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Incorporating environmental sustainability in products and services is becoming increasingly important for the telecommunications industry. Mobile communications providers, in particular, face the challenge of integrating sustainability into their product design and communication, as their offerings cover both services (e.g., mobile phone plans) and hardware (e.g., smartphones). Whether consumers are willing to pay a premium price for environmentally sustainable telecommunications products and services remains unclear. In the absence of previous empirical research, the present study investigates consumer preferences and the willingness to pay (WTP) for environmentally sustainable mobile telecommunication bundles, with particular emphasis on differences based on consumers’ green consumption values. A three-step pre-study process involving experts and consumers was conducted prior to the application of an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis (ACBC) among 495 German consumers (using the summed price approach). Compared to price, data volume, and a brand-new smartphone, our findings indicate lower significance of attributes such as smartphone warranty, Eco Rating, and cloud storage. Green consumers place greater value on the smartphone, Eco Rating, and green cloud storage than non-green consumers. The latter exhibit greater price sensitivity and focus less on environmental criteria in their purchase decisions. The WTP for an environmentally-friendly mobile phone plan among green consumers is €11 higher than for non-green consumers. This study contributes to the literature by adding the sustainability dimension to preference research for telecommunications services and by unveiling the relative importance of sustainability in the purchase decision for mobile phone plans.
The paper aims to examinate how an integrative understanding of sustainability (IUS), measured by sustainability integrated into a company's strategy, business model, and top management affects overall financial performance. This makes the study one of the first to take a holistic approach to the integration of sustainability based on previous research and new regulatory requirements from the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The study evaluates both top line effects (e.g., sales growth) and bottom line effects (e.g., return on assets). To control for any potential endogenous nature of the sustainability-firm performance nexus, we used a two-stage least square estimator with an instrumental variable of the industry mean. We also utilised a Heckman selection process. The study bases on a German sample from 2017 to 2022 in order to observe sustainability integration effects during this period. The results indicate that an IUS supports better bottom line performance, but not necessarily stronger sales growth. Specifically, the strongest evidence is in support of integrating sustainability into strategy, management board, and business model simultaneously. In the end, the study contributes to the literature, theory, methodology, and practices in various ways.
Adopting AI-based solutions is now widely regarded as an essential consideration in organisations’ innovation strategies. For healthcare institutions, such solutions are an especially promising means to address societal and organisational challenges, including rising demand combined with shortages of qualified staff. The technology may enhance the efficiency of, for example, detecting diseases and planning treatments, which are time-consuming when executed manually. However, empirical research related to how AI can be effectively adopted in healthcare to harness these opportunities remains scarce. To address this gap, we conduct an exploratory multiple case study comprising 13 cases in the radiotherapy domain. Taking over an adoption theory perspective, we uncover that organisational, environmental, technological and individual factors are decisive for effective adoption of AI and contribute to the emergence of efficiency gains and standardisation. Our analysis reveals that organisational factors such as pursuing a dedicated innovation strategy within the radiotherapy department as well as a holistic AI implementation strategy are most crucial. In determining and relating the identified relevant factors, we contribute to adoption theory and AI-enabled value creation in healthcare. Further, we advise managers of healthcare institutions on how to effectively adopt AI to overcome challenges at organisational and societal levels.
From ego to equity
(2024)
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the association between narcissistic tendencies, gender and funding success in high-growth start-ups. It aims to bridge a critical research gap by exploring the combined effect of gender and narcissism on start-up funding success.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed 540 founders of high-growth start-ups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, using the NPI-16 questionnaire to assess narcissistic tendencies. By focusing on high-growth start-ups as opposed to small firms, the authors enhanced the validity of the sample. This study isolates and analyses the effects of gender and narcissism, providing insights into their individual and combined contributions to start-up funding success.
Findings
The findings reveal that gender is associated with lower start-up funding and lower narcissistic tendencies. This highlights the intricate relationship between gender, narcissism and funding success within the context of high-growth start-ups.
Practical implications
These findings have important implications for investors, policymakers and entrepreneurial educators, suggesting that a nuanced understanding of founders’ psychological traits could enhance funding strategies and start-up support mechanisms.
Originality/value
This research addresses the critical gap in the literature by examining the joint influence of gender and narcissism on funding success in high-growth start-ups. The study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the factors shaping founder psychology and performance dynamics, offering valuable insights for future research in gender, narcissism and start-up success.
Since the seminal work by Hackman and Oldham (1975) there has been a growing body of literature demonstrating how work characteristics can positively both organizations and their employees. While the very nature of the task or job at hand is well explored, insufficient attention has been given to the social and cultural context in which the work is done (Spreitzer & Cameron, 2012). Based on Meynhardt’s public value approach (2009, 2015), we investigate whether organizational public value acts as an additional work characteristic in the Job Characteristics Model (JCM), thus extending the model. Specifically, we theorize that organizational public value is an additional unique resource for employees and social context work characteristic in the JCM that is positively related to employees work engagement. Additionally, our study analyzes that the positive relationship between the work characteristics, including organizational public value, and work engagement is mediated by self-efficacy. Moreover, we analyze whether employees working in industries with a public focus integrated into their core business will experience higher levels of public value in their jobs than employees in other industries. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a representative online survey in different public and non-public organizations in Switzerland (N = 949). Overall, the results support our hypotheses and contribute to close the gap by taking social context factors into the JCM and to reveal processes between the macro-level (organizational public value, work characteristics) and micro-level (employees work experience). Further theoretical and practical implications as well as future research avenues are discussed in the paper.
The creation of a common European currency has been scrutinized in the context of optimum currency area theory since its origin in Mundell (1961). The debate gained particular prominence in light of the endogeneity hypothesis (Frankel and Rose 1998), which argues that once two countries establish a common currency, their economic structures and cycles increasingly align due to strengthening intra-industry trade. By contrast, the specialization hypothesis (Eichengreen 1992; Krugman and Venables 1996) argues that the creation of a currency union will predominantly increase inter-industry trade, ultimately lowering business cycle correlation. To test these views, we establish several indices of bilateral trade intensity across EU members using input–output data, measuring gross and so-called value-added trade, which also considers the contribution of intermediary goods in the production of final exports. The results of the fixed effect panel data framework indicate a strong and robust empirical relationship between growth correlations and intra-industry trade, much in line with both Mundell’s and Frankel and Rose’s theories. However, we cannot establish a similarly robust relationship between total trade intensity and growth correlations. We reconcile these results by identifying a statistically significant relationship between economic alignment and trade when only considering industrial production, highlighting the importance of pan-European industrial supply chains for European economic integration. Rerunning our regression framework on the subsample of the eurozone indicates that the common currency area displayed even stronger properties of an optimum currency area than the entire European Union.
Acting beyond concepts
(2022)
There is a lack of understanding about early-stage entrepreneurial actions, as existing research focuses on later stages and overlooks how experience impacts entrepreneurial actions. However, entrepreneurial experience has a pivotal role in shaping entrepreneurial actions, serving as a distinguishing factor within the scope of this study. Therefore, we employ a grounded theory research approach building on 112 in-depth interviews in which we differentiate between novice and experienced entrepreneurs. We analyzed the extensive data set following the methodology of Gioia et al. Our findings include the identification of three dimensions of entrepreneurial activities, namely Entrepreneurial Alignment, Resource Enhancement, and Value Generation, that are relevant for both novice and experienced entrepreneurs. In addition, we are able to identify 27 specific entrepreneurial actions distributed between the three dimensions but differing depending on whether the entrepreneur is a novice or experienced. Examining these results, we outlined differences and commonalities in the activities of the two groups: novice entrepreneurs follow a sequential, unconnected, and perfectionist-driven process, while experienced entrepreneurs adopt a parallel, interconnected, and iterative process across the three dimensions. Practitioners and researchers can benefit from the study’s results for entrepreneurship education and resource theories in the early-stage venture creation.
Purpose
In public management research, the focus in the public value debate has been on public administration organizations’ broader societal outcomes. Public value describes how public administrations form a vital part of the social context in which people develop and grow. However, there has not yet been an analysis of how public administration contributes to happiness in society.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, we empirically analyze the relationship between people’s happiness and the public value of public administration. Our approach is based on a unique Swiss survey dataset comprising 870 individuals.
Findings
We find a positive relationship between public administration’s public value and happiness. We also find preliminary evidence with a moderation analysis that the relationship between a value-creating public administration sector and self-reported happiness is stronger for public administration employees.
Research limitations/implications
While correlation studies cannot claim causal explanations and common method bias may additionally limit any research in social science, we took a number of measures to mitigate related problem. We tested our model in two samples and took both several procedural techniques and a survey design minimizing common method bias.
Practical implications
The paper discusses implications for public sector performance measurement for public management and practitioners.
Social implications
This study calls for a more positive view on the multiple functions public administration performs for society. After an era of critical voices, our study helps reclaim public administration as a positive force for society at large in times of grand challenges, such as climate crisis, demographics and digitization.
Originality/value
This study has highlighted the importance between public administration’s public value and happiness in Swiss public service organizations. The study also showed that an employment in the public administration contributes to the happiness of individuals and beyond to society.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship between family-driven innovation and the incorporation of corporate sustainability in German family firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducted 26 interviews with 22 German family firms. Thematic analysis was undertaken on the collected data resulting in five major themes.
Findings
The study identified five main themes of corporate sustainability-oriented innovation in family firms, which include measuring corporate sustainability performances, building corporate sustainability-oriented infrastructure, stabilizing/optimizing operations, enhancing operational flexibility/independence and knowledge management and development. The study also provides an activity-based guide for family firms to use innovation to achieve corporate sustainability goals and present the findings’ implications for policymakers.
Originality/value
The present study is the first study to empirically investigate the relationship between family-driven innovation and the incorporation of corporate sustainability at each of the corporate sustainability maturity levels.
Purpose
Since the beginning of the 2000s, investors have more frequently invested into professional football clubs, thereby radically changing the industry landscape. This review's purpose is to analyze and synthesize the state of research to understand motives, roles and implications of football club investors, and to provide recommendations for further research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an integrative literature review by identifying relevant English articles based on the search terms investor, owner, investment, ownership, shareholder and stakeholder in combination with soccer or football. Around 2,431 articles were reviewed. A total of 129 relevant articles was analyzed and synthesized within eight subject areas.
Findings
Investors in professional club football is a young research stream with a clear European focus. Investor motives and roles are diverse and implications are multidimensional. Investors mostly aim for indirect returns rather than pure profit- or win-maximization.
Research limitations/implications
Football clubs comprise an own investment class for which the identified, unique specifics must be considered to develop a financially successful investment model. Thorough academic research of investors' inherent characteristics, investor-club pairings and the pillars of long-term strategies for successful investor-club liaisons are avenues of future research. Furthermore, the results illustrate the need for research outside of Europe.
Originality/value
The paper is the first systematic, integrative review of existing literature in the domain of equity investments into professional club football. The findings genuinely show that, depending on the investor type and ownership structure, investors have a wide impact in professional club football.