Högskolan i Skövde

Purpose: This paper highlights the need for future studies researching the subject of resilience in family firms on different levels. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reviews the literature on resilience in family businesses. Findings: Resilience has become more important due to the recent multiple crises, starting with the coronavirus pandemic, followed by high inflation and energy prices, partly resulting from the war in Ukraine. These multiple crises affect the family and the business level. Future research must account for multiple levels when addressing it, i.e. the individual, the team, the family, and the business level. Resilience has to encompass all levels to sustain family business continuity. Originality/value: By giving an overview of the concept of resilience, taking the family's perspective, and suggesting future avenues of research, the paper contributes to the development of family business research. 

This article extends the exploration of potential futures as envisioned in science fiction (SF) literature by analyzing how emerging trends are portrayed through a structured analytical framework. Specifically, it examines award-winning SF novels, focusing on political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) dimensions as imagined by prominent authors within the genre. Thus, the purpose of the article is to provide an overview of emerging trends and tendencies within imagined futures as depicted in acclaimed SF literature, framed through the lens of PESTLE analysis. To this end, four future scenarios were extrapolated from a selection of 42 novels that have either won or been nominated for major SF awards—the Nebula and the Hugo. These scenarios are: Solar System Expansion, Cyber High-Tech Future, Post-Contraction Society, and Dystopian Future. Each scenario is assessed according to its political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental characteristics.

The purpose of this study is to understand how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use intuitive decision-making in times of crisis. The study was conducted among retailing SMEs in Sweden. In total, 28 store managers were interviewed in 2021, while the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic forms an important context for this paper. Theoretically, the paper draws on intuitive decision-making, complemented by literature on crisis and organisational resilience (OR). The study finds that intuitive decision-making was common, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic-with store managers employing creative and problem-solving approaches to intuitive decision-making. The study thereby contributes to research on intuitive decision-making in a crisis context as well as to an understanding of the resilience of stores.

This study examines the role of intermediaries in the value process, emphasizing their significance in assisting providers before, during, and after interactions with customers. Intermediaries engage with customers during value creation and influence customers’ value-in-use. However, existing literature has not adequately explored their role in the value process. To address this deficiency, this empirical study uses an ethnographic approach within the context of golf services, utilizing observations and interviews with intermediaries, customers, and providers to delineate six distinct intermediary roles. The findings reveal that the intermediary acts as a supporter of value facilitation and a partner in value learning on the provider’s side, a catalyst of value co-creation or conciliator of value co-creation in direct interactions between the provider and the customer, and an amplifier of value creation and a builder of value anticipation on the customer’s side. Additionally, we refine the understanding of the value process, demonstrating how value expectations span the entire value process and how intermediaries can actively shape these expectations.

Purpose: This article investigates how strategic flexibility (SF) is achieved in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), exploring whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Design/methodology/approach: To offer a more nuanced view of SF in SMEs, a qualitative approach is applied. Researchers conducted and analyzed 91 interviews with owners and chief executive officers (CEOs) of SMEs exhibiting high growth and explored whether SF contributes to firm growth and the associated enablers and barriers of SF.

Findings: The results show a connection between SF and firm growth and confirm the importance of strategic orientation for SF in SMEs. Contrary to the existing literature, this study found a neutral impact of external networks and a positive impact of slack resources on SF. The lack of competent employees emerged as a considerable barrier to SF in SMEs.

Research limitations/implications: More research focusing on the relationship between SF and firm growth is suggested, as well as further research about the relevance of slack resources and external networks as enablers of SF in SMEs.

Practical implications: Motivating and developing valuable employee competence are the key managerial implications. Additionally, business consultants and business developers in the public sector must find ways to increase business consultants and business developers' relevance to SMEs.

Originality/value: This article explores SF in SMEs, a context of disagreement in previous literature, and finds that SF contributes to SME growth. A qualitative approach is used, enrichening a field dominated by quantitative methodological choices. 

The hospitality industry employees' well-being is relevant for practitioners and researchers alike. Academic interest in hospitality employee well-being (EWB) has been steadily rising. Yet, the unintended result has been a fragmentation of the field, with at least 42 different theories addressing issues of EWB in hospitality. This study adopts a systematic literature review approach to re-balance a fragmentation that can lead to myopia and assesses relevant literature on EWB in hospitality. The study identifies 122 articles in 19 relevant hospitality journals listed in Scopus utilising the PRISMA process and analyses them with the help of a framework derived from well-being reviews in corresponding fields, such as human resource management. The findings account for individual, group and organisational level stressors, resources and practices affecting EWB in hospitality, and they are subsequently related to the theoretical landscape in the field, suggesting future avenues for research.

This paper reports on findings from a study of Swedish retail stores, with the aim of discussing the triggers and amplifiers by offering a nuanced perspective on the effects of organisational resilience (OR) of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swedish firms. The study is based on interviews with 28 store managers. Drawing on the concept of organisational resilience, we offer three contributions. First, we empirically and theoretically develop the discussion on triggers of OR. Second, we explain that the positive and negative effects of a crisis on particular firms' OR can be amplified (or inhibited) by certain factors, which we call the amplifiers of OR. These amplifiers include the retail industry sector, store location and type of ownership. Third, we empirically illustrate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on the retail sector in a Swedish context.

This chapter delineates the conditions, challenges and opportunities for the sustainability of small entrepreneurial firms involved in local food tourism. It raises awareness on how these businesses can enhance their competitiveness in this market. It puts forward an analytical framework that is based on the economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability of small local food tourism entrepreneurs in Swedish, Italian and Spanish contexts. This research implies that the financial sustainability of these small enterprises is contributing to local economic growth and employment in their country. From the social sustainability aspect these tourism businesses are intrinsically linked to local communities. Their responsible practices are meant to safeguard the environmental sustainability as well as the preservation of their local culture and heritage. At the same time, they enable them to add value to their destination’s cultural sustainability.

Because of concerns that ongoing climate change could lead to a possible collapse of human civilization, the topic of societal (civilization) collapse has emerged as especially relevant, not least for the futures-oriented studies. While this has led to extensive research on societal collapse, there is a lack of consolidation and synthesis of the research. The purpose of this article is thus to systematize the extant research on societal collapse and suggest future research directions. This article offers a systematic multidisciplinary review of the existing literature (361 articles and 73 books) and identifies five scholarly conversations: past collapses, general explanations of collapse, alternatives to collapse, fictional collapses, and future climate change and societal collapse. The review builds the foundation for a critical discussion of each line of inquiry by focusing on theoretical tensions and themes within each scholarly conversation, ending with a discussion of how these conversations inform futures research.

Denna rapport redovisar resultaten av en studie som genomfördes av Anders Billström, Börje Boers och Danilo Brozović inom ramen för Campus Varbergs satsning Efterfrågad forskning under 2022. Studien fokuserar på kundperspektiv på e-handel gentemot handel i fysiska butiker med fokus på lokala butiker i Varberg. Studien avslutas med rekommendationer för Campus Varberg, praktiker och vidare forskning.