bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
How small family-owned businesses may compete with retail superstores
Authors: Dessi Cinzia , Ng Wilson , Floris Michela , Cabras Stefano 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the “perceptive concordance” – the proximity of perceptions of the business- between key managers and customers of two small family-owned and managed businesses (“FBs”) and two larger non-FBs in Cagliari, Italy as a preliminary basis for understanding how small retail businesses that are typically family owned have continued to compete and thrive in many Western European cities.Design/methodology/approach– The authors asked how small FBs have been able to compete in an advanced European economy despite apparent competitive disadvantages relative to large superstores selling the same products. In addressing this question the authors drew on a qualitative research methodology in which the authors interviewed senior managers and surveyed customers of the four businesses and applied an original statistical model to assess the degree of their perceptive concordance with over 100 customers of each business.Findings– The study's findings suggest a significant difference between key managers and customers of the sampled FBs and non-FBs in the perceptive concordance of the respective businesses held by those managers and customers.Research limitations/implications– Based on the research in this study the authors have developed a number of scholarly and managerial implications in the way that both FBs and non-FBs may retain old customers and gain new ones by anticipating and not merely responding to their product and service preferences.Originality/value– This paper extends the literature on customer relations management (“CRM”) in FBs by explaining how small High Street FBs in competitive retail businesses have continued to thrive in Western Europe where owner-managers have developed and successfully leveraged their tacit knowledge of the requirements of repeat customers.
Vertical coopetition in entrepreneurial firms: theory and practice
Authors: Soppe Birthe , Lechner Christian , Dowling Michael 
Published: November 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate vertical interfirm relationships with direct competitors – also referred to as vertical “coopetition” – in entrepreneurial firms. Specifically, this study explores the reasons for why entrepreneurial firms engage in vertical coopetition and how they manage this particular type of interfirm relationship. The paper also shed light on the causes for termination of such delicate relational arrangements.

Design/methodology/approach
– The research design is exploratory. The paper analyze data collected by a survey that was specifically designed for this study. Based on the findings, the paper developed theoretical propositions specifying the conditions under which entrepreneurial firms engage in coopetition, how it is managed, and how it can be sustained.

Findings
– The findings show that coopetition is a ubiquitous phenomenon for entrepreneurial firms, and mainly arises out of a deliberate strategy. In contrast to large firms, entrepreneurial firms tend to manage coopetitive relationships in a central manner. Termination was common among firms facing high risk or when alternative strategies emerged.

Research limitations/implications
– This study provides a fundamental theoretical and evidence-based discussion of vertical coopetition in young firms. By doing so, the authors advance theory development, offer important insights for entrepreneurs seeking to benefit from intercompetitor linkages, and highlight promising avenues for future research.

Originality/value
– The paper makes several important contributions to the coopetition literature. The paper develop a definition of vertical coopetition and study the unique aspects associated with it. In contrast to most previous research in this area, the paper focus on entrepreneurial firms. The evidence-based analysis contributes to a better understanding of the reasons for entrepreneurial firms entering and terminating coopetitive arrangements as well as how they manage these types of collaborations. The paper develops theoretical propositions and generate novel insights into the dynamics and issues that arise with coopetition in entrepreneurial firms.
A comprehensive model of business social responsibility (BSR) for small scale enterprises in Indian context
Authors: Chahal Hardeep , Mishra Sanjay , Raina Swati , Soni Tarun 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop comprehensive model of business social responsibility (BSR) for small-scale enterprises (SSEs) in Indian Context.Design/methodology/approach– The data were collected from 156 SSE owners/managers using snowball sampling method, operating in three industrial estates namely: Bari Brahmana, Gangyal and Digiana, Jammu, North India.Findings– The three-step procedure based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA), item/reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were undertaken to establish the multidimensionality of BSR scale. The empirical results identify five BSR dimensions in SSEs – local community, employees, environment, suppliers and customers.Research limitations/implications– The major limitation of the study relates with data collection from only owners’/managers’ perspective, which might have resulted in biased perceptions.Practical implications– This study has direct practical implications for owners’ actions in relation to establishing BSR culture and orientation in SSEs. Besides, SSE owners/managers can also be benefited from the study's findings through their increased awareness on the activities that contribute to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.Originality/value– The study is based on extant research gap in the literature on significance of CSR practices for SSEs in emerging countries context. This study contributes to existing research on CSR by developing a better understanding of the role of owners in establishing BSR culture in the SSEs.
The use of internships to foster employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship in the IT sector
Authors: Galloway Laura , Marks Abigail , Chillas Shiona 
Published: November 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to report a study of the role of internships for IT students and for the IT sector. The contribution of internships for career-readiness, and for the development of existing IT organisations and the creation of new ones is explored.

Design/methodology/approach
– Surveys of interns and managers from host firms were conduced, followed by in-depth interviews with six interns and five organisations.

Findings
– Internships are useful for increasing enterprise and employability skills and commercial awareness for IT students. IT organisations also benefit in that internships are used to recruit fresh talent. Findings regarding entrepreneurship were disappointing, with little reportage of ambitions to create new firms, nor awareness of the high likelihood of self-employed contractual work in the sector.

Research limitations/implications
– Implications for research include that self-employment and business ownership are not always “successful” entrepreneurial outcomes born of agency. This requires further study.

Practical implications
– Development of opportunities for experiential, real-world learning for IT students is implied, as is increased educational focus on employability and enterprise skills to best advantage students for the realities of employment in IT. There is a strong suggestion that much more needs to be done in terms of encouraging entrepreneurship.

Originality/value
– The paper reports the potentials of internships to interns and to organisations, and through combining these perspectives, provides comment on the utility of internships for the IT sector as a competitive, opportunity-rich global industry.
What matters in business incubation? A literature review and a suggestion for situated theorising
Authors: Theodorakopoulos Nicholas , K. Kakabadse Nada , McGowan Carmel 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness and second, to submit a situated theoretical perspective on how business incubation management can provide an environment that supports the development of incubatee entrepreneurs and their businesses.Design/methodology/approach– The paper provides a narrative critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness. Definitional issues, performance aspects and approaches to establishing critical success factors in business incubation are discussed. Business incubation management is identified as an overarching factor for theorising on business incubation effectiveness.Findings– The literature on business incubation effectiveness suffers from several deficiencies, including definitional incongruence, descriptive accounts, fragmentation and lack of strong conceptual grounding. Notwithstanding the growth of research on this domain, understanding of how entrepreneurs and their businesses develop within the business incubator environment remains limited. Given the importance of relational, intangible factors in business incubation and the critical role of business incubation management in orchestrating and optimising such factors, it is suggested that theorising efforts would benefit from a situated perspective.Originality/value– The identification of specific shortcomings in the literature on business incubation highlights the need for more systematic efforts towards theory building. It is suggested that focusing on the role of business incubation management from a situated learning theory perspective can lend itself to a more profound understanding of the development process of incubatee entrepreneurs and their firms. Theoretical propositions are offered to this effect, as well as avenues for future research.
Exploring the impact of interface signs’ interpretation accuracy, design, and evaluation on web usability
Authors: Nazrul Islam Muhammad , Tétard Franck 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this empirical study was to address two important concerns of Web usability: how user-intuitive interface signs affect Web usability and how applying semiotics (i.e. the doctrine of signs) in user interface (UI) design and evaluation helps to improve usability.Design/methodology/approach– An empirical research approach is followed here to conduct three user tests. These tests were conducted on a Web application with 17 test participants. Data were gathered through laboratory-based think-aloud usability test, questionnaires and interviews. Following an empirical research approach, statistics and user behavior analysis were used to analyze the data.Findings– This study explores two important concerns of UI design and evaluation. First, users’ interpretation accuracy of interface signs impact on Web usability. The study found that users’ interpretation of signs might be accurate, moderate, conflicting, erroneous or incapable; user-intuitive interface signs led participants to interpret signs’ meaning accurately; and users’ inaccurate interpretation of one or a few task-related interface sign(s) led users to usability problems, resulting in participants performing tasks with lower task-completion performance. Second, considering semiotics perception in UI design and evaluation is important to improve Web usability. This study showed that interface signs, when re-designed considering the semiotics guidelines, have increased the end-users’ interpretation accuracy and the interface signs’ intuitiveness. This study also provides a small set of semiotics guidelines for sign design and evaluation.Originality/value– This study empirically demonstrated that signs’ intuitiveness impact on Web usability and that considering the semiotics perception in sign design and evaluation is important to improve Web usability. These outcomes are valuable in a number of ways to HCI researchers and practitioners: the results provide awareness of the importance of user-intuitive interface signs in UI design; practitioners can easily adopt the concept of interpretation accuracy classification to conduct a sign test to obtain an “overall impression of interface signs’ intuitiveness”; practitioners can easily adopt the methodological approach followed in this study to conduct usability test without additional resources; and the results raised important fundamental questions for future research such as “what does a practitioner need to be aware of when designing or evaluating interface signs?”
Building trust by signaling trustworthiness in service retail
Authors: Kharouf Husni , J. Lund Donald , Sekhon Harjit 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of retailer trustworthiness in driving customer trust and the subsequent impact on loyalty. The authors position trustworthiness as a mediator in the link between retail strategies and the development of trust. They model customer loyalty to the service retailer as a function of the trust created through trustworthy perceptions.Design/methodology/approach– The authors validate their model using 420 survey responses from customers in a service retail setting. Nine research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Alternate models are estimated, and the results provide support for the theory-based trustworthiness mediation model.Findings– Trustworthy behaviors first build trustworthiness, which then translates into customer trust and ultimately has a positive impact on both behavioral and attitudinal loyalty.Research limitations/implications– The research highlights the importance for retailers to signal their trustworthiness to build customer trust and loyalty. Researchers should measure trustworthiness perceptions when examining customer relationships and managers should plan strategically to develop both trust and trustworthiness with their customers.Originality/value– This study is one of the first to investigate the mediating effect of trustworthiness on customer loyalty in service settings. While past research has investigated dimensions of trustworthy behaviors, none has included a measure of trustworthiness perceptions and consumer trust in the same theoretical model. The results of the research provide important insights for both researchers and managers.
Recommendations as personalized marketing: insights from customer experiences
Authors: Shen Anyuan 
Published: November 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is an exploratory study of customers’ “lived” experiences of commercial recommendation services to better understand customer expectations for personalization with recommendation agents. Recommendation agents programmed to “learn” customer preferences and make personalized recommendations of products and services are considered a useful tool for targeting customers individually. Some leading service firms have developed proprietary recommender systems in the hope that personalized recommendations could engage customers, increase satisfaction and sharpen their competitive edge. However, personalized recommendations do not always deliver customer satisfaction. More often, they lead to dissatisfaction, annoyance or irritation.

Design/methodology/approach
– The critical incident technique is used to analyze customer satisfactory or dissatisfactory incidents collected from online group discussion participants and bloggers to develop a classification scheme.

Findings
– A classification scheme with 15 categories is developed, each illustrated with satisfactory incidents and dissatisfactory incidents, defined in terms of an underlying customer expectation, typical instances of satisfaction and dissatisfaction and, when possible, conditions under which customers are likely to have such an expectation. Three pairs of themes emerged from the classification scheme. Six tentative research propositions were introduced.

Research limitations/implications
– Findings from this exploratory research should be regarded as preliminary. Besides, content validity of the categories and generalizability of the findings should be subject to future research.

Practical implications
– Research findings have implications for identifying priorities in developing algorithms and for managing personalization more strategically.

Originality/value
– This research explores response to personalization from a customer’s perspective.
Cultural values in financial services advertising: a cross-cultural study of magazine ads in the USA and Korea
Authors: Song Young-A. , Ahn Hongmin , Sung Yongjun 
Published: November 2014

Purpose
– This paper aims to examine whether culture impacts the execution of financial services advertising (FSA). Specifically, this study investigates how cultural values are reflected in FSA by comparing magazine ads in the USA and Korea.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study analyzed the content of a total of 1,889 (USA = 1,486; Korea = 403) FSA in print business/news magazines from 2005 to 2009.

Findings
– The finding of this study showed significant cultural differences of FSA in terms of collectivism, high and low cultural contexts, human models/celebrity presence and time orientation between the USA and Korea. However, the difference in individualistic cues between the USA and Korea was not significant.

Research limitations/implications
– Using the integration of multiple cultural frameworks will better explain cultural differences reflected in marketing communication in the financial services (FS) sector. Future research is needed to generalize how such frameworks are reflected in different settings, such as different media or different countries.

Practical implications
– The findings of this study suggest that FSA reflect cultural values, providing further implications for FS companies targeting the global market.

Originality/value
– This study extends the understanding of impact of cultural values on advertising by exploring the FS industry.
Customers helping customers: payoffs for linking customers
Authors: G. Black Hulda , H. Vincent Leslie , J. Skinner Steven 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– This paper aims to examine the relationship between customer networks and intercustomer social support, through the theoretical lens of service dominant logic (SDL). Co-creation and objective performance objectives are analyzed to understand the differential impact of instrumental and social/emotional intercustomer support on performance.Design/methodology/approach– A combination of survey and secondary data were collected within a health-club setting to test hypotheses. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings– A customer’s network ties positively impact his/her intercustomer support perceptions, and this relationship is moderated by tie strength. Further, instrumental support impacts objective performance measures, while social/emotional has a greater impact on affective outcomes.Research limitations/implications– As customers become more connected, it is in the interest of the organization to capitalize on these connections. Future research should investigate what types of programming and marketing can directly enhance the number and types of connections customers form with others.Practical implications– Service organizations can benefit by fostering environments where customers connect with each other. These connections need not be at a high level; simple, informational connections prove to benefit the organization.Originality/value– The present research is designed to add to the research on intercustomer support in the service literature. This study investigates network-level antecedents of intercustomer support. Further, this research connects intercustomer support to objective (firm-reported) measures of performance. Last, this research examines intercustomer support through the lens of SDL and investigates its impact on co-creation outcomes.
China’s research and development system in an international environment
Authors: Pérez Calle Elio 
Published: November 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of the paper is to analyse the current status of the Chinese research and development (R&D) system in a global environment, compared to those of other nations.

Design/methodology/approach
– Extracting meaningful information from organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) (research intensity), Thomson Reuters (research output), UNESCO and cross-border education research team (C-BERT) (mobility) databases and analysing de facto international standards such as university rankings, the Chinese system is compared to those of other scientific powers (the world top expenders in R&D such as the USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and some European nations), both using absolute production values and those relative to the productivity of the R&D workforce, so a general view of such a system is offered to complement previous analyses.

Findings
– A rather utilitarian approach to R&D policy, linked to economic growth, with a strong role of a Government-backed industry and based on applied R&D rather than on basic science, is found. The emergence of China as a scientific power relies heavily on a small number of institutions and efficiency becomes the priority, as confirmed by the growing presence of Chinese universities in university rankings – which is linked to some internationalisation efforts – and by the quantitative analysis of science and technology macro-indicators. Nevertheless, those results still remain modest when the overall size of the Chinese R&D system is considered.

Originality/value
– A general view of the Chinese system is offered in this study by combining both the analysis of the inputs of the Chinese R&D (in a internationally comparable way) system and outputs (up to international standards).
Cloud computing: information professionals’ and educational technology experts’ perspectives
Authors: Aharony Noa 
Published: November 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and personal characteristics such as threat and challenge, self-efficacy and openness to experience, explain information professionals’ and educational technology experts’ perspectives about cloud computing. In addition, the study will investigate any differences between these two tech-savvy groups concerning cloud computing adoption.Design/methodology/approach– The research was conducted in Israel during the second semester of the 2013 academic year. Researchers used seven questionnaires to gather the data.Findings– The current study found that the behavioral intention to use cloud computing was impacted by perceived ease of use and personal innovativeness. Further, the study demonstrated that respondents’ intentions to use cloud computing are affected by personal characteristics such as threat and challenge, self-efficacy, and openness to experience. In addition, it seems that each group has a different perspective about technology.Originality/value– Findings reveal that newest technologies are not the main focus of information professionals. Therefore, if information organizations directors would like their employees to enhance their use of technological innovations, they should expose them to the latest technologies, emphasizing their usefulness, ease of use, and benefits.