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International Journal of Business Research Management (IJBRM)
An International peer-review journal operated under CSC-OpenAccess Policy.
ISSN - 2180-2165
Published - Bi-Monthly | Established - 2010 | Year of Publication - 2024
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FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
| These articles have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication but are pending final changes. The articles will be published in near future as soon as they are assigned to IJBRM issues. | ||
| Assessing the key barriers to innovation acceptance in Iranian construction companies | ||
| Hadi Sarvari, Daniel W.M. Chan, Reza Soltani | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| The emergence of innovation in recent decades has attracted the attention of major companies around the world to its productivity and importance. As a developing country, Iran has great potential in the construction industry, but due to the lack of a proper strategy and the lack of a favorable process in innovation, growth and development has not been appropriate. The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the key barriers to innovation in Iranian construction companies, which have been answered by 62 board members, consultants, contractors, supervisor and computational engineers, experts and suppliers in the construction industry. About 60 percent of participants are from the private sector, 29 percent from the public sector, and 11 percent from both sectors. Most of the participants were between 25 and 45 years old and the majority had a master's and bachelor's degree and had a experience of 5 to 20 years. In the questionnaire, the main factors of research, including: cultural, financial, organizational, and managerial, had the most effect, and human, investigate, and research factors had a moderate effect, and external factors had the least effect. The results showed that the main determinants of non-use of innovation in construction companies can be classified into internal and external factors. The factors was evaluated based on the 5-point Likert scale measurement. The results shows that all factors identified as barriers to innovation acceptance in Iranian construction companies. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-288, Innovation, Barriers, Construction | ||
| ADAPTING TO COVID-19: SMES IN ZIMBABWE MANAGING CHANGE | ||
| Tongesai Mpofu, Shephard Makurumidze | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| The purpose of the paper is to find how SMEs in Zimbabwe managed to implement change with respect to COVID-19. The pandemic has changed the way of doing things in the entire world. To survive in situations, organisations need to change. All the SMEs in Zimbabwe may be trying their level best to implement change successfully however, all of them are facing severe issues. The purpose of this study is to identify the major hurdles in implementing change and identifying a way out to cope with the situation based on available literature on SMEs and change management. The other purpose is to find the challenges faced by these SMEs in managing and implementing change. This study follows a synthesized literature review methodology and is a kind of review paper. In this research, literature that has been written on crisis management and especially over the COVID-19 has been reviewed. In this review analysis, previous studies regarding change management and the importance of SMEs in economic sustainability have been discussed. The paper is a review of existing literature and will identify how the organizations can survive through implementing change successfully. This study found out that SMEs in Zimbabwe have being struggling to manage and implement change due to non-availability of financial resources. This study is limited to SMEs in Harare province only it does not cover all SMEs in Zimbabwe. The study is significant for SMEs in the entire world. The study is useful for understanding the issues that are related to managing and implementing change in small and medium enterprises especially while facing contingencies. The findings of the study and the literature review led to the conclusion that without implementing change successfully, it is impossible to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to deal with the crisis of resistance to change organisations should motivate and train its employees. The study recommends SMEs in Zimbabwe to manage change by training and motivating employees and the government to support the SMEs sector in order for it to survive since it’s a backbone of the Zimbabwean economy. |
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| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-311, Change Management, Implementing Change, Small and Medium Enterprises, COVID-19, Performanc | ||
| THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) PANDEMIC FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES(SMEs) IN ZIMBABWE | ||
| Tongesai Mpofu, Shephard Makurumidze | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of challenges for the global community from the year 2020. The spread of this virus led to unparalleled health crisis in all the countries across the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has also caused unprecedented panic and disruptions for both the public and private sectors and is considered an experiential threat to the global economy with governments and businesses grappling with the effects. In Zimbabwe, the pandemic has caused challenges and opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and in some cases threatening their own survival and forcing many SMEs to change their focus in order to manage the crisis. Some SMEs have adopted crisis management and alternative business response efforts. The main objectives of this paper were to determine the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic to SMEs in Zimbabwe and identify the emerging opportunities arising as a result of the pandemic. The methodology of this article is secondary information where various literature on challenges and opportunities for small to medium businesses was analyzed. Secondary data results show that many small businesses are suffering and the COVID-19 caused destruction for many small to medium businesses. It is difficult to survive with low income, jobs were lost and frail marketing performance. Findings from this study show that amongst the crisis caused by COVID-19, numerous opportunities have also emerged for innovative Zimbabwean entrepreneurs to explore. The firms should reduce expenses, adapt to new technology in order to be competitive and survive and utilise other business opportunities that have been opened up by COVID-19 pandemic. The study recommends that SMEs should first assess the damages of the pandemic to the businesses and then find the strategies to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic and maximize the new opportunities. Furthermore, the study recommends the companies to adopt digital marketing, and use different alternatives to deliver their products and recover from crisis. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-312, COVID-19, Pandemic, SMEs, Challenges, Emerging Opportunities, Digital | ||
| Sustainability: Future Orientation Through Engagement of MSME’s | ||
| Deepti Prakash, Parul Manchanda, Twinkle Arora | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| Purpose: Enterprises have been facing a concern from the government to take an initiative in the
various environmental maintenance and in the implementation of various sustainable practices
laterally with the satisfaction of the customer demands. Thus, the enterprises are enforced to
implement sustainable ways of doing business, which would help them achieve competitive
advantage in the long run. This paper intends to institutionalise the various sustainability
measures (through the leadership approaches and the theoretical approaches) in the various
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s). Design/methodology/approach: This research paper is a general review for highlighting the varied reasons and unreason’s behind the various enterprises practising sustainability initiatives in the real business scenario. A thorough and wide exploratory search was made from the existing literature with the help of online databases. The results are presented in the form of descriptive findings. Findings: The research paper concludes that, sustainability is not a unitary concept, but involves a throng of efforts (to explain, the activities, actors and the resources employed). The MSME’s require explicit thought, in case of business plans for sustainability as it is by one way or another not equivalent for the large firms. It has also been brought about that the MSME’s require a different way to support sustainability in comparison to the various large organisationswhich hold a varied set profile and resources. Practical implications: Sustainability, today is a concern for everybody in the civilisation, this is because of the changes in the climate that have been observed and the growing problem of global warming. This research work, may enable the MSME managers to reconsider the whole business strategy, and making sustainability as an important inclusive element of the same, and thus practising it too. Research Limitations: Sustainability, has been an important concern to the society in general which points out that there can be plenty opportunities for various organisations to identify strategies that will have a bearing and may positively advance the – social and environmental performance. However, this research work, does not provide an empirical evidence and support but offers insights on engaging MSME’s in sustainability. Originality/ Value: This research contributes to the area of literature by providing a review, for the various considerations and occasionsfor the various business strategies for sustainable development and its varied applications to the certainties of business operations in various MSME enterprises. |
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| KEYWORDS - SIBRM11-3, MSME, Small and Medium Enterprises, Sustainable Development, Leadership Approaches, Business Sustainability | ||
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| The Importance of Stakeholder Collaboration and Co-creation in the Social Innovation Creation Process | ||
| Emmanuel Osigwe | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| Over the years social innovation (SI) has been offering useful solutions to social problems in societies. SIs are created by social enterprises (SEs) that may operate as a non-profit, for-profit, or hybrid enterprise with the primary mission to create social impact to benefit societies. The literature on SI is emerging, thus greater attention is given to understanding and conceptualising SI. Recent studies have shown that the process of SI largely remains unexplored. As such, little is known about the importance and the role of external actors in the process. This study examines the importance of stakeholder co-creation within the SI ecosystem through inductive analysis of interview data from 20 SEs in four countries. The study finds SE seek strategic collaborations, engage critical beneficiaries, and explore social networks external to their enterprise when seeking to co-create SI. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-337, Social innovation, Stakeholder engagement, Collaboration | ||
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| How has Entrepreneurship Opportunity Formation amongst immigrants been influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic? | ||
| Osa-Godwin Osaghae, Thomas. M. Cooney | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| A body of evidence exists which suggests that stable economic conditions support entrepreneurial opportunity formation within a national context. However, despite the advent of the COVID-19 Pandemic and recent global economic uncertainty, entrepreneurial activity is continuing to flourish across the globe. This article explores the possible factors driving entrepreneurship opportunity formation in the current climate. The study employed a comparative narrative analysis of literature relating to entrepreneurship opportunity formation, environmental change (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic) and demand expansion (e.g. market extension resulting from environmental changes). The triangulation of the literature from these diverse topics leads to the conclusion that environmental changes and irregularity creates demand expansion that can drive entrepreneurship in any climate. This article contributes to knowledge by suggesting that irregular events within the environment (not stable economic growth alone) can positively influence entrepreneurship opportunity formation. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-341, Environment, climate change, entrepreneurship opportunity | ||
| Network governance and co-production of community services. The interregional Italian - Swiss program D.E.A. (SIBRM9) | ||
| Veronica Giuliani, Davide Maggi, Cinzia Zugolaro | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| Over the last decades, the implementation of public networks to address social issues has become more the rule than the exception. Especially in the public sector, the interactions between different actors, and thus the activation of networks, ought to find shared solutions for problems of general interest that neither government nor other spheres of society can meet on their own. Using participative approaches, public networks reshape the traditional redistributive welfare paradigms and responsibilities in the production of social wellbeing. This paper studies the structure, roles, and performance of the network built to implement the interregional Italian-Swiss project D.E.A. (DiversitàE Arti performative per una societàinclusiva del terzo millennio), a European program that involves public administration, non-profit organization, universities and citizens, to promote and support the participation in civic activities of fragile people at risk of social exclusion. Using a combined approach this paper analyzes the case study both from analytical and governance perspectives: it proposes a unified theoretical framework based on the extant literature, to explore the nature and the related critical factors underlying the success of the public network under study. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-343, network, governance , participation | ||
| On the Reciprocal Relationship between Faith and Management | ||
| Volker Kessler | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| This article describes the complex reciprocal relationship between faith and management. Firstly, faith-based organizations have to be managed. Some management methods will foster the faith; others will affect the faith negatively. Each faith group will have to look for management methods suited to the specific faith of that group. Secondly, faith has an influence on management. This can happen implicitly or by intention. An example of the latter is when managers just copy concepts from a faith group because of their success, without necessarily sharing their faith. Or it happens when believers want to implement the standards of their faith at work. The concept faith@work can be problematic if it is a single-faith approach within a secular work environment because it might lead to injustice. Due to the reciprocal relationship between faith and management, we can discover the re-entry of religious terms or concepts: these terms originate in Christian faith, enter the management sciences and from there re-enter the Christian faith. The examples “servant leadership” and “vision” show the subtle change of meaning that occurs when words wander between the two worlds, thus becoming “false friends” to the faith group. | ||
| KEYWORDS - SIBRM8-1, Economic Theology, Faith-based Organizations, Faith@work, Servant Leadership, Vision. | ||
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| Ethical theory vs. practical worl-life: implications for organizations | ||
| Ana Maria Cabodevila | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| In business, the relationship between ethical theory and a practical work-life is challenging, since there is a strong ethics-practice contrast: work as the practical dimension and ethics as the theoretical dimension. There is, thus, a gap between theory and practice, and the imbalance is obvious in a majority of organizations, be they profit or non-profit. How do organizations respond to ethical theories of business? On the one hand, ethical convictions and practices may be understood as being merely subsets of national culture, and so are thus not, or only partially, considered in the workplace. On the other hand, organizations may perceive business ethics as being rather limiting with regard to practice owing to an abstract understanding of ethics (Brügger & Kretzschmar, 2015, p. 3). Business ethics theory is, thus, often perceived as being difficult to put into practice. The purpose of this article is to show that for many centuries, theory and practice, or faith and working life, were not separated in the way that they apparently are today. The aim is to use the examples shown to encourage organizations and responsible persons to break down the artificial divisions introduced by the Enlightenment in such a way that ethical thinking in working life no longer remains a foreign concept but can indeed find its way into daily work. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-350, Business ethics, Enlightenment, NGO | ||
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| COVID-19 and Its impact on the Tourism Sector and Hotel Business in Georgia | ||
| Marina Metreveli, Tinatin Dolidze | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| The objective of the paper is to study the negative impact of COVID-19 on the Georgian Tourism
sector and Hotel business. In particular, the chronology of the booking trends and the level of
digitization of hotels in the pandemic and post-pandemic period; also, what impact does the
coronavirus in general have on Georgia's tourism business and hotel adaptation process during
crisis challenges. The research aims are to study the spread of digitalization and rapid
development in the field of hospitality, in particular in the hotel business. Also, to identify tools, that have worked positively in a pandemic, at a time, when direct contact is severely restricted by regulations. Based on the results of the research, chronological changes in hotel occupancy during the pandemic and post-pandemic periods should be identified, as well as the impact of digitization on changes in the number of employees. Accordingly, to explore innovative ways of hotel adaptation, creative and simple ways of restoring industry, world experience, and new approaches of Georgia in the post-pandemic period. We are talking about innovations that many hotels wanted to use for years, but needed a new "trigger" in the form of covid. We would like to share with you the results of our research on the Georgian experience of such an adaptation, which we connected from European analogs. We have also developed recommendations for measures to be taken to restore the hotels. |
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| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-356, Tourism, Hotel Business, Covid-19, Digitalization, Innovations. | ||
| How Do Intra-Organizational Networks Foster Contextual Resilience and Prepare MNCs For the New Normal? Insights from a Case Study | ||
| Jessica Geraldo Schwengber | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| This paper explores how intra-organizational networks promote contextual organizational resilience in multinational companies (MNCs). According to Lengnick-Hall et al. (2011), the contextual elements of resilience are psychological safety, social capital, power diffusion, and network resources. Since multinational companies are, by definition, geographically dispersed and heterogeneous, the study investigates the extent to which a network structure promotes contextual resilience and thus prepares MNCs for the new normal. The results of a case study conducted in an MNC are presented. The study was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020), and the pandemic was used as an example of shock to analyze how the network influences resilience during a shock. The results demonstrate that a cohesive network can promote contextual resilience by increasing connection and thus psychological safety, social capital, power diffusion, and access to network resources. With its focus on interaction, exchange, and relationship in addressing challenges and opportunities, this research aims to contribute to a relational view of economy (Wieland 2020, Biggiero et al. 2022). |
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| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-362, Intra-organizational Network, Organizational Resilience, Contextual Resilience, MNC, Relational Economics, Case Study | ||
| Determinants of Halal Purchasing Behaviour: Evidence from Germany | ||
| Yvonne Ziegler, Vincenzo Uli | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| What are the main determinants behind halal purchasing behaviour in a non-Muslim dominant country? The paper is aimed at enriching the academic debate about halal products purchase intention, specifically discussing the German context. Drawing from a survey of 772 respondents, the work presents a set of descriptive statistics with results resonating with earlier investigations in the research domains of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Religiosity and Halal Supply Chain (HSC). The work confirmed that halal certification, preferably released by a German certification agency, constitutes a major predictor for halal products’ consumption. We also found that halal demand is relatively inelastic to price and distribution. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-364, Halal, Halal Certification, Halal Supply Chain, Purchasing Behaviour, Theory of Planned Behavior. | ||
| Digital Transformation and Sustainability in Cooperatives Enterprises: A Literature Review | ||
| Gian Luigi Core, Gianluca Antonucci, Michelina Venditti, Antonio Gitto | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| In recent years, the relationship between digital transformation and sustainability has been widely discussed by scholars in various organisational contexts and disciplines. This study is concerned with analysing these two concepts in the context of cooperative enterprises. The interest in investigating Digital Transformation and sustainability arises from the way cooperatives strive to achieve their goals, which often differ significantly from those of public and for-profit enterprises. The objective of this research is, therefore, to develop a literature review that discusses the digital transformation and sustainability of cooperatives, identifying their main characteristics and providing some insights for future research. This research highlights aspects related to the cooperative sector and proposed an additional lens to analyse the phenomena of digitalisation and sustainability. |
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| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-366, Cooperatives, Digital Transformation, Sustainability, Literature review. | ||
| Takeover of Credit Suisse and Stock Market Outcomes: An Event Study of the Swiss Stock Exchange | ||
| Ahmad Bash, Abdullah M. Al-Awadhi, Khaled Alsaifi, Barrak Ghanim Algharabali | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| This paper uses the event study methodology to investigate the effect of the recent takeover of Credit Suisse by Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) on Swiss market returns. This study aims to shed light on how the takeover following a delay in publishing the financial reports due to material loss affected stock market outcomes. Specifically, the study contributes to the literature by examining the impact on both the entire Swiss stock market and the banking sector. Analyzing the Swiss Performance Index (SPI) and its constituents for the period from June 2, 2022, to April 17, 2023, for two event dates, we find that Event 1 (the delay in financial reporting by Credit Suisse) has a significant negative effect on the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs), with average CARs ranging from negative 546 basis points to negative 183 basis points under mean-adjusted returns, and from negative 442 basis points to negative 127 basis points under the market model. In contrast, Event 2 (the announcement of the takeover by UBS) has a significant positive effect on the CARs for the first few days, but then becomes a significant negative effect, with average CARs ranging from negative 467 basis points to positive 141 basis points under mean-adjusted returns, and from negative 502 basis points to negative 93 basis points under the market model. The results provide insights for shareholders and policymakers into how the market responds to merger and acquisition (M&A) events. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-367, Credit Suisse, UBS, Swiss Stock Exchange | ||
| AQPrius: Offline Approximate Query Processing Enhanced by Error Assessment using Bootstrap Sampling | ||
| Feng Yu, Sabin Maharjan, Lucy Kerns, Xiangjia Min, Abdu Arslanyilmaz, Michelle Zhu | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| In this work, we present AQPrius, an offline approximate query processing (AQP) engine that can efficiently answer complex analytic queries on large datasets. Unlike existing systems that employ the online AQP schemes, AQPrius employs the offline AQP scheme which has two advantages: (1) it doesn't require high-end hardware or expensive auxiliary data structures such as indices or hash tables; (2) the synopses collected are reusable for future queries on the same database which can significantly save computing resources. However, the error assessment for offline AQP systems is still a challenging problem. The contributions of this research are four-fold. First, AQPrius is an offline AQP engine that can quickly answercommon analytic queries including selection conditions, join conditions, and aggregate functions. It can speed up complex query processing on big data. Second, AQPrius enables error assessment using a non-parametric statistic method, namely bootstrap sampling, that can provide the standard error of query estimation. Third, using the standard error by bootstrap sampling, we extend the traditional offline AQP system from providing a single-point query estimation to a range estimation which is a bounded answer presented as a confidence interval (CI). Finally, the system is developed using the Rust programming language which can prevent many security issues and potential vulnerabilities. We evaluate AQPrius using the well-known TPC-H benchmarks. The experimental results show that AQPrius can rapidly generate accurate bounded query answers for various test queries with selection and join conditions. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJCSS-1713, Approximate Query Processing, Bootstrap Sampling, Big Data. | ||
| Code-based Trust Systems: An Integrative Model of How Rules of Code can Build Trust in Digital Transactions | ||
| Maria Sciarra | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| Rules-of-code are written logical instances of computing law constraining human action in a step-by-step finite sequence of actions so as to bear a sense of good faith and fair dealing behavior. Actual research on emerging technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence supports the view that the underlying rules-of-code influence the coordination of transactions. Emerging as a new category of institutional governance mechanism, the rules-of-code are hence becoming the primary object of trust. This paper draws attention to the implications of the rules-of-code for the trust-building process. Building on a systematic survey of the literature on institution-based trust, we capture those trusting concepts particularly relevant for developing a model of code-based trust. Contributions from the psychological theory of rule-governed behavior help better defining some trusting elements and their mutual relations. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJBRM-370, Institution-based Trust, Rule-governed Behavior, Credibility, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence | ||
| Explainable Topic Continuity in Political Discourse: A Sentence Pair BERT Model Analysis | ||
| Juan Francisco Reyes | ||
| ABSTRACT | ||
| This study leverages Sentence Pair Modeling (SPM), BERT, and the Transformers Interpret library to analyze topic continuity in political discourse. Defined by specific linguistic features, topic continuity is crucial for understanding political communications. Using a dataset of 2,884 sentence pairs, we fine-tuned TopicContinuityBERT to focus on how these linguistic features influence topic continuity across sentences. Our analysis reveals that coreferentiality, lexical cohesion, and transitional cohesion are pivotal in maintaining thematic consistency through sentence pairs. This research enhances our understanding of political rhetoric and improves transparency in natural language processing (NLP) models, offering insights into the dynamics of political discourse. | ||
| KEYWORDS - IJCL-137, Topic continuity, Sentence pair modeling, Explainable AI | ||
