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The purpose of this paper is to examine a failed union merger attempt from a democratic perspective. Although it is estimated that a majority of planned union mergers are never completed, the existing literature is unsuccessful in explaining why it is so. Stressing the importance for merging unions to keep their members informed and participative in the merger process, we highlight two democratic aspects of merger implementation: information anchoring (i.e. the spreading of merger relevant information throughout the membership), and participatory union climate (i.e. the extent to which union leaders provide members with opportunities to participate in union activities and decision making). The act of voting for or against a merger proposal can be regarded as a manifestation of democratic aspects in the internal negotiation process. Thus, members' intention to vote for or against the merger proposal was also analyzed.

Questionnaires were sent to 1,000 members of each of the four participating unions. The survey investigated how many members knew of the merger negotiations, if they would have voted for or against the proposal, and also measured perceptions of the participatory union climate. Discrepancies between representatives and rank‐and‐file members were analyzed, with any significant differences between the two groups interpreted as indicative of the merger process lacking in internal democracy.

The results show that the merger plans were not sufficiently anchored among the membership and that there were significant differences between representatives and rank‐and‐file members in terms of merger plan awareness, vote intention, and perceptions of participatory union climate.

The present study is based on cross‐sectional data collected after the planned merger was rejected.

Few studies have investigated the internal merger negotiation process using an unsuccessful merger attempt as a study case. Also, the need for psychological approaches in IR has long been called for. The present study meets both of these criteria.

Many manufacturing firms (e.g. Apple and Nike) now outsource some or all of their manufacturing activities to independent suppliers rather than continuing to undertake them in-house. Clearly these firms perceive this externalisation of production to be a performance-enhancing strategy, but what are the performance consequences in practice? In this chapter, we review and critique the extant academic literature on the performance consequences of manufacturing outsourcing, and note that the empirical findings have yielded mixed results. We argue that outsourcing has potential impacts upon a number of ‘performance’ outcomes, including inter alia financial performance, productivity/efficiency, sales/market share, costs of production, business performance and innovation. We further argue that many of the empirical studies have flawed designs, and make a series of methodological recommendations to guide future empirical work.

The phenomenon of fear and anxiety can cause a decline in entrepreneurship. However, the validity of this assertion remains debatable, as opportunity-driven entrepreneurs may benefit from elevated uncertainty during a crisis. This study aims to examine entrepreneurial fear of failure and the well-being of opportunity-driven entrepreneurs in their startup stage during the COVID-19 outbreak. Opportunity-driven startups are oriented toward business growth but may need assistance from incubators.

The study used a qualitative method, where ten participants from incubated and non-incubated startups in Indonesia were interviewed. Thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo 12 software to analyze the data.

This study shows that the interviewees subjected to incubation tended to derive motivation from fear of failure. In contrast, nonincubated interviewees showed a propensity to experience fear of failure as repression and inhibition. Furthermore, the study highlights the correlation between entrepreneurial fear of failure and eudaimonic well-being.

This study contributes to the literature with empirical results on fear of failure capturing the essence of entrepreneurial behavior during crises/pandemic in the context of business startups. It provides valuable insights into the policy implications for promoting innovation among startups in specific contexts.

This first paper examines total benefits and total costs of product–service designs as antecedents to customer value assessment. It introduces the reader to all the papers in this volume. The first half of the paper offers a model of customer value assessment. This section describes research studies in industrial marketing contexts that illustrate the core propositions in the model. The second half of the paper provides brief introductions to the papers in this volume; these papers offer further evidence supporting the view that discontinuous innovations offer superior customer value but customers tend to eventually become increasingly comfortable with the status quo and move away from adopting superior proven technologies. This paper advocates being mindful of the marketplace dynamics affecting value. The volume serves to increase knowledge and understanding of the dynamic forces affecting changes in customer value.

This study aims to discuss not only the relationship between performance and cooperation but also discusses whether a subsidiary should prioritize performance above cooperation or whether a subsidiary should prioritize cooperation above performance. In addition, because the headquarters-subsidiary relationship influences the subsidiaries, the perception gaps (PGs) between headquarters and subsidiaries are taken as moderators to explore when there are perception differences between headquarters and subsidiaries and the effect on the relationship between subsidiaries’ cooperation (SCO) and performance (SP).

This study obtained the data through a survey of 170 subsidiaries in China; chief executive officer or senior managers were selected as the data collection sources. AMOS analysis was used to address sophisticated data analysis issues.

The empirical evidence indicates that subsidiary capabilities have direct impacts on SCO and SP. In addition, SCO and performance have mediating effects. More specifically, SCO has a full mediating effect and SP has a partial mediating effect. For the moderating effects, the PG weakens the effect of SCO on SP.

This study contributes to the literature on subsidiary capabilities by offering a headquarters-subsidiary relationship model. As both the conceptual and empirical research studies on this topic are still underdeveloped, the study provides fresh insights into collaborative management and offers significant theoretical and managerial implications. Specifically, this study focuses on the impacts that subsidiary capabilities and PG have on cooperation and performance.

This paper investigates how various emergent theoretical perspectives in entrepreneurship research, representing diverse decision-making logics, influence firm growth and evolution. It explores the interaction among decision-making logics, including experimentation, affordable loss, flexibility and pre-commitment as components of effectuation, alongside causation and bricolage and their synergistic effects on firm growth.

This study uses a multi-phase, discovery-oriented approach. Initially, insights from existing literature on decision-making logic were combined with in-depth interviews with 10 Iranian entrepreneurs within the food sector. This phase used alternative template research to evaluate the principles of effectuation, causation and bricolage within case study data depicting firm growth. Subsequently, a self-administered survey was developed based on these insights and distributed to 205 entrepreneurs in Iran. The survey data was analysed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify key factors and pathways influencing firm growth.

Using a discovery-oriented approach, this study formulates a comprehensive framework detailing decision-making logics that influence firm growth. Through fsQCA, 12 distinct paths are identified, highlighting the complex interplay of causation, effectuation and bricolage in high-growth firms within the food sector.

This study has limitations. FsQCA identifies only logically sufficient combinations, suggesting potential for exploring alternative pathways in future research. Given COVID-19’s impact on the food sector, examining decision-making logic across diverse contexts and industries is advisable. Additionally, exploring how bricolage, causation and effectuation affect outcomes like new product development and innovation is essential in a growth-focused context. It is also important to consider environmental and organizational factors influencing growth.

This paper pioneers the examination of emerging theoretical paradigms in entrepreneurship and their impact on firm growth. It identifies critical configurations of causation, effectuation and bricolage, providing actionable insights for navigating dynamic business environments.

This study aims to examine the combinations of internal and external knowledge flows between research and development (R&D) incumbents and start-ups in the context of open innovation. While there is a growing body of knowledge that has examined how, in a knowledge economy, a firm’s knowledge and innovation activities are closely linked, there is no systematic review available of the key antecedents, perspectives, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers.

The authors have conducted dual-stage research. First, the authors conducted a systematic review of literature (97 research articles) by following the theories–contexts–methods framework and the antecedent-phenomenon-outcomes logic. The authors identified the key theories, contexts, methods, antecedents, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context. In the second stage, the findings of stage one were leveraged to advance a nomological network that depicts the strength of the relationship between the observable constructs that emerged from the review.

The findings demonstrate how knowledge spillovers can help incumbent organisations and start-ups to achieve improved innovation capabilities, R&D capacity, competitive advantage and the creation of knowledge ecosystems leading to improved firm performance. This study has important implications for practitioners and managers – it provides managers with important antecedents of knowledge spillover (knowledge capacities and knowledge types), which directly impact the R&D intensity and digitalisation driving open innovation. The emerging network showed that the antecedents of knowledge spillovers have a direct relationship with the creation of a knowledge ecosystem orchestrated by incumbents and that there is a very strong influence of knowledge capacities and knowledge types on the selection of external knowledge partners/sources.

This study has important implications for practitioners and managers. In particular, it provides managers with important antecedents of knowledge spillover (knowledge capacities and knowledge types), which directly impact the R&D intensity and digitalisation driving open innovation. This will enable managers to take important decisions about what knowledge capacities are required to achieve innovation outcomes. The findings suggest that managers of incumbent firms should be cautious when deciding to invest in knowledge sourcing from external partners. This choice may be driven by the absorptive capacity of the incumbent firm, market competition, protection of intellectual property and public policy supporting innovation and entrepreneurship.

Identification of the key antecedents, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context. The findings from Stage 1 helped us to advance a nomological network in Stage 2, which identifies the strength and influence of the various observable constructs (identified from the review) on each other. No prior study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has advanced a nomological network in the context of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context.

The desired outcome in the new product development (NPD) effort is the timely commercialization of a profitable product. Whether marketing can benefit from the NPD case study is a critical but underresearched issue. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage and quality of NPD case studies in business and industrial marketing.

To investigate the prevalence and research quality of case studies on NPD in business and industrial marketing, 317 case studies published in mainstream journals over the past decade (2010–2020) are reviewed.

This study finds that the distribution of quantity and quality of case studies fluctuates across journals. The scores on the evaluation template for the different case study stages vary widely across journals. This indicates that different journals have different criteria and priorities for NPD case studies. By focusing on different issues, enterprises can quickly find appropriate journals and case results according to their own needs.

This paper can help spark a debate about the implementation and quality of NPD case studies, including future studies and practical applications. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar study has been found in existing studies.