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The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges for businesses worldwide. Those who recognised the importance of an online presence and transformed their traditional business model into a digital one were better equipped to mitigate the pandemic's negative impacts. However, there is a lack of research on the differences in digital transformation between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms, as well as the main factors driving this transformation. This paper aims to address this gap by examining the successful digital transformation among these groups (SMEs and Large firms) in the province of New Brunswick, Canada, as a case study. The study uses secondary data from the TechImpact survey to explore the primary factors of this shift for both SMEs and large firms. The study confirms the critical factors identified in the literature, while also revealing new factors specific to each group. For SMEs, these include adopting a digital business model, investing in low-budget social media and e-marketing, recruiting young digital experts, and accessing government grants and subsidies. For large firms, the factors include implementing mass customisation through online channels, providing remote work incentives, using a comprehensive content management system, and prioritising electronic customer relationship management and e-loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between strategic orientations and innovation within the Sudanese service sector: hospitality, postal, bank, education, communication, and insurance spheres. Drawing upon the resource-based view, the paper examines the influence of market, service, and learning orientations on both incremental and radical innovation. Moreover, the study explores the moderating role of technological capabilities in this relationship. A quantitative research design was employed, utilizing a convenience sample of 160 managers from various service sub-sectors in Sudan. Empirical findings reveal that market orientation, service orientation, and learning orientation have a significant effect on incremental innovation (estimates = 0.164, p = 0.00; estimates = .177, p = .014). In addition, market and service orientations demonstrate a significant relationship with technological capabilities (estimates = 0.612, p = 0.00; estimates = –.376, p = .018). Further, incremental innovation and radical innovation significantly correlated with technological capabilities (estimates = .131, p = 0.00; estimates = .365, p = 0.00), while service orientation and learning orientation do not have a significant correlation with radical innovation (estimates = .153, p =.129; estimates = .061, p = .491). Learning orientation does not have a significant correlation with technological capabilities (estimates = .168, p > .228). Furthermore, results indicate that technological capabilities do not moderate the relationship between strategic orientation and service innovation. AcknowledgmentThe author would like to thank Deanship of Scientific Research at Majmaah University for supporting this work under Project No. R-2024-1367.

The devastating impact of COVID-19 on businesses has led to the redefinition of workforce resilience. This study hence explores workforce resilience factors that will be important in the post-COVID-19 era. It investigates whether these factors perform differently in the manufacturing vs. the service sector and in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) vs. large firms. Sixty-five firms were studied in Malaysia and analyzed through Rasch modelling. The results indicate that three workforce resilience factors (positive thinking, sense of responsibility, and emotional control) are difficult to overcome in the manufacturing sector. Regarding the SMEs and large firm contexts, six workforce resilience factors (positive thinking, differentiation, degree of involvement, sense of responsibility, cognitive processes, and innovation) are complicated for SMEs. In comparison, two workforce resilience factors (work–life balance and decision-making) are difficult for large firms. Capitalizing on these findings, managers in various organizations (manufacturing vs. service and SMEs vs. large firms) can adopt different strategies to leverage workforce resilience post-COVID. Moreover, government agencies can use these findings for policy-making when leading post-COVID-19 projects and initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how entrepreneurial small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) manage coopetition strategies to innovate with large firms. While coopetition offers opportunities for innovation and growth, asymmetries between SMEs and large firms can provoke unilateral actions, opportunistic tactics, and knowledge theft which can undermine SME innovation power and jeopardise coopetition success. Based on a qualitative multiple-case study of 25 coopetitive innovation projects, each involving an SME and a large firm, we find that SMEs manage these risks by pursuing a synergistic mix of three distinct coopetition strategies: (1) Co-distribution, (2) Technology licensing, and (3) R&D co-development. In each strategy, SMEs navigate different coopetition intensities by dynamically combining the principles of separation, integration, co-management and co-ownership to achieve specific innovation outcomes. Our findings suggest that SMEs shift between cooperation- and competition-dominant strategies and employ a mix of management principles to offset asymmetrical risks and maximise their innovation benefits from coopetition with large firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and practitioners have trumpeted business intelligence (BI) capability as a game-changer due to its significant impact on firm performance. Despite these claims, the amplifying and underlying mechanisms governing the relationship between BI capability and organizational performance are still in their infancy. This research examines the nexus between BI capability, decision-making speed, comprehensiveness, and organizational performance. This study, drawing on knowledge-based theory, proposes a conceptual model to explain how BI capability influences organizational performance through decision-making speed and comprehensiveness and the moderating role of firm size. The proposed moderated-mediated model was tested using survey data from 236 respondents occupying leadership positions in various Jordanian industries. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to diagnose the proposed model. BI capability indirectly affects firm performance through decision-making speed and comprehensiveness. These mediating effects do not vary by company size. This paper contributed theoretically and practically to the BI framework considering decision-making, firm performance, and firm size. Implications for theory-building and practice are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the business landscape, but limited research is available regarding how companies are responding and adapting to AI. Using dynamic capability theory, we hypothesized that companies would develop new dynamic capabilities to seize AI opportunities. Our analysis of qualitative data from six major Chinese construction companies revealed that these companies' existing dynamic capabilities are key to adopting and adapting AI technology for business model innovation. We developed a dynamic capability model that describes how companies use their existing dynamic capabilities for sensing AI, seizing AI, and transforming to leverage AI for business model innovation. Our research bridges the gap in understanding the relationship between AI adoption, existing dynamic capabilities, and AI adaptation. Integrating AI is not as daunting as it may seem. Companies, practitioners, and other stakeholders can transition into AI, starting with their existing capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prerequisite of developing countries' economic growth is to move along the technological development trajectory through technological learning, and large firms as hubs of technological knowledge, play an important role in this transition. In this paper, we tried to bridge two main taxonomies in the field of technological development, one of them referring to taxonomies of firms, and the other one referring to technological learning processes. We have identified technological learning processes in several post catch-up large firms through content analysis and then by employing a survey approach, we explore technological learning processes of Iranian large firms. The results indicate that as per scale-intensive firms in Iran, learning by doing, learning by using, learning by interacting and learning from spillovers are respectively the most important technological learning processes. Regarding large science-based firms, learning by searching, learning by interacting and learning from spillovers are the key learning processes. Finally, these results have been compared with those of post catch-up large firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study advances our understandings of gender inequality in organizations by examining the experiences of young women who leave their jobs even in the absence of family responsibilities. Based on 29 in‐depth interviews with young women who left full‐time employment at large Korean firms early in their careers, complemented by interviews with 16 men who also resigned from these companies, I find that women's experiences and decisions to quit are critically shaped by what I term militarized workplace culture and practices. The militarized workplace is a work organization where core military values and mechanisms have been integrated and are reproduced to such an extent that organizational culture is saturated with military discipline. Within the militarized workplace, rigid hierarchies and male‐only informal networks marginalize and exclude women, and norms of overwork and complete availability undermine women's aspirations of long‐term employment. By demonstrating the roles that male conscription and the military play in shaping organizational culture and its gendered outcomes, these findings provide insight into how external institutions operate as a source of gender inequality at the organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the continuation of the crisis is harmful for the R&D engagement of smaller firms while it increased the willingness for R&D activities among the larger ones. At the second stage, among smaller firms the knowledge production remains unaffected by R&D investments, while among larger firms the R&D decision is positively correlated with the probability of producing innovation, albeit the relationship is weakened as the crisis continues. At the third stage, innovation output benefits only larger firms in terms of labor productivity, while the innovation-productivity nexus is insignificant for smaller firms during the lasting crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water resources and economic growth are two preoccupations that take different senses. The overconsumption can be very costly in terms of the quantity and quality of water resources, which indulges many negative impacts on water reserves. In arid zones, institutions and large national firms are obligated to deliver more efforts in term of adaptation to the area’s hydraulic situation. In this work, we addressed the issue of integrating good governance of water resources into the decision-making process of large firms in Morocco. We studied the case of the Guemassa mine of the Managem group, located in the Tensift Haouz basin. In order to assess the efficiency of their strategy, we carried out an impact study of the company’s mining activities on the quality and quantity of the region’s waterresources and we provided key information on the hydraulic situation of the region in question. As a result, the company is monopolizing a large part of the water resources of the Haouz plain and their integrated water resource management strategy is deemed insufficient.

Objective: This study examined how large businesses negatively impact small business survival and growth in South Africa. It aims to expose harmful practices by large firms that cause small businesses to fail. Thus it seeks to challenge a commonly held assertion that larger firms are predisposed to support smaller firms to achieve growth and survival objectives. Research Design & Methods: A theoretical literature review methodology was used to conduct this study. Findings: The findings indicate that many of the threats from South African large firms targeted at small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) emanate from the advantage of their size, market dominance, and close links the corporate business sector enjoys with the government. Implications & Recommendations: The study argues that larger firms in South Africa are as much of a catalyst for the demise of SMMEs as they can also be beneficial. Therefore it recommends an effective administration of the Competitions Act laws to protect SMMEs and develop new policies that seek to build SMMEs in their capacity and not as a complementary sector to big companies. Contribution & Value Added: The study contributes to the overall discourse about the role of the large business community in supporting the SMME sector in the country. It thus adds value towards broadening an understanding of the threats to small business survival in South Africa and finding solutions of how they can be supported to become viable.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the current state and dynamics of the innovative behavior of medium and large manufacturing firms in Peru and Ecuador. It has been shown that the factors that enhance or enable the possibilities of innovation in organizations can be internal or external. This study took a quantitative approach, and regression models were applied to samples composed of firms. The relationships between external factors and business resources following the implementation of innovation were analyzed, as was the impact that these factors had on sales performance, considering the effect of the size and age of the firms. The innovations most implemented in firms in Ecuador were processes, and in Peru, organizational innovations were predominant. There were no external factors or business resources statistically related to these types of innovation for each country. For Peruvian firms, the age of the firm presented an inverse relationship to its performance. The study confirms the results of other studies conducted in Peru, and for Ecuador, these findings represent one of the first contributions on this topic. This study contributes to the discussion of the effects, in emerging Latin American countries, of a firm's age on its ability to innovate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we aim, first, to examine how an economy's financial development affects the welfare gains from trade and, second, to uncover how large firms threaten to suppress these gains, through the exertion of market power and their confirmed preferential access to liquidity. To this purpose, we propose a theoretical model of international trade with financial constraints, which are different between large oligopolists and small monopolistic competitors. We show that trade diminishes the impact of credit misallocation and financial frictions and creates welfare gains by intensifying selection and boosting competition. We find that welfare gains are higher under harsher domestic distortions, meaning that trade particularly benefits developing economies, acting as a substitute for financial development. Nevertheless, in the shadow of large firms, gains from trade are diminished, even more so when such firms are rare and, therefore, more powerful. We conclude that international trade is a prerequisite for financial and economic development but the benefits from globalization are not fully reaped unless large-firm entry and competition are facilitated. We trust that our findings are extremely relevant for developing economies, which are often export-oriented, but, at the same time, suffer from severe credit market inefficiencies and a shortage of large incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we aim, first, to examine how an economy’s financial development affects the welfare gains from trade and, second, to uncover how large firms threaten to suppress these gains, through the exertion of market power and their confirmed preferential access to liquidity. To this purpose, we propose a theoretical model of international trade with financial constraints, which are different between large oligopolists and small monopolistic competitors. We show that trade diminishes the impact of credit misallocation and financial frictions and creates welfare gains by intensifying selection and boosting competition. We find that welfare gains are higher under harsher domestic distortions, meaning that trade particularly benefits developing economies, acting as a substitute for financial development. Nevertheless, in the shadow of large firms, gains from trade are diminished, even more so when such firms are rare and, therefore, more powerful. We conclude that international trade is a prerequisite for financial and economic development but the benefits from globalization are not fully reaped unless large-firm entry and competition are facilitated. We trust that our findings are extremely relevant for developing economies, which are often export-oriented, but, at the same time, suffer from severe credit market inefficiencies and a shortage of large incumbents.