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Entrepreneurship evolves in and around fields, particularly around the creation of opportunities. A central problem remains that entrepreneurial opportunities are both distributed among and co-created by embedded actors. We propose framing this in cultural terms as a “multiverse problem,” whereby entrepreneurial possibilities are understood within the bounds of a field, but also through traversing adjacent topographies. We argue that a focus on entrepreneurial moments captures important dynamics that bring together adjacent possibles, leading to drastically different pathways. The usefulness of this argument is illustrated in this paper through the articulation of a cultural cartographic approach to mapping and realizing entrepreneurial possibilities. We develop four principles of cultural cartography, apply them to several examples, and demonstrate implications to cultural entrepreneurship and adjacent theoretical traditions.

We review and discuss theoretical approaches from both within and outside of institutional organization theory with regard to their specific insights on what we call “regionalized zones of meaning” – that is, clusters of social meaning that can be distinguished from one another, but at the same time interact and, in specific configurations, form distinct societies. We suggest that bringing meaning structures back into focus is important and may counter-balance the increasing preoccupation of institutional scholars with micro-foundations and the related emphasis on micro-level activities. We bring together central ideas from research on institutional logics with some foundational insights by Max Weber, Alfred Schütz, and German sociologists Rainer Lepsius and Karl-Siegbert Rehberg. In doing so, we also take a cautious look at “practices” by discussing their potential place and role in an institutional framework as well as by exploring generative conversations with proponents of practice theory. We wish to provide inspiration for institutional research interested in shared meaning structures, their relationships to one another, and how they translate into institutional orders.

Introduction: Human resource management (HRM) is going through a transformation phase due to the pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis compelled the employees to work virtually. To mitigate the effects of COVID-19, several organisations heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of HRM.

Purpose: With limited studies on the paradigm shift in HRM post-pandemic and the role of AI, the study investigates and proposes a conceptual framework for the paradigm shift in HRM practices post-COVID-19 pandemic and the significance of AI. Furthermore, the study investigates the outcomes of the use of AI in HRM for organisations and employees.

Methodology: A comprehensive review of the literature based on the guidelines of Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart (2003) and Crossan and Apaydin (2010) has been followed. A systematic literature review assisted in critically analysing, synthesising, and mapping the extant literature by identifying the broad themes involved.

Findings: COVID-19-related economic disruption has led to a paradigm shift in HRM practices. AI-enabled HRM practices are now centred around remote and contingent workforce management, mindfulness, social capital, increasing employee engagement, reskilling and upskilling towards new competencies, etc. AI is making remote work seamless through smooth recruitment and selection process, onboarding, career and development, tracking and managing the performance, facilitating learning, and talent management. Post-pandemic, AI-powered tools based on data mining (DM), predictive analytics, big data analytics, natural language processing (NLP), intelligent robots, machine learning (ML), virtual (VR)/augmented reality (AR), etc., have paved the way for managing the HRM practices effectively, thereby leading to enhanced organisational performance, employee well-being, automation, and reduced cost.

This chapter describes how micro-locational factors affect international alliance formation. The authors focus specifically on the role of global cities, which are studied from a distance perspective. The authors argue that distances must be apprehended not at the country level but at the city level. The chapter is an attempt to provide a better understanding of the complex, multilevel factors that interact when firms select an alliance partner in a particular location. The authors take an explorative methodological approach through a configurational analysis of international alliances made by American companies in 2015. The main contribution is the proposition of a typology of micro-locational characteristics to help understand international alliance formation at a city level.

Scholars have examined, in various ways, the complexity of knowledge in innovation. Recently, research has begun to focus on the role of a continuous process of knowledge recombination in our understanding of a changing structure of knowledge complexity and knowledge accumulation. Furthermore, we also claim that this process may reflect changes in the underlying innovation paradigm, or in other words the arrival of the information age. Yet, little is known about how knowledge complexity is increasing in the broader context of globalization, in which the influence of a rising diversity of locational sources may feature more prominently. We consider how knowledge recombination that relies upon the global spread of innovation activities will affect our theory of the relationship through which earlier contributions to knowledge become inputs to subsequent knowledge building that generates more (or less) complex knowledge artifacts. We propose that knowledge complexity rises when recombined elements are sourced across two dimensions of distance simultaneously, namely when sources which are derived from (i) disparate knowledge fields and (ii) distinct geographic locations are combined. We thereby develop an international business perspective on knowledge complexity through recombination by better appreciating the processes that may be necessary when knowledge is combined along global value chains. We also suggest some implications for changing organizational forms by highlighting the value of connecting previously unconnected geographically distant elements, which suggests a greater potential for more informal and indirectly diffused knowledge-based connections.

This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national project that ranks the performance of universities. In exploring compromise arrangements, the hybridised valuing activity of middle managers is found to be shaped by emergent and extant macro-foundations.

The qualitative data from 49 semi-structured interviews at five Chinese public universities were conducted. Drawing on macro-foundational studies and the sociology of worth (SW) theory, the analysis helps to identify socially shared patterns of actions and outcomes.

The findings elucidate the interplay between diverse economic, social, political and institutional values and the compromise-making by middle managers. The authors find that contextual factors restrict Chinese academic middle managers' autonomy, preventing workable compromise. Through the selective adoption of international and local management practices, compromise has evolved into a private differential treaty at the operational level.

A nuanced explanation reveals how the macro-foundations of Chinese society influence middle managers who engage with accounting when facilitating compromise. This study helps outsiders better understand the complex convergence and divergence of performance evaluative practices in Chinese universities against the backdrop of global market-based forces and the moral dimensions of organisational life. The findings have wider implications for the Chinese government in navigating institutional steps and developing supportive policies to enable middle managers to advance productive but also sustainable compromise.

The implemented European Union Services Directive aimed at creating a unified European market for trade in services. However, the implementation of the institutions was not fully successful as to the characteristics of international services caused challenges in the ratification of the Directive. Research on international services is facing similar challenges based on the fragmented, inconclusive, and at times even contradictory findings of international services literature with regard to service characteristics. Thus, each academic field of international business, economic geography, and service management has tried to identify international service characteristics, but no unified characterization is found. The challenges in defining the different types of services, difference in the levels of analysis, and various impacts of policies and institutional environments on the service, cause these differences. The authors see the need for a unified framework that combines the different literatures and considers the policy implications. The authors develop a framework consisting of four components of international service characteristics, that is, the connectivity of service actors to the environment, the configuration of service activities within organizational set-ups, the dyadic collaborative interaction between service actors, and the created value by the services. The authors specifically consider policy and institutions as well as a vast variety of literature streams to support the arguments.

This study aims to employ a resource-based lens to explore the competitive implications of firm strategies under conditions of market commonality and shared resource pools.

The firms’ core capabilities in these environments may focus on operational efficiency, as firms seek to compete under significant resource heterogeneity constraints.

Using data from the USA airline industry from 1996-2011, we find that price has a positive relationship with firm performance, whereas quality has a negative relationship. Operational efficiency is a driver of both strategies.

The study uses US data. Extending the findings to the global setting may require recognizing other competitive dimensions.

Firms that focus on non-core activities perform less well. The results offer insights into an industry that has interested strategy researchers for many years and may suggest an application to other industries with similar characteristics.