Högskolan i Skövde

There is much research into strategic business alliances in emerging markets, but none focuses on this form of collaboration within Europe’s emerging economies. This is a critical absence, as the European transition region is not only different from other European and Western regions but also from other regions with developing economies. Partners in the European transition region have unique cultural and social backgrounds, and consequently, unique ways of doing business. 

Transformations of Strategic Alliances in Emerging Markets focuses on this important gap. This book, the first of a two-volume set, makes a unique contribution to emerging market research by investigating the transformation of alliances in Eastern and central Europe over the past forty years. It provides a conceptual framework to describe and analyse the formation, development and functional mechanisms of strategic alliances in the European transition region, ultimately offering an in-depth overview of the challenges and opportunities around strategic alliance formation in emerging European markets.  

Transformations of Strategic Alliances in Emerging Markets, Volume I, is a must-read for academics and postgraduate students of development economics and business administration.

There is much research into strategic business alliances in emerging markets, but none focuses on this form of collaboration within Europe’s emerging economies. This is a critical absence, as the European transition region is not only different from other European and Western regions but also from other regions with developing economies. Partners in the European transition region have unique cultural and social backgrounds, and consequently, unique ways of doing business.

Transformations of Strategic Alliances in Emerging Markets focuses on this important gap. This book, the second of a two-volume set, makes a unique contribution to emerging market research by investigating the transformation of alliances in Eastern and central Europe over the past forty years. It provides a conceptual framework to describe and analyse the formation, development and functional mechanisms of strategic alliances in the European transition region, ultimately offering an in-depth overview of the challenges and opportunities around strategic alliance formation in emerging European markets.

Transformations of Strategic Alliances in Emerging Markets, Volume II, is a must-read for academics and postgraduate students of development economics and business administration.

In poverty-stricken countries, the middle or working-class usually falls out of focus in fiscal policy discussions, especially during crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in which governments seek to keep trade moving through grants and subsidies and work to sustain the poor. The current research aims to determine if the pandemic has had an impact on the subjective well-being (SWB) and financial anxiety (FAS)  for a middle-class Bangladeshi sample, according to four critical demographic factors: gender, income, residency (capital or outside the capital), and job security. At the height of the pandemic (July 14–24, 2020), 129 respondents completed a self-reported survey questionnaire. The results indicate that although people appear to be happy in general, they are worried about their relationships. Women score lower on total well-being than men, as do those with household incomes below the average. People living outside the capital score marginally higher; people with well-secured jobs denote their higher well-being too. Furthermore, the FAS results indicate higher levels of anxiety among people with lower incomes and unsecured jobs. Therefore, the COVID-19 experience might inform future fiscal policies, including potential efforts to introduce universal job security insurance and financial counseling to employees after the pandemic. 

This study aims to examine the impacts of demographic variables (gender, age, and income) on consideration of future consequences (CFCs) and compulsive buying tendencies (CBT). It also investigates if and to what extent the demographic characteristics might influence the effect of CFC on CBT. Data for this study were collected from 394 adult respondents using a self-administered survey. The structural equation model in AMOS reveals that consideration of future (CFC-F) has a significant negative effect on CBT, whereas consideration of immediate (CFC-I) has no significant effect. In addition, the multi-group analysis found that the influence of CFC on CBT does not change across genders, yet it varies with income and age differences. These novel insights into consumer behaviour have implications for both research and practice.

Purpose – This study examines the drivers of country-level high Social Media Penetration (SMP) rate by considering the concurrent causation of cultural and socio-economic conditions.

Method – Ninety-four countries across continents were analyzed using the set-theoretic configurational approach fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA 3.0).

Findings – Results reveal that the adult literacy rate is the necessary condition and found four causal combinations for high SMP.

Limitations – Limitations related to using secondary data at a single point and including only two socio-economic conditions in the design are recognized.

Contributions to literature- This study is believed to be among the first to use QCA for testing and providing evidence of SMP as an outcome of cultural and social-economic conditions. It contributes to theory by advancing our knowledge of what combination of cultural and social-economic factors would result in high or low SMP.

Practical Implications- This study provides managerial implications for both digital marketers and social media technology designers and suppliers. With the increasing connectedness in this digital age, global marketers should be more mindful and respectful of the expectations of their customers around the world and shape their decision-making processes accordingly. Social media can be a very effective tool to help global marketers learn about other cultures, overcome adjustment challenges, and establish as well as maintain relationships. All these can accelerate the integration into the host culture during their adaptation (Sawyer and Chen, 2012). Our study provides greater insights of what combination of cultural and social-economic conditions may facilitate or inhibit the adoption of their platforms. Our findings can also help social media managers in their global targeting initiatives. Customized social media programs can be designed to target a specific cluster of countries according to usage patterns based on technological capability and social norms.

Social implications- More and more reports have been published to attest to the economic and social impact of social media. Despite the rapid growing influence on our societies, social media remains a relatively untapped source of information to catalyze policy action and social change (Yeung, 2018). Our study offers insight for social policy making by identifying multiple paths to enhance social media’s penetration as decision makers increasingly realize its potential and long-term benefits resulted from continued use of social media analytics.

Originality- This study is believed to be among the first to use QCA for testing and providing evidence of SMP as an outcome of cultural and social-economic conditions. It identifies four complex antecedent paths that are responsible for high SMP, allowing for a more comprehensive explanation of our outcome of interest.

While Facebook usage intensity (FBUI) and compulsive buying tendency (CBT) have individually received increased research attention, very little is known about the mechanisms through which FBUI affects CBT. This study proposes and tests a multiple mediation model in which the effect of FBUI on CBT is mediated by personality characteristics (envy, self-esteem, and self-promotion). The study also explores the moderating effect of depression on these mediated relationships. The results of a self-administered survey of 393 Bangladeshi adults support the proposed moderated mediation model. The effect of FBUI on CBT is mediated by envy and self-esteem independently. The FBUI indirectly affects CBT through serial mediators: 1) envy and self-esteem; 2) envy and self-promotion. These serial mediating effects are moderated by depression. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. 

This study examines the applicability of an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that incorporates trust, perceived risk, and self-enhancement as antecedents to the TAM constructs. Data collected from 299 Vietnamese online consumers, through a self-administered survey, were entered into a structural equation model using AMOS 23 to establish causality. The results partially confirm the applicability of TAM to the online shopping intentions of Vietnamese consumers, though contrary to expectations, perceived ease of use does not predict behavioral intentions. Trust and self-enchantment fit well with the TAM; the inclusion of perceived risk as an antecedent is questionable. The findings offer new opportunities for explaining TAM theory in light of Schwartz’s value dimensions. This article thus concludes with a discussion of the research contributions and implications.

This research on relationship marketing aims to revisit and reposition different foci of trust, commitment, and performance perception in the export/import relationships and explore the interconnectedness effects. We have collected self-reported survey questionnaire responses from 142 non-oil exporters in Ecuador. The data were analyzed with SmartlPls 3.0 software. We found that calculative commitment negatively moderates inter-organizational trust and affective commitment relationships. The other significant findings include the indirect relationship (mediating effect) of affective commitment to financial export performance through relationship export performance. With these novel contributions, we also identify some expected relationships- as both interpersonal and inter-organizational trust positively affects affective commitment, and relationship export performance significantly predicts financial export performance. Cross-sectional data collection and responses from one side of the export-import dyad are one of this research’s limitations. However, they are not uncommon in export marketing literature. Giving a justified position of different dimensions of trust and commitment in the export-import equation is the novelty of this scholarship. Clarifying the affective commitment and export performance relationship is another contribution of this research. Nevertheless, the dimensional views of trust and commitment re-established some known assumptions in a less researched country setting should also be considered a contribution.

This research revisits the role of different foci of trust (interpersonal and inter-organizational), commitment (affective and calculative) and relationship lengths (inter-organizational and interpersonal) then on export relationship performance. 142 Ecuadorian non-oil exporters completed a self-administered questionnaire. This study applies fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and the findings help to re-establish the need for both trust dimensions and affective commitment in exporter–importer relationships. This research found three possible configurations of achieving high export relationship performance. The managerial implications noted that export managers should nurture trust and affective commitment to ensure improved relationship performance. This research is one of the very few studies to investigate the role of commitment and trust by taking a complexity theoretical turn. Exploring the causation of the relationship lengths on relationship performance also represents a novel contribution.

This research investigates the effect of consumer perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers (CPEOR) on repurchase intention through reputation, satisfaction, and trust. The authors performed structural equation model analysis with SmartPLS on a sample of 458 responses collected from Vietnamese consumers. They found that CPEOR has a significant positive effect on reputation, satisfaction, and trust. As expected, trust and satisfaction directly predict repurchase intention; however, reputation does not directly follow this pattern. Instead, two prosocial constructs, namely trust and satisfaction, channel the effect of reputation on repurchase intention. Contrary to the conventional understanding that a favourable reputation will predict higher consumer trust, they found a negative correlation between these two factors. The managerial and theoretical contributions of the research and direction for future research are highlighted.

This research integrates transaction cost and relational exchange theories to depict a more nuanced explanation of exporter-importer exchange relationships when exporters operate from a developing country. Our study examines whether exporters’ investments in specific assets directly influence perceived importer opportunism, or whether these perceptions are driven by the mediating effects of interpersonal and inter-organizational trust and power. Contrary to the general transaction cost argument, we did not find any direct effect of exporter specific assets on perceived importer opportunism. Instead, we found that perceived importer power and exporter inter-organizational trust jointly mediate the exporter specific assets – perceived importer opportunism relationship. By incorporating a dimensional view of trust, we help to resolve conflicting theoretical specifications and empirical results found in the extant literature.

Waitzberg and colleagues identified strategies that managers and physicians in hospitals apply to reconcile dilemmas between clinical and economic considerations. Contributions that actually acknowledge the institutional complexity of hospitals and describe how to deal with it are rare. This comment explains the reason behind the institutional complexity in healthcare organizations and argues that institutional complexity is a good foundation for a well-functioning and sustainable healthcare, as long as we are able to deal with this complexity. This point underscores the importance of their contribution. However, even if the identified strategies on how to reconcile and balance different, competing demands are important, they are not easy to apply in practice. First, the strategies require frequent and high-quality interaction between different actors adhering to different institutional logics. Second, even when the strategies are applied successfully, it is difficult to make them sustainable since they rest on a fragile balance between competing logics. However, these are important avenues for future research for researchers who want to follow the route of Waitzberg and colleagues.

This chapter addresses how intentionality and agency can be understood in relation to values and values work. How different degrees of intentionality relate to different dimensions of agency is something we need to understand empirically rather than as a point of departure. A connected challenge is to what extent people are aware of values that influence their actions and the values work they are involved in, but also to what extent they are aware of relations/conflicts between values that are imposed on them (e.g., from an employer) and personal values. This is also something we need to understand empirically. This chapter describes how different qualitative data collection methods have different strengths and weaknesses in relation to the above challenges and how a design of mixing them may enable a true empirical investigation of intentionality and agency in values work research.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to analyze how physicians and nurses, as the two major health care professions, experience psychological empowerment for managerial work. Design/methodology/approach: The study was designed as a qualitative interview study at four primary care centers (PCCs) in Sweden. In total, 47 interviews were conducted, mainly with physicians and nurses. The first inductive analysis led us to the concept of psychological empowerment, which was used in the next deductive step of the analysis. Findings: The study showed that both professions experienced self-determination for managerial work, but that nurses were more dependent on structural empowerment. Nurses experienced that they had competence for managerial work, whereas physicians were more ignorant of such competence. Nurses used managerial work to create impact on the conditions for their clinical work, whereas physicians experienced impact independently. Both nurses and physicians experienced managerial work as meaningful, but less meaningful than nurses and physicians' clinical work. Practical implications: For an effective health care system, structural changes in terms of positions, roles, and responsibilities can be an important route for especially nurses' psychological empowerment. Originality/value: The qualitative method provided a complementary understanding of psychological empowerment on how psychological empowerment interacted with other factors. One such aspect was nurses' higher dependence on structural empowerment, but the most important aspect was that both physicians and nurses experienced that managerial work was less meaningful than clinical work. This implies that psychological empowerment for managerial work may only make a difference if psychological empowerment does not compete with physicians' and nurses' clinical work. 

PURPOSE: The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyze differences in patients' quality perceptions of private and public primary care centers in Sweden.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The article explores the differences in quality perceptions between patients of public and private primary care centers based on data from a large patient survey in Sweden. The survey covers seven dimensions, and in this paper the measure Overall impression was used for the comparison. With more than 80,000 valid responses, the survey covers all primary care centers in Sweden which allowed for a detailed analysis of differences in quality perceptions among patients from the different categories of owners.

FINDINGS: The article contributes with a detailed description of different types of private owners: not-for-profit and for profit, as well as corporate groups and independent care centers. The results show a higher quality perception for independent centers compared to both public and corporate groups.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The small number of not-for-profit centers (21 out of 1,117 centers) does not allow for clear conclusions for this group. The results, however, indicate an even higher patient quality perception for not-for-profit centers. The study focus on describing differences in quality perceptions between the owner categories. Future research can contribute with explanations to why independent care centers receive higher patient satisfaction.

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS: The results from the study have policy implications both in a Swedish as well as international perspective. The differentiation between different types of private owners made in this paper opens up for interesting discussions on privatization of healthcare and how it affects patient satisfaction.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The main contribution of the paper is the detailed comparison of different categories of private owners and the public owners.

This study examines how interactions between individual actors can form institutional work in a highly institutionalized setting. Recent progress within the institutional logics perspective has directed focus to the roles of individual actors, their strategic actions, and how institutional logics may be interpreted and rebalanced. However, these contributions are founded on individual actors’ identity processes, but not on how institutional work can be performed through interactions among individual actors adhering to different institutional logics. We performed a qualitative case study, based on observations and interviews, with a focus on quality-improvement work performed in a hospital. The study affirmed that institutional work primarily maintains and upholds the rigidity of healthcare organizations, by interactions that either preserve the distance between different institutional logics or prevent their mutual influence on each other. However, when institutional work transcends maintaining – towards creating or disrupting – the interaction is characterized both by acts of claiming influence and acts of granting influence between actors adhering to different institutional logics. Nonetheless, these interactions are dependent upon the approaches of the physicians; such interactions start with the physicians either being granted influence or granting influence – influence that can later be claimed by the other actor. As such, although the coexistence of different institutional logics is currently an established phenomenon in healthcare, we illustrate how institutional work is contingent upon the dominating professional logic of physicians.

The present study describes and analyses how social interactions between individual actors form institutionalwork in the highly institutionalized setting of healthcare organizations. Based on a qualitative case study, weaffirm that social interactions mainly form maintaining institutional work, thus primarily upholding the rigidityof healthcare organizations. Social interactions either preserve distance between different actors or prevent theirmutual influence, which decreases the effects of institutional complexity. However, when institutional work goesbeyond maintaining, social interaction is characterized by processes of claiming influence and granting influencebetween individual actors who adhere to different institutional logics, which allows effects of institutionalcomplexity. Such institutional work is contingent upon physicians’ strong power position, and granting influenceis likely to precede claiming influence.

Co-workership is a Scandinavian working life concept that is based on post-bureaucratic organizing, the cornerstones of which are decentralization and a vision of responsible individual autonomy and participation. Research has shown positive results from implementing/developing co-workership in organizations; however, in terms of the post-bureaucratic character of the concept, it might be more challenging to retain positive results than to succeed with short-term development and implementation. This study aimed to describe and analyse the retention of co-workership. A qualitative case study based on interviews and observations was conducted at an elderly care unit that had attracted a lot of attention for its organizational development, largely due to co-workership. The present study focused on retention of the active co-workership that the former development had resulted in. Four main challenges were identified as central to co-workership retention. The paper contributes to the scientific community concerning retention of organizational development efforts, particularly by emphasizing the concept of co-workership retention, which is crucial for producing excellent operational performance over extended periods of time.

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been used to examine the role of resources and capabilities in product innovation and how product innovation is related to overall firm performance. Moreover, the natural RBV (NRBV) has addressed how resources affect the natural environment, whereas the relational RBV has highlighted the importance of relational resources, that is, resources shared with stakeholders outside the focal firm. In order to consider these extensions of the RBV in product innovation, this article applies a relational NRBV (RNRBV) on product innovation. Using data from 305 Swedish small manufacturing firms, structural equation modeling is used to examine the relationships between green product innovation (GPI), differentiation advantage and firm performance, and how these relationships are influenced by a relational resource in terms of green suppliers. The results demonstrate that GPI affects differentiation advantage and that this relationship is strengthened by having green suppliers. The article offers a RNRBV on product innovation and illustrates the importance of incorporating additional dependent variables other than aggregated performance measures when researching GPI. Moreover, the study shows that green suppliers can provide important products and complementary resources in order for the focal firm to fully realize its GPI capability.

Green product innovation (GPI) is a cornerstone of environmental management. Recent reviews on GPI have shown that research on GPI antecedents has mainly focused on identifying specific factors influencing the use of GPI. However, most studies lack a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the findings. In this study, which is based on a sample of 303 Swedish small manufacturing firms, antecedents to GPI are examined using the attention-based view of the firm. Two attentional perspectives, namely entrepreneurial orientation and environmental sustainability orientation, were found to positively influence the use of GPI. Moreover, situated attention, in terms of competitive intensity, strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and GPI. The study highlights the usefulness of an attention-based view on GPI and environmental management in small firms.

Firm-specific human capital (HC) is widely recognised as the most important resource for superior firm performance. Contemporary literature on the resource-based view (RBV) and resource orchestration has stressed the importance of organising resources, such as firmspecific HC, in order to fully exploit them. However, companies with idiosyncratic resources cannot rely on established resource exploitation practices, making the exploitation of firmspecific HC a complex issue. Nevertheless, few studies have empirically examined how to orchestrate firm-specific HC. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine how resource orchestration – operationalised as collaborative human resource management (CHRM) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) both individually and combined – moderates the relationship between firm-specific HC and firm performance. Based on a sample of 151 Swedish manufacturing firms, the findings demonstrate that CHRM and EO do not independently influence the relationship between firm-specific HC and performance. However, firms with firm-specific HC benefit from either being highly entrepreneurial and relying on CHRM or being non-entrepreneurial and not focusing on CHRM; they perform worst if they are entrepreneurial without using CHRM. Whereas previous RBV-studies on resource exploitation have mainly stressed that HC has to be exploited, this study contributes to the RBV by examining how firm-specific HC should be exploited.

The core question addressed in the natural resource‐based view (NRBV) of the firm is how to develop and exploit resources beneficial for both the natural environment and firm performance. Due to the resource constraints and increased competition facing small manufacturing firms, achieving this is a challenge for such companies. Building on the NRBV and resource orchestration literatures, we examine the relationship between green purchasing capabilities (GPCs), CEO's environmental orientation(EO), and firm growth. Results from 304 Swedish small manufacturing firms indicate a significant relationship between GPC and growth, and this relationship is positively moderated by the EO of the CEO.

The resource orchestration concept has attracted considerable interest in contemporary innovation research. However, resource orchestration is a manager-centric framework and not all of its components necessarily reflect the value-creation processes of organizations focusing on team-based innovation. Drawing on a single-case study of an innovative Swedish software company, we illustrate the roles of autonomous teams, customers, and top managers in orchestrating resources for team-based innovation. Moreover, we introducethe concept of resource flocculation to describe how key actors co-orchestrate various resource orchestration processes. The study contributes to research on resource orchestration by adapting the model to the conditions characterizing team-based innovation, and to research on team-based innovation by addressing how innovative teams are related to overall resource orchestration processes and, ultimately, organizational innovation outcomes.

Although it is widely accepted that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) improves firm performance, scholars have advised that particular attention should be paid to the context. In this research, we investigate a less explored context of franchising where business systems and procedures are usually dictated to franchisees by franchisors. Therefore, whether a franchisor should allow franchisees to pursue EO (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy) is not clear. In the context of franchising, the majority of prior studies have mainly focused on the employment of EO as a unidimensional construct and at the franchisor level. In this research, we take a bottom-up perspective and evaluate the impact of different dimensions of EO on franchisees’ performance. Our analysis of a multi-group of 183 restaurant franchisees located in Sweden and Iran reveals that only the pursuit of proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness improves a franchisee’s performance and other dimensions do not play a significant role in improving performance in this context.

In this paper I address the concept of family within the family firm context as it is represented in family business research. I argue that the social construction of family is based on heteronormative expectations, i.e. the family consists of a man and woman (as a married couple) plus children. Although this assumption is rarely made explicit, it dominates the view when talking about family business. However, not even this traditional view of family can be kept since it is not representing ‘new’ or alternative families. As there might be a rationale for this in the individual study, we should be careful when comparing studies that use the traditional ‘heteronormative’ definition of family without elaboration. Based on the reviewed literature, it is argued that we could gain new and exciting insights when accounting for these non-traditional family firms.

The purpose of this comparative case study is to understand codetermination intwo family firms. Thereby, this study aims at exploring the role of employee-representativesin two non-listed family businesses. Empirically, this study draws on aninterpretive case study of two family businesses. Its findings extend earlier research,by exploring and introducing the phenomenon of codetermination in the familybusiness literature. Codetermination is explored with the perspective of paternalismas analytical lens. Theoretically, the study draws on the control-collaboration paradoxwhich helps understanding the phenomenon of codetermination. The study revealsdifferent types of codetermination, i.e., the works council and the board of directors.The implications of these types are highlighted and discussed. Findingshighlight the need for professional governance structures in order to facilitate cooperationbetween family owners, the management, and employee representatives.Professional governance allows handling the paternalistic ideological underpinningswhich can otherwise prevent continued firm success, leading to unsolved conflicts.

Purpose

This article aims to increase the understanding of the role of individual actors and arenas in dealing with multiple institutional logics in family firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows a case-study approach of two family-owned newspaper companies. Based on interviews and secondary sources, the empirical material was analysed focussing on three institutional logics, that is, family logic, management logic and journalistic logic.

Findings

First, the authors show how and in which arenas competing logics are balanced in family-owned newspaper companies. Second, the authors highlight that family owners are central actors in the process of balancing different institutional logics. Further, they analyse how family members can become hybrid owner-managers, meaning that they have access to all institutional logics and become central actors in the balancing process.

Originality/value

The authors reveal how multiple institutional logics are balanced in family firms by including formal actors and arenas as additional lenses. Therefore, owning family members, especially hybrid owner-managers, are the best-suited individual actors to balance competing logics. Hybrid owner-managers are members of the owner families who are also skilled in one or several professions.  

The paper is based on an in-depth case study of two family firms in the newspaper industry. This industrycombines institutional logics, such as journalistic and management logic (Achtenhagen, & Raviola, 2009), as wellas family logic in these two cases. This paper intends to make the following contributions. First, we highlight thatfamily owners are central actors in the process of balancing different institutional logics. Further, we analyzehow family members can become hybrid owner-managers, meaning that they have access to all institutionallogics and become central actors in the balancing process.

SMEs may be more vulnerable because of their limited resources (Falkner & Hiebl, 2015). SMEs’ success is often dependent on their owner managers, e.g. their attitude towards growth may differ substantively (Achtenhagen, Naldi, & Melin, 2010; Jaouen & Lasch, 2015). For instance, Davidsson argued that not all small firm owners are willing to grow because they, e.g., fear that growth will endanger employee well-being and the owners will lose control (Davidsson, 1989, 1991). The ability of owner managers to follow a growth strategy may in part also be dependent on how the owner manager is able to handle its life outside the business (Jennings & McDougald, 2007), e.g. the family embeddedness (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003).

More recent research has called for studies investigating, e.g. the work–family (WF) interactions in businesses run by male and female entrepreneurs (Adkins, Samaras, Gilfillan, & McWee, 2013; Ahl, 2006). Extant research has started looking at motives and constrains of female entrepreneurs in regards to the work family interface (Adkins, et al., 2013; Ahl, 2006).

Research on work family interface is, in line with other areas, dominated by studies investigating the US-context, disregarding other contexts (Shaffer, Joplin, & Hsu, 2011). More and more researchers have called for further research on the interface between family and work life (Jaskiewicz, Combs, Shanine, & Kacmar, 2017; Nguyen & Sawang, 2016; Powell & Eddleston, 2017; Powell, Greenhaus, Allen, & Johnson, 2018). Therefore, we offer a new angle by investigating male entrepreneurs who can be considered successful in a Swedish context. Success in this context refers to a sustainable growth strategy in regards to growing the business considerably in both turnover and number of employees over a period of five years.

 Purpose/topic of research

The purpose of this study is to understand the work-family interface in small, growing family firms by answering the following research questions:

Which coping strategies are used to address conflicts in the work family interface?How do these strategies support work/life –balance and how to do they influence firm growth?

Research method

The authors of this study conducted a research project on SMEs which, after a period of stable performance in terms of turnover and number of employees, grew with 50% in bother turnover and number of employees over a consecutive period of five years. The study was conducted in the southwest of Sweden.

For this paper and purpose we selected three companies where the respondents had expressed that work-life-conflicts played a role for being able to focus on and execute a growth strategy.

The figures concerning turnover and number of employees were taken from the publicly available annual reports. The collection of this data was executed in 2017 and included annual reports from 2000 to 2016.

As part of the general study, the selected companies were interviewed. Before the interviews were conducted, the interviewees were contacted by email and afterwards by telephone. In this first telephone conversation, the general purpose of the study was explained. In the following face-to-face interviews the respondents, usually owner-managers, were interviewed, using a structured interview guideline. The guideline entailed open questions and scaled questions concerning reasons for growth, performance, change in ownership and management, entrepreneurial orientation, employee concerns, justice and equality.

 Theories used Coping strategies

The literature has come up with plenty of coping strategies that deal with how individual deal with issues that bothers them. In this study we draw on research with a connection to entrepreneurship and growth (Jennings & McDougald, 2007).

 Coping has been defined in psychological terms by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing”. Coping is expending conscious effort to solve personal and interpersonal problems, and seeking to master and minimize stress (Weiten & Lloyd, 2008). Psychological coping mechanisms are usually termed coping strategies or coping skills. Unconscious strategies are commonly excluded. The term coping generally refers to adaptive or constructive coping strategies. However, some coping strategies can also be considered maladaptive. Maladaptive coping can be described as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping commonly refers to reactive coping. This contrasts with proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor. Coping responses are partly controlled by personality, but also by the social context, particularly the stressful environment (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010).

On growth

“Most firms start small, live small and die small” (Davidsson 2010, p. 23[BB1] ). Growth is not the norm, and the main reason that most firms do not grow is that they operate in mature industries and serves local markets (Davidsson 2010). For those firms that do grow the entrepreneur often plays an important role. Factors such as motivation, education, management experience, number of founders have been proven to influence growth in a positive direction. However, there is a lack of research regarding how different factors related to work-life balance affects firm growth.

Growth is usually defined as an increase in the amount of some measurable outcome, e.g. sales or employment (Cyron & Zoellick, 2018)(Cyron & Zoellick 2018, Davidsson 2010).

 Contribution of research

The research contributes insights on which and how male entrepreneurs use coping strategies to address conflicts in the work family interface.

Findings reveal the complex role of family which can both be an origin but also a solution to these conflicts.

The study further contributes to the ongoing debate concerning growth intension and growth ambition in the entrepreneurship literature. Especially in small family firms, growth is not only hindered by limited resources. At the same time, resources and obstacles for growth are complex.

In this chapter, we discuss and analyse how family SMEs can prepare for crises originating in different areas. In specific, we discuss how family SMEs can prepare for crises originating in the family, the firm and the environment. There is an overlap in family SMEs, which implies that it is necessary to account for all three areas in a crisis situation. All three dimensions can be the origin for a crisis and part of a solution to handling the crisis. In the following, we discuss each dimension in detail with regard to crisis management in family SMEs. The study offers advice for family SMEs facing a crisis situation caused by internal causes, business or family-induced. Family SMEs should prepare themselves well in advance—with crisis management—to face severe shocks, and not just react under stress. This leads to a more proactive crisis management approach.

We investigate how family firms manage and overcome the Covid-crisis. We distinguish between different areas of crisis origin, i.e. the environment, the business or the family. We propose a process model of crisis management and draw on a interview study of German and Swedish companies. The model includes different activities which could be undertaken before, during and after a crisis-event. We propose four essential topics for family firms’ crisis management: (1) family firm leadership mindset, (2) multiple crisis management practices, (3) relationship and network strength and (4) process view. 

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand how family firms manage a crisis by applying a processual and longitudinal perspective. The objective is to find out how crisis management is approached by family firms in Sweden, Scotland and Germany, using entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as an analytical lens. Further, this paper investigates the role of the owning family in creating and solving a crisis in family firms.

Design/methodology/approach:

This study follows a processual and longitudinal case study approach. Cases are drawn from Germany, Scotland and Sweden. Data collection is based on a combination of interviews with archival data such as annual reports and press clippings.

Findings:

The results show that all studied firms had high levels of autonomy combined with high risk-taking. It is noteworthy, that these dimensions also help to overcome the crisis. Risk-taking and proactiveness can be useful for addressing the crisis. Under certain circumstances, even innovativeness can help to develop new offers. Autonomy is considered central in family firms and only extraordinary circumstances can be owning families make willing to compromise on it. The EO-dimensions are not all relevant at all times. Rather, family firms will emphasize the dimensions during the consecutive stages differently.

Originality/value:

This study compares case companies from Germany, Scotland and Sweden and how EO contributes to their crisis management by taking a longitudinal and processual perspective. Its originality lies in the in-depth studies of companies from three countries.

The purpose of this study is to understand turnaround strategies in family firms from a so-cioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective. This study follows a case study approach with four family firms, one from Germany, one from Scotland, and two from Sweden. Data collection builds on combining interviews with data collected from annual reports, homepages, and press clips. First, we contribute to the understanding of turnaround strategies in private family firms. Moreover, the SEW perspective offers new insights into how owning families prioritize the different turnaround strategies in relation to the SEW dimensions. Finally, our study also helps further an understanding of how owning families prioritize the SEW dimensions, by drawing on mixed gambles. These findings are used to develop a framework for explaining how SEW influences organizational decline and turnaround in private family firms. Finally, we develop propositions that future research could consider.

ObjectivesIs a founder “leaving” an organization by selling it, or are there aspects of the founder left even though, the founder does not have a formal occupation or ownership in the organization?Will there be a legacy of the founder and how will this affect the psychological ownership? What is the founder’s heritage from a psychological ownership perspective?The purpose is to understand the consequences of a business sale of the founder and from a psychological ownership perspective.

Prior WorkDrawing on the work of psychological ownership and founder heritage, the work combines important literatures to shed light on an important empirical phenomenon, i.e. the exit of a founder/entrepreneur and its consequences for the organization.

ApproachThis study follows a single case study approach and draws on rich empirical material from semi-structured interviews and extensive archival data.

ResultsWe show how central activities are affected by a founder’s heritage over long time after the formal exit has taken place. We illustrate the development of a founder’s psychological ownership before and after he has formally sold the legal ownership.

Implications and ValueThe paper aims at contributing to the entrepreneurial and founder exit-literature by adding a process perspective. Unlike it is sometimes assumed in the entrepreneurship literature is an exit not necessarily a clear-cut and once and for all decision. The paper contributes also psychological ownership literature by highlighting its continuity after the formal sale of the legal ownership and its consequences for the organization.

This paper compares and distinguishes different devices, which family owners use to manage and develop their wealth over time. The paper addresses similarities and differences and states research questions for future development.

This study investigate social value creation in family firms in a region in Sweden. The purpose of this study is tocompare two family firms that are embedded in a strong regional entrepreneurial culture and understand howthe owners contribute to value creation. A case study approach is used to understand the value creation. Thestudy finds different forums and means of interaction between the firms and the community, such as the localuniversity and the local sports club. The owners become engaged citizens which allows extending earlier discussionson the subject. Thereby, the student develops the concept of social value creation at the interconnectionof family firms and communities. The study draws on prior discourses from the entrepreneurship literature.

This paper explores how family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant family business. To fulfill the purpose, we employ inductive multiple case studies using fifty-six in-depth interviews. We rely on seven cases of immigrant entrepreneurs of Chinese, Icelandic, Turkish, Cameroonian, Mexican and Libanese who established firms in Sweden. Our results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in regard to first and second generation immigrant entrepreneurs, low and high-tech sectors and host and home contries. Thus, family dynamics facilitates the development of entrepreneurial orientation over time through transfering across generations and contexts. Our study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO is developed as a transferring process of the founders' proactiveness, risk-taking and innovativeness between the family in the home and host country.

The objective of this chapter is to deepen our understanding of the nature of family businesses by analysing them as hybrid organisations. We define family businesses as businesses where one or several families own the controlling majority of the shares and are actively involved in the business (Chrisman et al., 2005; Chua et al., 1999). The focus of the chapter is on the theoretical notion of family businesses as hybrid organisations, and it draws on case research based on two publicly listed family firms. Publicly listed family firms are common around the world (La Porta et al., 1999) and they illustrate explicitly the hybrid character of family businesses by combining the logic of family ownership with the expectation of delivering shareholder value (Boers and Nordqvist, 2012). We argue that hybridity is especially apparent in publicly listed family businesses, where it arises from different underlying institutional logics related to the family and the market and the private and the public. The hybrid nature of this kind of business has an impact on their decision-making, their control and/or their governance more generally. To analyse the two cases, we draw on literature on hybrid organisations, governance and family firms. The study of hybrid organisations has gained momentum in recent years (see, e.g., Battilana and Dorado, 2010; Battilana and Lee, 2014; Billis, 2010; Pache and Santos, 2013; and also this Handbook). The current focus seems to be on social enterprises as typical examples of hybrid organisations (Battilana and Lee, 2014; Doherty et al., 2014). Yet this phenomenon is not exclusive to social enterprises or the third sector: it is equally relevant for some public sector and for-profit organisations. The most common type of business is the family business (Dyer, 2003), which also represents a hybrid organisation, with the two domains of family and business constituting the source of hybridity. Family businesses have been portrayed as hybrid organisations in previous literature (e.g., Arregle et al., 2007; Boers and Nordqvist, 2012; Ljungkvist and Boers, 2017), but the concept of hybridity has not gained as much research attention as it deserves. The purpose of this chapter is to address this limitation.

The construction of professional identity of an entrepreneur involves many factors. In this chapter, the case study of a Chinese female immigrant entrepreneur in Sweden illustrates the complexity of professional identity which intertwines with the gender identity and the cultural identity in all levels from personal, professional and socio-cultural. The methods of participant observation and discourse analysis are used. The results reflect the impacts of gender and culture factors in the construction and communication of professional identity, which can contribute to the integration process of Chinese immigrants in Sweden.

The aim of this paper is to chart the value creation process of firms excelling in sustainability. To accomplish this goal, we devise an analytical framework based on a review of the literature combining value creation in service-dominant logic (SDL) and sustainability. We then use the framework to analyze the practices of 100 firms excelling in sustainability, so as to offer a contribution in the form of a combination of insights from practice and theoretical analysis portraying the service ecosystem incorporating sustainability. The double-step analysis highlighted the relevance of a multi-actor perspective as a driver for the incorporation of sustainability in the value creation process, as well as the relevance of actors' participation in firms' processes, such as in resource integration and in line with the aim of sustainable service provision. The results advance the understanding of the elements of SDL as well as how the interplay among them occurs from a sustainability-based perspective. © 2020 by the authors.

This exploratory study charts the transformation of the tourism sector caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The article dissects five key domains of industry transformation: accelerated digitalisation, business model flexibility, human resources, travel restrictions, and risk perception and crisis management. It delineates the industry's changes, adaptations, and associated challenges in each domain. A review and content analysis of 240 publicly available online documents was conducted. The results provide managerial implications and avenues for future research in tourism, including the hybridisation of tourism products, transformation of the service encounter style, adaptation to a shifting travel mode, and increased risk awareness and preparedness.

The service ecosystems perspective has rarely been applied in literature tackling the nonprofit and voluntary sectors. Service ecosystems are defined as self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional arrangements and mutual value creation. By addressing service ecosystems flexibility (i.e., the ability of service ecosystems to adjust to changes), this article seeks to provide a framework that charts service ecosystems flexibility and explains its pillars, as well as the ways in which new technologies affect visitors and arts. The study focuses on service ecosystems changes initiated by technology, visitors, and organizers, aimed at increasing the level of museum visitors' experience. The study is performed in a service ecosystem comprising a sculpture arts exhibition and its online extensions in the form of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Collected data consist of interviews with the exhibition visitors and organizers, participative observations performed in the exhibition context, and online posts and media coverage related to the exhibition. The research process is iterative and abductive, continuously combining insights that emerge from the literature and the analyzed data through triangulation. The main findings emphasize organizers' pivotal role as the actor that orchestrates value cocreation in the service ecosystem by steering this process based on emerging changes. Additionally, the findings flesh out the role of technology in a service ecosystem and offer a more comprehensive view of service ecosystems flexibility.

High academic interest and numerous theoretical and practical studies on service systems and service ecosystems, paired with the accelerated evolution of the service (eco) system concept, have resulted in complex research in this field. Multiple perspectives from which service systems were studied added to this complexity and inadvertently produced conceptual confusion regarding service (eco) systems. This literature review addresses this confusion by focusing on the evolution of service systems to service ecosystems to consolidate and clarify the field. Therefore, this article's purpose is to systematise the extant research on service (eco) systems and indicate future research directions based on the analysis. Specifically, the article systematically reviews 770 publications on service (eco) systems from 2020 and earlier and identifies the main research topics (focusing on service [eco] systems’ constituent elements, inherent processes, and outcomes), theoretical perspectives, and bridging elements, and suggests future research based on the review results. The article concludes by providing a foundation for continued research emerging from the analysis, with emphasis on five aspects that may stimulate new avenues of research: service ecospheres, service ecosystem simplicity, failures of service ecosystems, paradox in service ecosystems, and panarchy and service ecosystems.

Purpose – This essay aims to draw attention to the idea of a new research approach to knowledge management (KM) labelled responsible KM (rKM) as a possible answer to not only address the consequences of the pandemic but also other present and upcoming societal challenges.

Design/methodology/approach – This essay has been prepared by a KM researcher who shares their own personal views and opinion regarding past and current societal developments and based on that offers a potentially new KM direction.

Findings – Switching the focus to rKM may help address current and upcoming social challenges that can only be addressed jointly by the global community and which would also involve a new consideration of the“knowledge” resource.

Originality/value – The essay proposes a new alternative approach to KM called rKM that is based on ideas that to the author’s knowledge have not been discussed in this way in the contemporary literature on KM.

The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of how SMEs retain critical knowledge. Against the background of the underdeveloped body of knowledge regarding knowledge retention, the authors selected an explorative (qualitative) research approach. More precisely, they conducted semi-structured interviews with organization members (i.e. executive and regular staff) of five Austrian SMEs operating in the building and construction industry. This study provides fresh insights into knowledge retention in SMEs. The findings advance the limited understanding of knowledge retention in general and regarding SMEs. They also contribute to the further development of the study of knowledge management in the building and construction sector. Based on the study's findings the authors derive suitable measures to better manage the process of knowledge retention in SMEs. These measures may be useful for SMEs operating in other industries as well.

COVID-19 has shown how fragile our societies and economies are. Supply chains have particularly been affected. We all had to learn again that the basic supply of some goods is not as crisis-proof as we thought. Moreover, the strong division of labour and the concentration on a few companies in certain areas present considerable weaknesses in the case of a new external crisis such as the pandemic. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been affected by the current pandemic, particularly as they are highly sensitive to external threats. Using data collected between December 2020 and January 2021 through semi-structured interviews conducted with owners and/or managers of SMEs located in six different European countries (i.e., Austria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Portugal), the chapter aims to provide fresh perspectives on how SMEs address supply chain risk management in times of an external and dynamic crisis. 

Purpose - Our understanding of the influence of institutional conditions on process innovation is still limited, despite managers’ need to know which factors should be considered in decision-making and governments should be aware of how to foster process innovation through the provision of attractive institutions. Therefore, this paper aims to examine how institutional dimensions such as workforce, political instability, labor regulation, corruption, tax administration and transportation influence process innovation in smaller firms located in emerging countries other than the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Design/methodology/approach - A data set from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys questioning over 20,000 companies from 41 emerging countries supplemented by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for each country was used and analyzed by the means of general linear mixed models. The analysis emphasized small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and excluded BRICS countries.

Findings - The findings demonstrate which institutional factors matter for process innovation depending on company size and GDP.

Research limitations/implications - This paper advances research on the influence of institutions on firm innovation – the institution–process innovation relationship in emerging countries other than the BRICS in particular. By considering the role of company size and GDP per capita on the institution–process innovation relationship, the paper offers more nuanced insights compared with prior studies and thus makes a strong contribution to the innovation theory. The data used are not suitable for a longitudinal study the same refers to capturing the variety found in the countries even those coming from the same geographic area.

Practical implications - The results provide practitioners, e.g. managers of SMEs, with concrete ideas on how to improve process innovation in their companies. Other actors such as policymakers too can benefit from the results as they will allow the design of more target group-oriented measures, aspects that can ultimately lead to more sustainable businesses.

Originality/value - By focusing on process innovation and emerging countries, the paper contributes to growing research efforts in emerging countries beyond the BRICS. Thus, the results add more diversity to the study of process innovation and its influencing external (institutional) factors. The emphasis on SMEs also allows us to highlight differences between different categories of SMEs.