This paper seeks to address the questions of how and why the negative consequences emanating from a stricken social enterprise spread to other social enterprises, threatening…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to address the questions of how and why the negative consequences emanating from a stricken social enterprise spread to other social enterprises, threatening viability of social enterprises as a whole.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on social categorization theory, a conceptual model is developed to understand how and why the perception of stakeholders on one single, stricken social enterprise can spread to other social enterprises, and ultimately affecting viability of social enterprises.
Findings
A conceptual model outlines how a violation of the legitimacy of a single social enterprise results in bad perception of this stricken enterprise, and which in turn evokes negative responses from stakeholders. Then stakeholders are likely to further conclude that other social enterprises may have similar problems. As a result, they spread their negative responses to other social enterprises as the initially stricken enterprise. These negative consequences can seriously damage a social enterprise and threaten viability of other social enterprises as well.
Practical implications
To regain legitimacy, social entrepreneurs of a focal social enterprise need to upgrade their skills, rationalize operations and enhance governance structure. Given the harmful spillover effect(s) that may inflict other social enterprises, social entrepreneurs of these social enterprises need to differentiate themselves from the focal social enterprise. Social investors need to take the spillover effects into consideration when making investment decisions.
Originality/value
This paper seeks to contribute to social enterprise literature by highlighting the importance of cognitive processing of stakeholders that is subsumed under social categorization theory, while advancing the understanding of viability of social enterprises from a critical perspective.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of individual entrepreneurs on the operating environments as potential opportunities or threats, which influence the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of individual entrepreneurs on the operating environments as potential opportunities or threats, which influence the relationship between knowledge transfer and innovation by drawing on the threat‐rigidity thesis and prospect theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine the relationships among knowledge transfer, perceived environmental turbulence and innovation, using data from a mail survey of 66 technology‐based entrepreneurs in China.
Findings
Results showed that knowledge transfer was positively related to innovation, but that this relationship was moderated by perceived environmental turbulence.
Research limitations/implications
Research limitations of this paper include causality, common method bias, and generalizability. In future research, it may be helpful to use field experiments and longitudinal research designs, and to replicate this research in other industries and contexts.
Practical implications
This research highlights the perception of entrepreneurs towards the peculiarities of the operating environment in China, which helps explain why innovation is highly variable across organizations.
Originality/value
Previous research examining the effect of knowledge transfer on innovation does not explicitly model the moderating effect of environmental turbulence. To fill this research gap, the authors draw upon the threat‐rigidity thesis and prospect theory to examine the perceptions of individual entrepreneurs on the operating environments as potential opportunities or threats, which influence the relationship between knowledge transfer and innovation. The authors suggest that the link between knowledge transfer and innovation varies with different interpretations of the operating environment by individual entrepreneurs.
Details
Keywords
Zhongyi Hu, Raymond Chiong, Ilung Pranata, Yukun Bao and Yuqing Lin
Malicious web domain identification is of significant importance to the security protection of internet users. With online credibility and performance data, the purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Malicious web domain identification is of significant importance to the security protection of internet users. With online credibility and performance data, the purpose of this paper to investigate the use of machine learning techniques for malicious web domain identification by considering the class imbalance issue (i.e. there are more benign web domains than malicious ones).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose an integrated resampling approach to handle class imbalance by combining the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO), a population-based meta-heuristic algorithm. The authors use the SMOTE for oversampling and PSO for undersampling.
Findings
By applying eight well-known machine learning classifiers, the proposed integrated resampling approach is comprehensively examined using several imbalanced web domain data sets with different imbalance ratios. Compared to five other well-known resampling approaches, experimental results confirm that the proposed approach is highly effective.
Practical implications
This study not only inspires the practical use of online credibility and performance data for identifying malicious web domains but also provides an effective resampling approach for handling the class imbalance issue in the area of malicious web domain identification.
Originality/value
Online credibility and performance data are applied to build malicious web domain identification models using machine learning techniques. An integrated resampling approach is proposed to address the class imbalance issue. The performance of the proposed approach is confirmed based on real-world data sets with different imbalance ratios.
Details
Keywords
Penpattra Tarsakoo and Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol
This paper aims to explore the contribution of social media marketing capability on business performance of firms in Thailand. The conceptualization of social media marketing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the contribution of social media marketing capability on business performance of firms in Thailand. The conceptualization of social media marketing capability was developed using five aspects of the spanning capabilities of Day’s strategic framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire data were collected from business entrepreneurs in Thailand who attended seminar and training courses (N = 364). Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data.
Findings
Among five aspects of social media marketing capability, social media product development capabilities and social media marketing implementation capability were positively and significantly related to customer relationship performance and financial performance; social media marketing communication capability had a significantly positive relationship only with customer relationship performance, whereas social media planning capability was found to have a significantly positive relationship only with financial performance. However, the analysis did not find the significant relationship between social media pricing capability and the two aspects of firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
First, the results were obtained using cross-sectional data collection. Second, the data were collected using convenience sampling. Third, the performance variables used in the analysis are perceptual measures. Finally, the study was only conducted in Thailand context and did not lend itself to any general applicability.
Practical implications
This research suggests that it is important for Thai companies that rely on social media to develop marketing capabilities and learn how to incorporate social media into their marketing activities.
Originality/value
This study built a conceptual foundation of social media marketing capabilities based on Days strategic framework which provided a complete and comprehensive view about social media applications that can be integrated into different areas of marketing activities.
Details
Keywords
Stephen Mark Rosenbaum, Tage Koed Madsen and Henrik Johanning
The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which piggybacking partners attempt to overcome the challenges of interfirm diversity when entering foreign markets.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which piggybacking partners attempt to overcome the challenges of interfirm diversity when entering foreign markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a longitudinal case study following the collaboration between a rider (a small software developer) and carrier (a global player in software solution distribution) as a means of co-creating value for global customers in the pharmaceutical industry.
Findings
The authors find that despite differential size and incongruent organizational cultures, top managers were still initially able to facilitate collaboration through various knowledge-sharing initiatives, but that these efforts were subsequently undermined by middle managers (due to misaligned incentives), which prevented both parties from reaping the gains of piggybacking on global markets.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have a number of implications for academics and practitioners alike. Theoretical implications include treating piggybacking as a special case of indirect exporting with particular challenges for knowledge exchange and trust building.
Practical implications
The authors offer managerial implications for reconciling divergent organizational cultures, partner selection and incentive alignment.
Originality/value
This appears to be the first paper to empirically assess the viability of piggybacking as a foreign entry mode by examining the crucial processes of knowledge sharing and trust development within piggybacking arrangements.
Details
Keywords
The current debate between two theoretical approaches in library and information science and knowledge organization (KO), the cognitive one and the sociological one, is addressed…
Abstract
Purpose
The current debate between two theoretical approaches in library and information science and knowledge organization (KO), the cognitive one and the sociological one, is addressed in view of their possible integration in a more general model. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal knowledge of individual users, as focused in the cognitive approach, and social production and use of knowledge, as focused in the sociological approach, are reconnected to the theory of levels of reality, particularly in the versions of Nicolai Hartmann and Karl R. Popper (three worlds). The notions of artefact and mentefact, as proposed in anthropological literature and applied in some KO systems, are also examined as further contributions to the generalized framework. Some criticisms to these models are reviewed and discussed.
Findings
Both the cognitive approach and the sociological approach, if taken in isolation, prove to be cases of philosophical monism as they emphasize a single level over the others. On the other hand, each of them can be considered as a component of a pluralist ontology and epistemology, where individual minds and social communities are but two successive levels in knowledge production and use, and are followed by a further level of “objectivated spirit”; this can in turn be analyzed into artefacts and mentefacts. While all these levels are relevant to information science, mentefacts and their properties are its most peculiar objects of study, which make it distinct from such other disciplines as psychology and sociology.
Originality/value
This analysis shows how existing approaches can benefit from additional notions contributed by levels theory, to develop more complete and accurate models of information and knowledge phenomena.
Details
Keywords
Rui Biscaia, Abel Correia, Stephen Ross and António Rosado
This research aims to examine football fans' awareness of their team sponsors and to compare sponsorship awareness between season ticket holders and casual spectators. Data was…
Abstract
This research aims to examine football fans' awareness of their team sponsors and to compare sponsorship awareness between season ticket holders and casual spectators. Data was collected from among fans of a professional football team and results revealed that spectators recall 'top of mind' those sponsors with their logo displayed on the team shirts. Thus, being visible from the stadium stands is important to ensure recall rates. Fans are typically able to properly recognise sponsors and non-sponsors of their team. However, some competitor brands engaged in football sponsorship are incorrectly recognised as sponsors of a team. Finally, the number of brands recalled and recognised correctly by season ticket holders is significantly higher than for casual spectators. The research findings, managerial implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
Tarek Ibrahim Eldomiaty, Islam Azzam, Mohamed Bahaa El Din, Wael Mostafa and Zahraa Mohamed
The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model…
Abstract
The main objective of this study is to examine whether firms follow the financing hierarchy as suggested by the Pecking Order Theory (POT). The External Funds Needed (EFN) model offers a financing hierarchy that can be used for examining the POT. As far as the EFN considers growth of sales as a driver for changing capital structure, it follows that shall firms plan for a sustainable growth of sales, a sustainable financing can be reached and maintained. This study uses data about the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from June 30, 1999, to March 31, 2012. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) causality analysis in order to show the generic and mutual associations between the components of EFN. The results conclude that (a) in the majority of the cases, firms plan for an increase in growth sales but not necessarily to approach sustainable rate; (b) in cases of observed and sustainable growth of sales, firms reduce debt financing persistently; (c) firms use equity financing to finance sustainable growth of sales in the long run only, while in the short run, firms use internal financing, that is, retained earnings as a flexible source of financing; and (d) the EFN model is quite useful for examining the hierarchy of financing. This study contributes to the related literature in terms of utilizing the properties of the EFN model in order to examine the practical aspects of the POT. These practical considerations are extended to examine the use of the POT in cases of observed and sustainable growth rates. The findings contribute to the current literature that there is a need to offer an adjustment to the financing order suggested by the POT. Equity financing is the first source of financing current and sustainable growth of sales, followed by retained earnings, and debt financing is the last resort.