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1 – 10 of 393By introducing how a young entrepreneurial firm leverages bundling as a market entry strategy, this study aims to suggest a way that a relatively vulnerable startup can secure its…
Abstract
Purpose
By introducing how a young entrepreneurial firm leverages bundling as a market entry strategy, this study aims to suggest a way that a relatively vulnerable startup can secure its position from a threat of resource-rich established competitors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a qualitative investigation into Nikola Motors, a Class 8 heavy-duty truck manufacturer based in Phoenix, Arizona. The analysis revealed the underlying mechanisms that allow a startup to effectively enter a market through bundling in the truck manufacturing industry.
Findings
Nikola Motors Co. uses a bundled business model in commercializing hydrogen-power technology used for heavy-duty truck manufacturing. Instead of focusing on a single product, Nikola’s business model created an ecosystem surrounding hydrogen fuel-cell electric heavy trucks, including hydrogen fueling stations, maintenance service and leasing. By leveraging partnership with players in other areas, it overcomes the resource limitation as a relatively small firm.
Originality/value
Startups seeking to disrupt markets with novel technologies risk losing their competitive advantage to imitation by more resource-rich established firms. This study examines a novel approach to a bundled business model that can be effective for relatively resource-poor new companies. It suggests practical implications on how firms which are relatively in a weak position compete with established incumbents.
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Entrepreneurs and their ventures are often portrayed as unambiguously positive forces in society. Specifically, high technology and equity-funded startups are heralded for their…
Abstract
Entrepreneurs and their ventures are often portrayed as unambiguously positive forces in society. Specifically, high technology and equity-funded startups are heralded for their innovative products and services that are believed to alter the economic, social, and even political fabric of life in advantageous ways. This paper draws on established theory on the causes of misconduct in and by organizations to elaborate the factors that can give rise to misconduct in entrepreneurial ventures, illustrating our arguments with case material on both widely known and less well-known instances of entrepreneurial misconduct. In venturing into the dark side of entrepreneurship, we hope to contribute to theory on entrepreneurship and organizational misconduct, augment entrepreneurship pedagogy, and offer ideas and examples that can enhance entrepreneurs’ awareness of their susceptibility to wrongdoing.
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The study aims to explore how businesses across the UK have adapted to over a year of remote training, and where there is room for improvement as long-term hybrid working plans…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to explore how businesses across the UK have adapted to over a year of remote training, and where there is room for improvement as long-term hybrid working plans are put in place. The study also uncovers what digital tools businesses have relied on to deliver learning and development initiatives during remote working, and their effects on employee engagement and experience.
Design/methodology/approach
An independent body of research was commissioned among 750 UK business leaders and 1,235 UK adults in full-time employment.
Findings
The research found that while the majority of businesses were able to leverage digital solutions during extended periods of remote work, significant numbers found it difficult to train and develop employees remotely, with many employees dissatisfied with the outcomes.
Originality/value
The research offers some valuable insights for business leaders looking to improve their training schemes as workplaces settle into new patterns of working.
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In this chapter I argue that intimate massacre and home-grown jihadi terrorism can be explained similarly through the concept of the Doomed Antihero. In both forms of public mass…
Abstract
In this chapter I argue that intimate massacre and home-grown jihadi terrorism can be explained similarly through the concept of the Doomed Antihero. In both forms of public mass killing the perpetrator has subjectively experienced a long period of humiliation; he has slowly converted humiliation into rage; he has adopted an antiheroic style from a culturally available catalog to channel his rage; he has identified a symbol of his humiliation for attack; he has become determined to permanently destroy the symbol by killing people inhabiting it; and he sees “his” attack as a final act that will erase his past and reify his future.
Tamara Vukovic, Ashraf M. Salama, Biserka Mitrovic and Mirjana Devetakovic
This paper interrogates the impact of spatial transformations on urban life. It explores the level of individual and group satisfaction and sense of well-being within the urban…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper interrogates the impact of spatial transformations on urban life. It explores the level of individual and group satisfaction and sense of well-being within the urban public realm; this is undertaken by reporting on the outcomes of an assessment study of three key public open spaces in Belgrade, developed from a quality of urban life (QoUL) perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic multilevel assessment method is utilised, with the aim of determining the material and immaterial elements that can contribute to an individual's sense of comfort within a public space. The study places emphasis on the functional, social and perceptual attributes as they relate to the physical characteristics of three assessed spaces.
Findings
The assessment study resulted in a systematic overview of the different attributes of the three assessed spaces. With various performance levels within each set of attributes, the study identifies key challenges and problems that could lead towards determining possible opportunities for future local urban interventions and developmental actions.
Originality/value
With the shifts in policies and the associated governance process that redefined the outlook of previously enforced development and urban growth in the last two decades, the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, has undergone significant spatial changes. This has resulted in a certain level of fragmentation in the urban fabric, leading to a number of challenges concerning public health, well-being, safety, accessibility, comfort and urban mobility, to name a few, that need to be better addressed and understood within the local context.
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Fahad Alahmari, James A. Thom and Liam Magee
Previous work highlights two key challenges in searching for information about individual entities (such as persons, places and organisations) over semantic data: query ambiguity…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous work highlights two key challenges in searching for information about individual entities (such as persons, places and organisations) over semantic data: query ambiguity and redundant attributes. The purpose of this paper is to consider these challenges and proposes the Attribute Importance Model (AIM) for clustering and ranking aggregated entity search to improve the overall users’ experience of finding and navigating entities over the Web of Data.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed model describes three distinct techniques for augmenting semantic search: first, presenting entity type-based query suggestions; second, clustering aggregated attributes; and third, ranking attributes based on their importance to a given query. To evaluate the model, 36 subjects were recruited to experience entity search with and without AIM.
Findings
The experimental results show that the model achieves significant improvements over the default method of semantic aggregated search provided by Sig.ma, a leading entity search and navigation tool.
Originality/value
This proposal develops more informative views for aggregated entity search and exploration to enhance users’ understanding of semantic data. The user study is the first to evaluate user interaction with Sig.ma's search capabilities in a systematic way.
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Matt Crosslin, Kimberly Breuer, Nikola Milikić and Justin T. Dellinger
This study explores ongoing research into self-mapped learning pathways that students utilize to move through a course when given two modalities to choose from: one that is…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores ongoing research into self-mapped learning pathways that students utilize to move through a course when given two modalities to choose from: one that is instructor-led and one that is student-directed.
Design/methodology/approach
Process mining analysis was utilized to examine and cluster clickstream data from an online college-level History course designed with dual modality choices. This paper examines some of the results from different approaches to clustering the available data.
Findings
By examining how often students interacted with others, whether they were more internal or external facing with their pathway choices, and whether or not they completed a learning pathway, this study identified five general tactics from the data: Individualistic Internal; Non-completing Internal; Completing, Interactive Internal; Completing, Interactive, and Reflective and Completing External. Further analysis of when students used each tactic led to the identification of four different strategies that learners utilized during class sessions.
Practical implications
The results of this analysis could potentially lead to the creation of customizable design models that can assist learners as they navigate modality choices in learner-centered or less-structured learning design methodologies.
Originality/value
Few courses are designed to give the learners the options to follow the instructor or create their own learning pathway. Knowing how to identify what choices a learner might take in these scenarios is even less explored. Preliminary data for this paper was originally presented as a poster session at the Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference in 2019.
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Alan McKinlay, Chris Carter, Eric Pezet and Stewart Clegg
The premise of the paper is that Foucault's concept of governmentality has important but unacknowledged implications for understanding strategy. Highlighting the strengths and…
Abstract
Purpose
The premise of the paper is that Foucault's concept of governmentality has important but unacknowledged implications for understanding strategy. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the governmentality approach, the paper seeks to suggest how governmentality can be used to conceptualise strategy. More generally, the paper seeks to contribute to the body of research on governmentality articulated by authors such as Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reprises the argument that accounting is constitutive of social relations. It proceeds to discuss Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose's seminal contributions to the conceptual development of governmentality. In outlining their work, the paper highlights the significance accorded to the emergence of standard costing and scientific management and its subsequent role in developing both the strategies and structures of managerial capitalism. The paper examines how this, in turn, was pivotal to the emergence of strategy as an important means through which organisations began to understand and conceive of themselves. The paper rehearses the standard criticisms made of governmentality within the accounting literature, before arguing that the concept emerges intact from the critique levelled against it. Proceeding to summarise Foucault's radical conception of power, the paper notes the elusiveness of Foucault's relationship with strategy. Elaborating on the nature of governmentality, the paper employs the concept to re‐examine the managerial revolution. The objective is to explore its implications for understanding strategy.
Findings
The paper builds on the innovative work published in accounting on governmentality to construct an account of the emergence of the managerial revolution. This yields important insights on strategy. In particular, the paper challenges Chandler, arguing that the birth of strategy is best seen as a post‐hoc rationalisation produced by the emergence of systematic management and standard costing. The paper explores how governmentality might be developed to study strategy. The overarching message of the paper is that there is a need to rethink strategy as a language and social practice. Strategy, therefore, must be understood as much as a cultural and political project than as an economic one.
Originality/value
The paper highlights how strategy can be regarded as a cultural and political phenomenon. This opens up the possibility of accounts of strategy that are firmly grounded within studies of organisations, politics and society. Dispensing with neo‐economic notions of strategy, the paper advocates writing Foucault into strategic management.
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Dean Hristov, Nikola Naumov and Petia Petrova
This paper aims to provide an exploratory investigation into contemporary interpretation methods used in historic gardens and their fundamental role in enhancing the visitor…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an exploratory investigation into contemporary interpretation methods used in historic gardens and their fundamental role in enhancing the visitor experience and sense of a place.
Design/methodology/approach
A series of semi-structured interviews (n = 65) with Wrest Park visitors – who had the opportunity to experience new interpretation methods provided on-site – have been carried out in an attempt to explore their sense of place through interpretation.
Findings
The research suggests that interpretation has a fundamental role to play in “telling the story” of historic gardens, with 92.5 per cent of the sample understanding elements of the place’s history, significance and evolution. The findings further suggest the presence of two distinct visitor typologies – history explorers and leisure seekers.
Practical implications
The study provides implications for theory and practice and recommendations for historic garden practitioners.
Originality/value
The importance of conceptualising and operationalising interpretation in historic gardens has received relatively little attention across the extant body of heritage interpretation literature. English Heritage’s Wrest Park, which is amongst England’s most prominent historic gardens, is used as a case study.
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Slobodan Čavić, Nikola Ćurčić, Nikola Radivojevic, Jovana Gardašević Živanov and Marija Lakićević
The paper examines the role and significance of gastronomic manifestations in the context of destination branding, within the framework of image transfer mechanisms and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper examines the role and significance of gastronomic manifestations in the context of destination branding, within the framework of image transfer mechanisms and the Associative Network Memory Model.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted on a sample of 53 gastronomic events in the tourist destination of Vojvodina.
Findings
The results indicate that gastronomic manifestations image has a positive impact on the brand image and brand identity of the destination, as well as the destination's overall image. Furthermore, the study found that the food experience has a positive influence on the image of gastronomic events and the destination.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the advancement of research on tourist destination branding.
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