software and hardware that support business work and that are accessible via smartphones. Organizations are adopting or trying to adopt the mobile office as their communication and business tool, in order to support or to change their current work environments. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of outsourcing strategy on mobile office performance based on the FORT model and the MoBiS-Q to measure the performance of the outsourced mobile office.

This study focuses on the impact of outsourcing strategy on mobile office performance based on the FORT model and the MoBiS-Q to measure the performance of the outsourced mobile office.

In the results, the perceived usability and the perceived impact of the mobile office on the productivity can be higher with the Alliance outsourcing relationship type. The outsourcing of the mobile office would follow the similar process of other IT outsourcing strategies. But the device fittingness was far from the expectation.

Firms/organizations should consider a more concrete step-by-step approach to strategic outsourcing relationships with the high-skilled expert groups and that the device fittingness may not be a proper factor to measure the performance of the outsourced mobile office.

IT managers who plan or now try to adopt the mobile office into their organizations should focus on developing proper applications and software; however, they do not need to care about device or H/W issues, including employees ' skills at using the devices or the device fittingness for the planned mobile office.

This study is one of the first academic studies to analyze the impact of outsourcing strategy of the mobile office on organization performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the compensation level and the gap between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the top management team (TMT) with respect to the rhythm of firm internationalization.

The approach takes the form of an empirical analysis. The authors use longitudinal data (1997-2006) of a sample of 345 publicly-listed firms in Taiwan.

The results show that higher CEO compensation will lead to regular foreign expansion. The CEO–TMT compensation gap has a curvilinear effect on the rhythm of firm internationalization.

These findings highlight that the compensation structure has a significant influence on a firm ' s internationalization strategy. This research contributes to the literature linking strategic human resource management and corporate strategy in terms of firm internationalization.

When firms consider regular foreign expansion, the compensation committee should design a high total compensation level and appropriate the compensation gap between the CEO and TMT members.

This study sheds light on how the compensation of the upper echelons determines whether the internationalization rhythm is regular or irregular. Moreover, the study examines how internal contingencies, such as performance, moderate the relationship between the upper echelons’ compensation and the internationalization rhythm.

Business strategy and its quest for sustainable competitive advantage and success is challenged by external and internal change, which increasingly takes the form of radical discontinuity. However, emergent strategy models are rising as concepts and constructs, possibly impacting on the advancement of strategic management theory and practices: these tools are the business model (BM), the value network (VN) and resource management (RM). The purpose of this paper is to propose a revisited role for BM design, VN configuration and RM, with specific reference to strategy execution and monitoring under discontinuity.

The study builds its contribution on a theoretical framework (constituted by a literature review on discontinuity, BM, VN and RM), supplemented by two longitudinal case studies on companies which went through several discontinuities affecting their business strategy.

BM, VN and RM are the strategic tools through which a company executes its planned strategy. In addition, radical variations in: BM parameters performance; VN configuration and firms relationships; RM consistency with resources core status, resulting from an external or internal discontinuity, constitute a signalling “vector” of inputs to identify the discontinuity and activate a new strategic re-planning process.

By revisiting the role of BM, VN and RM, the study revives the theoretical debate on business strategy under discontinuity, and provides managers with a comprehensive model to concretely employ these three tools for strategy analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: how to extend resource-based theory to take into account the contribution of all kinds of resources (including the less regarded ones) to performance? While recognising the importance of strategic resources in building and sustaining a competitive advantage, the authors contend that a symmetric analysis of more available resources can shed new light on the sources and mechanisms of superior performance. Thus, they aim to contribute to an extended theory of resources.

Based on literature review and theorization process, the authors introduce alongside strategic resources, the concepts of “ordinary resources” and “junk resources”, showing how they may contribute to performance with an appropriate business model. Several illustrative cases are discussed to demonstrate that such resources need to be studied by resource-based theory (RBT).

The authors propose shifting the focus of RBT from the study of strategic resources alone in order to consider other types as well: ordinary and junk resources. Such an approach involves significant implications for strategic management theory and management practices.

The paper describes the conditions under which ordinary and junk resources (more available to most firms than strategic resources) may generate a competitive advantage. The extended resource-based theory can have implications for society as it may influence managers ' and public attitudes towards underestimated resources and lead to new business models.

The approach developed in this article also goes beyond traditional critiques of RBT. Specifically, the authors ' analysis avoids tautological reasoning, distinguishing between: resources; perceptions of their attributes by firms; the services these resources render; the business model implemented to deploy these resources; and the effects in terms of performance. The authors build an extended resource-based theory, allowing the contribution of various kinds of resources to firm performance to be explained.