Business & Economics
Social enterprises: Essential players in sustainable social development?
Creating the strong social bonds that are essential to achieving high levels of social cohesion cannot be left to pure commercial interests or interventions by civil authorities, either local or national. Tony Marshall and June-ho Jang from Anyang University, South Korea, have studied the role that social enterprises – committed to achieving both profit and social objectives – play in […]
The role of values in social innovation transfer
What role do values play in knowledge transfer between social enterprises, and what are the factors which facilitate or inhibit the exchange of innovative practice? Those are the questions behind new research by Imran Chowdhury of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, USA. Looking at social entrepreneurship through the lens of a partnership to transfer a model of affordable eye-care services from […]
Piggy in the middle: Backing the right horse in China vs USA
The focus of global geo-political power sits squarely within the Asia-Pacific region, but China’s rise has resulted in face-off with the United States. Canadian foreign policy has three main options in light of China’s rise to dominance: pivot to China, place itself equidistance between Beijing and Washington, or align with the US strategy. Professor Kenneth Holland of O.P. Jindal Global […]
Degendering, millennials and organisational resilience
Many organisations were already struggling from the effects of global, social, economic and environmental crises before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. As a result, sustainability and organisational resilience have become the focus of modern management research and literature. Dr Hope Witmer, of Malmö University in Sweden, believes that to successfully navigate the way ahead, organisations need to ‘degender’ their structures, practices […]
Analysis of wage distortion based on ability in China
While there has been a continual rise in the wages paid by China’s enterprises, the wage inequality gap has also increased. Dr Qiao Wang, from the Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, analyses wage distortion based on ability in the Chinese labour market. Her revised signalling model includes regressive wage incentives to describe the non-competitive Chinese labour market. She […]
Integrating social media and CSR into strategic planning for a competitive advantage
The current theory for strategic planning involves assessing the business environment and identifying key assets within an organisation. Social media and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are currently considered unnecessary in strategy formulation. However, research conducted by Dr Gordon Bowen, associate lecturer at Northumbria University amongst other institutions, indicates that incorporating social media and CSR into an organisation’s strategy can allow […]
Customer experience of product quality: A new metric
Henry Ford famously said that quality means doing it right when no one is looking. That is certainly what customers hope has happened in the production of the durable products they purchase, from cars to smartphones. But what do we really mean by product quality and how should it be measured? Professor Marcel Paulssen and Dr Ramesh Roshan Das Guru […]
Intergenerational mobility and school inequality in the US
Children of different income groups attend schools of different quality. To understand how unequal school opportunity contributes to differences in social mobility and human capital, Professor Jean Hindriks, Head of the Economics School of Louvain at UCLouvain, Belgium, and Dr Andreu Arenas, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Barcelona, have extended the classical Becker-Tomes-Solon parent-child transmission model to […]
Going back to the drawing board: Harnessing the potential of the design process to effectively change organizational routines
Many organizations face challenges when trying to create effective and lasting strategic change. Dr Vern Glaser, Associate Professor in the Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management at the University of Alberta, studies how organizations change their routines to accomplish strategic objectives. In his paper “Design Performances: How Organizations Inscribe Artifacts to Change Routines”, Dr Glaser presents a case study of […]
The extraordinary ups and downs of Bitcoin: Understanding the cryptocurrency’s market behaviour
Understanding the relationship between Bitcoin values and underlying economic drivers has challenged traditional perceptions of how currency and other financial asset dynamics work. Dr Dimitrios Koutmos of Texas A&M University, Texas examines the Bitcoin phenomenon and offers valuable insight into this most volatile of newcomers to the investment scene, and its short but dynamic life so far. There has perhaps […]