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Firms need competitiveness in terms of quality, price, and delivery to satisfy public sector customers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of innovation capability on this competitiveness in a market-oriented firm and to determine the role of supply chain integration and marketing-technical integration in enhancing innovation capability.

A theoretical model was developed to test hypotheses. Data was collected from 199 top-level managers serving pharmaceutical companies. Partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used for datas analysis.

The results highlight the vital role of innovation capability in the development of firm competitiveness. Significant results for all relationships were obtained. The effect of market orientation on supply-chain integration was stronger than its effect on marketing-technical integration. Partial multi-mediation of supply chain integration and marketing-technical integration was found in the relation between market orientation and innovation capability.

The study helps managers develop an efficient strategy by using firms’ innovation capability to supply products according to public sector customer needs.

The study is based on a real-time practical problem faced by firms, as the majority of them fail to sell their products to public sector customers. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is one of the first studies that discusses the role of innovation capability at the marketing-supply chain management interface to help a firm become an attractive supplier for public sector customers.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly overwhelmed our societies, shocked the global economy and disturbed normal business operations. While such impacts of COVID-19 are becoming clearer, the effects of the disease on business operations are more common. This study mainly focuses on identifying the factors that affect the smooth operation of businesses during a pandemic situation.

Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to rate the result index. A total of 40 professionals and experts of different businesses were listed on stock exchanges, and asked to rank the key variables with relative indices and weighting methods.

The results of the AHP successfully assigned weighting scores to all key important factors during the COVID-19 pandemic situation that businesses should focus on, with economic factors receiving the highest score of 60%. Likewise, the other factors that impact values for business operations are reported as social (22%), legal (12.2%), technological (5.16%) and political (0.57%). The results of this study also match with the current policies adopted by different government and nongovernment agencies like the guidelines of the World Health Organization and some most recent research results.

In the hectic and growing environment under COVID-19 pandemic, more contributions are not enough, and it is helpful for the whole business industry and society by stipulating more views. This study aims to overview the global impacts and challenges of COVID-19 pandemic on business operations.

Tremendous growth and worldwide expansion of Islamic banking industry has gained widespread attention of economist, bankers, investors and financial experts regardless of economic and political volatility in global banking industry. To compete with conventional banking, Islamic banks are setting up themselves with innovative technologies to gain competitive edge and market share. The establishment of mobile banking has been proven a technological wonder by eliminating time and space boundaries, and one can access financial services anywhere and at any time. For effective market segmentation, recognizing gender differences in factors affecting the adoption patterns of m-banking may provide competitive edge. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how gender differences impact the intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking in Pakistan.

The study uses extended technology acceptance model (TAM) on final 243 participants from Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology has been applied for data analysis using SPSS 21 and AMOS 21.

Results have identified two interesting and different models for males and females in intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking. It is inferred that males are more task driven and desire for personality, value and status, so their intention is significantly impacted by perceived usefulness and perceived self-expressiveness. Whereas, females have found lack of IT knowledge and trust; therefore, their intention is significantly impacted by perceived credibility. However, the perceived financial cost was found of no concern for both males and females and social norms influenced the adoption, but there existed no significant gender differences.

The contribution of this study to existing literature is twofold. First, the existing research on mobile banking has mainly applied TAM on conventional banking overlooking the important ethnic group, the Muslims, who prefer Islamic banking. Second, the impact of gender differences is investigated in factors affecting intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking that has not been studied previously. The study fills the gap.

Over the past decade, the term prosumption (denoting simultaneous consumption and production) has exhibited a dramatic increase in frequency of use in publications in the social sciences and business studies. This paper aims to explore the current state of research into prosumption, particularly related to marketing.

This study systematically reviews papers on prosumption extracted from the Web of Science, using two bibliometric analyses on 20 years of data: citation counts from HistCite and bibliographic coupling and cartography analysis from the visualization of similarities software VOSviewer. A total of 75 papers on prosumption were found from the period 1997-2017, and the most influential authors, articles, journals, institutions and countries among these were determined. Furthermore, bibliographic coupling and most co-occurrent keywords in the title, keywords and abstracts were found.

This study found that the USA and the UK were the most influential among prosumption publications. Ritzer was the most prominent author and Journal of Consumer Culture was the top-ranking journal. Three clusters were found using bibliographic coupling and cartography analysis: prosumer and co-creation, prosumer and user-generated content and prosumer and informational capital.

This analysis provided a basis for conceptualizing publications on prosumption related to business and sociology in the discipline of marketing. Content analysis found that prosumption research in marketing is in early stages: little quantitative study has been conducted yet. Researchers have not yet constructed a quantitative measure for prosumption.

Business firms can engage prosumers to gain market share and competitive advantage, especially relative to value co-creation, with near-zero marginal cost.

This may be the first bibliometric analysis and systematic review of prosumption research in marketing studies. The achievements of this paper open new avenues for other prosumption researchers.

This study investigates how to foster innovation and high performance through leadership competences (result-oriented, cognitive, interpersonal) in the context of tourism firms in Vietnam during COVID-19 pandemic.

Quantitative approach and survey questionnaire were applied to collect data from managerial executives working at different tourism establishments in Vietnam. A total of 638 responses were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The findings revealed that all three leadership competencies affected almost all factors of business innovation. However, leaders' interpersonal competence was not related to process innovation and leaders' result-oriented competence was not associated with organizational innovation. Furthermore, leaders' result-oriented competence, product innovation, and process innovation were found to directly enhance organizational performance.

This study proposed some suggestions for tourism leaders in exhibiting appropriate leadership competences and fostering business innovation to drive their firms towards superior performance.

Achieving high performance is always a priority goal of many firms; therefore, several attempted have been made to address several factors affecting organizational performance. This study provides a more nuanced picture of the relationships between the leadership competences, business innovation, and high performance of tourism firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating roles of cognitive and affective trusts between the transformational leadership (TL) and employee outcomes (task performance (TP), organizational commitment (OC), and employee turnover intention (ET)).

This study samples 384 bank employees and records their self-reported responses for closed-ended items in the survey. SmartPLS 3.0 is used for the analysis.

The results indicate that affective trust (AT) and cognitive trust (CT) mediate between the transformation leadership and OC positively. Moreover, AT and CT both mediate negatively between TL and TP. Finally, both dimensions of trust as second-order constructs mediate positively between the TL and ET. The results related to the ET and TP are highly intriguing and in conflict with the simple and non-contextual statement of the social exchange theory.

TL, AT, and CT have greater importance for the managers to increase the positive work-related outcomes of employees. Moreover, the results related to TP and ETs are highly applicable to the managers and business.

The originality of the study lies in use of the SmartPLS 3.0 for analysis as it offers unique and precise measures of the measurement model like HTMT ratio and does not rely on the co-variance. Moreover, mediating roles of AT and CT have never been tested before in the given settings. Finally, results defy the simple statements of the theory and call for the context-based theorized empirical studies. In doing so, it calls for the post-modernist stage (case-by-case contextual treatment of theory) of HR and management literature.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide are required to acquire accreditation for the sake of their academic reputation at the institutional as well as programs levels. Meeting the requirements of standards established by accrediting bodies can be daunting for HEIs undergoing accreditation for the first time. Drastic organizational change is required to overhaul and implement systems to meet the requirements of quality standards. HEIs in the Sultanate of Oman are determined to acquire and maintain institutional accreditation from the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA). The purpose of this paper is to describe how a HEI has undergone organizational change to meet the requirement of the research–teaching nexus standard using Lewin’s and McKinsey 7-S change management models.

This is a qualitative research which made use of primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected through focus group discussions and workshops, and documents analysis while internet resources were used for secondary data. The dimensions of the research–teaching nexus were determined through review of the literature which became the basis for evaluating the HEI’s practices in the area. Lewin’s and McKinsey 7-S change management models were combined to provide the conceptual framework for describing the process of change the HEI undertook.

Lewin’s and McKinsey 7-S change management models allowed for a systemic and systematic perspective of the change required for the HEI to meet the research–teaching nexus standards and acquire institutional accreditation. The HEI documented its practices, conducted an evaluation and instituted the changes in the dimensions of the research–teaching nexus and the supporting 7-S elements. As final result, the HEI was granted institutional accreditation.

This is a case study of the experience of an HEI in the Sultanate of Oman in its effort to acquire institutional accreditation from the OAAA. However, this case study can provide insights to a larger audience of institutions in Oman and within the Gulf region (or even outside the region) that are in the process of going through a similar experience. For those who have already undergone a similar exercise, this case study can provide a valuable comparison.

The practical experience of the HEI in the Sultanate of Oman can provide valuable lessons/insights to those in the praxis of educational management and quality assurance in education.

Quality in education is a social issue. HEIs are pressured to acquire and maintain accreditation as evidence of quality. The case study provides the larger audience a perspective of how much effort HEIs place in this aspect.

This paper documented the experience of an HEI in the Sultanate of Oman. This is the first paper describing an HEI’s change process in a country which is also implementing a new academic accreditation system. In this paper, two change models – Lewin’s and McKinsey’s 7-S – were integrated to provide a more comprehensive perspective in analyzing organizational change. Review of the literature has shown that these two models have not been used together in one paper, providing novelty to otherwise “classic” models. This paper should be valuable to HEIs pursuing accreditation. It is a “universal” knowledge that acquiring accreditation is a major goal of all HEIs worldwide. The described process of organizational change should be insightful to those who are responsible for steering this process with the goal of acquiring accreditation. Educational leaders at the forefront and center of the change process should find in this paper a valuable reference material, providing a systemic and systematic view of the change they have to lead in order to acquire the much-coveted accreditation. Faculty, staff and students of HEIs can be advocates or sources of resistance. This paper should provide better understanding of the process of change and how they, as stakeholders, benefit from it. Finally, students of educational management and leadership should find this paper as a useful case study for class discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers of the depth of halal standard implementation in the halal-certified food manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The second aim of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of halal standard practices on the SME’s performance.

Of the 143 halal-certified SMEs in Solo Raya, Province of Central Java, Indonesia, 83 were willing to take part in the present research. The survey was carried out by an on-site visit to the targeted respondents. A structured questionnaire was used to gather primary data. Partial least square structural equation model was then used to analyze the collected data.

The results proved that internal motivation and organization commitment positively affect halal standard implementation, while external pressures do not. The external pressures influence the depth of halal standard implementation through internal motivation as a mediating variable. Furthermore, the depth of halal standard implementation leads to the improvement of operational performance. The improvement of operational performance can further encourage the increase of market performance and financial performance.

The first limitation of this research is about the samples in which they are small-sized and restricted to food manufacturing SMEs. Another limitation is the subjectivity of SME’s managers when evaluating performance, which may provide imprecise measures of performance.

The findings suggest the notion that success of halal standard implementation depends on the capabilities of SMEs to convert the external pressures into internal motivation. Moreover, food-manufacturing SMEs should consider halal standard as an innovative tool to be applied in their daily operation and production as the halal standard has a significant role in influencing SME’s performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first attempt in integrating drivers, halal standard implementation and performance in the specific context of food manufacturing SMEs in Indonesia.

Typically, adoption of sustainability in organizations are often done in an unstructured way without the consideration of other partners in the supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a coherent plan to improve sustainability in the supply chains utilizing ISO standards for environment and social responsibility.

This paper draws on literature on ISO14000 and ISO26000 to derive a set of variables applicable to supply chains, which are then prioritized for real organizations utilizing analytic hierarchy process.

The findings highlight that not all the variables of environmental, social and economic responsibility are equally important. Besides, the work reported in this paper justifies the application of multi-criteria decision-making (AHP) to prioritize elements of sustainability in context supply chains. The suggested method is illustrated using inputs from large manufacturing companies in Qatar.

ISO14000 and ISO26000 are well known standards; however, there was no effort to integrate these standards to improve sustainability in supply chains. The suggested methodology provides invaluable help to the managers to implement sustainability in a coherent manner across the supply chain.

The research contributes to the extant literature by proposing a new methodology based on the integration of three-approaches: Analytic Hierarchy Process, ISO14000 and ISO26000 systems.

The purpose of this study is to examine variables and their relationships that hinder socially responsible behaviours in the supply chain of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). countries.

The study uses the mixed-method approach that includes the survey method and soft mathematical modelling. Empirical data were collected from 130 SMEs and their suppliers based in Qatar and Oman. Furthermore, to understand the barriers and their interrelationships, interpretive structural modelling approach is applied.

The results of empirical study reveal lack of coherence among SMEs and their suppliers in prioritising social responsibility issues in their supply chain. The hierarchy-based model reveals that shortages of incentive, short-term objectives, the lack of cooperation and willingness among supply chain partners, constraints (financial, managerial and technological) and the pressure from customers were the independent barriers and have strong driving power.

The findings of this study are expected to provide an insight to further improve and promote socially responsible supply chain in emerging economies in Gulf region. Future research could compare the socially responsible activities of SMEs from different Gulf countries and expand the understanding of the barriers that outline the responses of suppliers situated in different Gulf economies.

The results contribute to the field of supply chain sustainability as the first academic attempt to shed light on how SMEs in GCC are dealing with supply chain social responsibility issues and one of the few in the emerging economy perspective that probes the key role of barriers to improve the socially responsible behaviour of Gulf-based SMEs.