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In Mali, dairy processors mostly use imported powdered milk rather than local fresh milk, constraining the development of a domestic milk sector. We investigate factors motivating a firm's choice of milk input, to identify measures that can encourage demand for fresh milk.

We utilize case study data from nine firms that use fresh and powdered milk to varying degrees, and which are representative of dairy processing in Bamako. To model firm motivations, we assess how each input contributes to or detracts from firm competitive advantage, through its influence on cost and differentiation.

Firms using fresh milk pay a higher input price, incur higher transaction costs and face additional challenges in production and distribution. Firms distinguish themselves from competitors through four potential sources of differentiation: novel product types, quality enhancements, quality-signaling and unique packaging. However, fresh milk firms are less likely to exploit each source of differentiation.

Competitive advantage is a useful framework for understanding firm behavior in developing markets and can be applied in other contexts to strengthen external validity.

The extant economics literature on African dairy development has been surprisingly silent on the threat of import competition. This research is one of the first to investigate this issue in the under-studied middle segment of food value chains.

Research at agricultural universities often generates food crops that are edible by‐products of the research process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect decision‐making around the disposal of these crops. Understanding decision‐making suggests how universities might include food crop production into campus sustainability assessments.

A qualitative, ethnographic approach is used as, little is known about decision‐making on edible crops at universities; decision‐making was expected to be highly location‐specific and complex. In‐depth interviews with operations staff and participant observation were used.

Decision‐making is decentralized and often reflects the values of individual staff regarding the value of the food. Staff use an informal cost‐benefit analysis that reflects the economic, social, environmental trade‐offs of their perceived disposal options. Many decisions reflect a sustainability ethic regarding the higher use‐value of food crops while others reflect instrumental concerns about disposing of unwanted waste products. The complexity of decision‐making suggests it would be difficult to develop a quantitative instrument that would provide meaningful data for a campus sustainability assessment.

Food production provides another opportunity to improve campus sustainability efforts. Also, qualitative work may be useful to understanding such systems.

The paper highlights a part of the campus food systems that is rarely studied: the campus as a food producer. It also provides an in‐depth illustration of how qualitative methods may be used to inform the design of campus assessments.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explore what leadership characteristics constitute humanistic leadership in the South Korean context. Moreover, this study examines how these leadership characteristics are connected to Korean culture.

Based on the information gathered from semi-structured interviews and other sources, including books, case study articles and news articles, this study captures a more comprehensive perspective of Mr. Kook-Hyun Moon, the former CEO of Yuhan–Kimberly.

The key characteristics of Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership that are identified in this study are: respect for all mankind, benevolence (seeking the greater good), sincerity (building trusting relationships with stakeholders) and continuous learning and innovation (developing self and others). These key characteristics set Mr. Moon apart from other leaders and are connected to the fundamental values and philosophies of Korean culture.

This study contributes to the current leadership literature by identifying and exploring Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership characteristics that enable him to gain respect and contribute to communities and society in the South Korean context. This study also finds that the humanistic leadership characteristics of Mr. Moon reflect three major attributes of Korean culture: the ideology of the Dangun mythology, the principle of Neo-Confucianism in Korea and jeong – an indigenous cultural concept in Korea (these attributes will be discussed in detail in the South Korean values and philosophies section). Such reflection suggests that investigating how humanistic leadership characteristics are connected to local cultural roots is important to enhance the understanding of humanistic leadership.

This study explores the influence of Taiwan’s high‐tech manufacturers’ innovative strategy and innovation motivation concerning the implementation of innovative activities, as well as the influence of innovative activities implementation on business performance. The two intermediate variables, industry group and enterprise scale are also considered. Through a review of the relevant literature, a theoretical model of the influence relationship is developed, while an empirical analysis is simultaneously conducted on Taiwan’s high‐tech manufacturers. The research result shows that the internal driving force of innovative activities has a significant impact on the level of implementing technological innovative activities and cultural innovative activities. The external driving force of innovative activities has a significant impact on the level of implementing market innovative activities and management innovative activities. Companies adopting self‐developed technology and purchased as well as self‐developed technology strategies, perform better than those adopting purchased new technology or those with neither purchased nor self‐developed technology strategies, at implementing technological innovative activities and cultural innovative activities. The level of implementing innovative activities has a significant influence on business performance (cost reduction and product/service differentiation). For the intermediate variables of “industry group” and “enterprise scale”, it is proven in this study that they have no significant influence on the level of innovative activity implementation or business performance.

Three diversification strategies (related, unrelated, and related‐Jinked) are reviewed in terms of their organizational arrangements (coordination and control mechanisms), managerial mind sets (corporate managers' ways of doing business), and organizational learning climates (learning capacity and learning needs). It is suggested that conventional organization development techniques (both human‐processual and technostructural) are relevant for developing the necessary organizational arrangements and managerial mindsets of diversifies. The organizational transformation perspective of managing change is proposed as an effective way to develop the required organizational learning climate of diversified firms due to its dynamic and proactive nature.

Medical errors cause a significant number of deaths. Providing training to medical staff can improve the quality of medical care. Hospitals have traditionally used face‐to‐face modality to train staff but they are beginning to adopt e‐learning systems that can easily deliver training at work or to other convenient locations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors leading to e‐learning adoption in hospitals.

A framework of factors leading to the adoption decision of e‐learning systems is first proposed. Survey data are collected to empirically test the proposed framework. The samples consist of senior executives and managers in hospitals.

It is found that three factors including managerial, organizational, and technological exhibit significant influences on the adoption decision. One novel result is that the organizational variable of hospital specialization significantly influences the decision to adopt e‐learning systems.

This study is one of the first to propose a model of adoption of e‐learning specifically in the context of hospitals. Limitations and strengths of the study and possible future research direction are also discussed.

From a practitioner's standpoint, the results of this study can help hospital administrators to accelerate the adoption of e‐learning systems.

This study is one of the first to propose a model of adoption of e‐learning specifically in the context of hospitals. It is expected that the model developed can assist to further understand the e‐learning adoption in hospitals.

Although existing studies demonstrate positive relationships between ethical cultures and innovativeness, their explanations of why an ethical culture leads to innovativeness are limited. This study explores the relationship between ethical organizational culture and knowledge workers' innovativeness

Based on Kierkegaardian existential philosophy, this study proposes a research model that employs knowledge workers' existential affirmation as the link between ethical culture and innovativeness. The main hypothesis proposed in this study is that ethical organizational culture offers knowledge workers the opportunity to find their existential affirmation, which leads them to become more innovative. A structural equation modeling analysis is based on data collected from a survey of 348 knowledge workers from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in different hi-tech industries.

The findings suggest that among the four subdimensions of an ethical organizational culture, ethics training and awareness raising had the strongest relationships with knowledge workers' existential affirmation, which, in turn, had a significant relationship with their innovativeness.

Based on this philosophical reflection, this study develops a research model that examines knowledge workers' existential affirmation as the factor that links ethical organizational culture and knowledge workers' innovativeness. The authors test ethical organizational culture as an environment that allows knowledge workers to validate their existential affirmation. Further, they test the link between knowledge workers' existential affirmation and their innovativeness.

This study aims to explore the impact of social media influencers' (SMIs) intimate self-disclosure on consumers' purchase intentions, with a focus on the role of parasocial relationships and congruence among the influencer, product and consumer. The study finds its theoretical foundation in parasocial theory and self-congruency theory.

This study employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a sample of 232 collected survey responses. The proposed hypotheses are evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Contrary to initial assumptions, the study reveals that parasocial relationships do not mediate the link between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and purchase intentions. However, an interesting moderating effect was discovered: the congruence between the consumer and the influencer influences the relationship between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and parasocial relationships, and subsequently, between parasocial relationships and purchase intentions.

This study brings fresh insights by pinpointing a boundary condition that dictates the influence of SMIs' intimate self-disclosure on purchase intentions via parasocial relationships. In doing so, this study provides a novel perspective in understanding the dynamics between SMIs and consumers in the rapidly evolving marketing landscape.

Little research has been conducted on the internal factors that drive green product (GP) innovation and how family influence affects firm adoption of GP innovation. This study aims to apply multiple perspectives to bridge this research gap, adopting the resource-based view (RBV) to examine what and how internal factors affect firm adoption of GP innovation, and using the behavioral theory of family firms to investigate whether family influence fosters or hinders firm adoption of GP innovation.

This study used a multichannel approach and adopted content analysis to collect and evaluate data on listed Taiwanese firms and used cross-sectional regression analysis to examine the effect of internal factors and family influence on firm adoption of GP innovation.

The results showed that the internal factors of green capabilities, R&D intensity and firm size significantly and positively affected firm adoption of GP innovation separately. Furthermore, the study found that family influence (ownership and control) significantly and negatively affects firm adoption of GP innovation separately.

This study contributes to the academic research of innovation management, green management and family firms in several aspects, but also has some limitations. This study examined only the relationship between a firm’s internal factors and GP innovation. Future research might test the relationship between a firm’s internal factors and adoption of green process innovation. In addition, such research can explore how integrated internal and external factors influence firm adoption of GP innovation.

From the RBV, the internal factors of green capabilities, R&D intensity and firm size that can exert crucial effects on firm engage in firm’s adoption of GP innovation. This study suggests that top managers in family-influenced businesses should maintain appropriate commitment and support for fostering and facilitating firm GP innovation.

From the RBV, this study examined how internal factors affect firm adoption of GP innovation. Moreover, based on the behavioral theory of family firms, this study further examined how family influence (ownership and control) affects firm adoption of GP innovation. This paper extended both perspectives to examine green issues.

From the RBV, this study examined how internal factors affect firms’ GP innovation. Moreover, based on institutional theory, this study further examines how a family firm moderates the relationship between a firm’s internal factors and GP innovation. The paper extended both perspectives to probe further the green issues.

Innovation is a key factor in assessing organizational success. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the organizational culture and operations strategy impact organizational innovation. It explores the influence of various combinations of organizational cultures and operations strategies on a firm’s ability to innovate both in process and product.

A conceptual model is developed which attempts to explain how the reciprocal and dynamic interactive relationship between organizational culture and operations strategy and innovation is structured. In total, 233 valid questionnaires were collected from 17 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the direction and strengths of the relationships and develop a comprehensive picture to illustrate the drivers of successful innovation.

The analysis and conclusions confirm the suitability of Culture–Strategy–Innovation Model and the detailed results demonstrate that a combination of innovative organizational culture and flexibility-oriented operations strategy has the strongest influence on a firm’s innovation process thereby improving their innovative organizational outcomes.

Although based on Taiwanese manufacturing industries these results provide useful insights for manufacturing industries in general. In alternative contexts, the combination of different dimensions of culture and strategy can be expected to cause different levels of success in innovation. This study provides robust evidence to explain the organizational climate needed to guide the innovative and flexibility considerations needed for SMEs in the manufacturing industry.

This is an empirical study which specifically investigates the activities of SMEs in the metal/plastic manufacturing industry in Taiwan and in particular examines organizational culture, operations strategies and innovation. The research model proposed and confirmed offers a new multi-dimensional structure of culture and strategy linked with their various related dynamic interrelationships and the drivers that impact organizational innovation.