Guest editorial: The future of family business: marketing challenges in times of crisis

[...]decision-makers face new conditions that affect their reasoning and their customer validation, forcing them to reframe their marketing operations (Syam and Sharma, 2018). [...]this issue contributes to family firm research. The third paper, "Assessing the AI-CRM technology capability for sustaining family businesses in times of crisis: the moderating role of strategic intent”, by Ranjan Chaudhuri Sheshadri Chatterjee, Sascha Kraus and Demetris Vrontis, investigates the potential for artificial-intelligence-integrated customer relationship management (AI-CRM) technology to sustain family businesses in times of crisis, assessing the moderating role of strategic intent. The sixth article, entitled "Effective business model adaptations in family SMEs in response to the COVID-19 crisis”, by Sofia Brunelli, Rafaela Gjergji, Valentina Lazzarotti, Salvatore Sciascia and Federico Visconti, tested the effects of two major business model adaptations – namely changes in value proposition and changes in target market – on a sample of 96 family SMEs.

The role of management control and integrated information systems for the resilience of SMEs

This paper investigates the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the influence exerted by certain factors related to management control, integrated information systems (enterprise resource planning [ERP]), information and communication technology (ICT) systems, and financial resources. For this purpose, leveraging from the dynamic capability theory, in late spring 2020, a questionnaire was sent to limited-liability SMEs in Verona and Vicenza provinces in Italy operating in the manufacturing, construction, and distribution sectors. Respondents were asked to answer a set of questions and to evaluate the resilience of their firms as of January 1, 2020;May 1, 2020;and one year later, as of July 2021. Using a multivariate regression model to analyze data from the 143 questionnaires received, we found a positive influence of budgeting, business continuity tools, availability of supplementary financial resources, and resilience of the entrepreneur on both COVID-19 resilience and the organizational resilience of SMEs. SMEs with a high intention to use ERP systems also had high resilience levels. ICT use for smart working was not statistically significant. Despite the limitations concerning the sample and period considered, we believe that this study contributes to both academic debate, by illustrating the influence of certain managerial and organizational factors on the resilience of SMEs, and practice, by supporting a greater empirical use of management control tools, such as budgets and contingency plans, and integrated information systems (ERP). Our study supports the creation of financial buffers and strengthening the entrepreneur's resilience for improving SME resilience. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11846-023-00657-6.

The impact of STEM on the growth of wealth at varying scales, ranging from individuals to firms and countries: The performance of STEM firms during the pandemic across different markets

Researchers have not yet reached consensus on whether there is a difference in performance between STEM and non-STEM firms across different financial markets during economic expansion and through economic downturns, such as pandemics and recessions. It is unclear as to whether STEM or non-STEM firms, but also graduates with STEM or non-STEM education contribute more, less, or equally to economic inequality. By analysing total wealth at varying scales, ranging from individuals, to firms, to entire countries, we demonstrate that the Zipf exponent, serving as a proxy for wealth inequality, persistently ramps up as the scale of a system increases. At an individual level, analysing the Zipf plots separately for the world's richest individuals with STEM and non-STEM graduation degree, we begin by demonstrating that STEM education contributes more to inequality than non-STEM. At a firm level, in contrast to the DAX and CAC40 indexes, for firms comprising the S&P 500 index, the average growth rate of STEM constituents has been significantly higher than those calculated for non-STEM constituents during the most recent economic expansion and the coronavirus pandemic. This insight is particularly useful for the financial sector. Secondly, we demonstrate a functional dependence between a country's number of patents and its STEM graduates. Finally, motivated by the fact that the U.S. heavily surpasses the E.U. in terms of Venture Capital, we model wealth inequality at different scales of the economy.

Guest editorial: Open innovation in the food industry: what we know, what we don’t know, what we need to know

Food industry-specific challenges such as reduced product life cycles, competitive time-to-market race and a growing need to comply with legal and voluntary quality and supply chain requirements imposed by various value chain actors have accelerated the need for innovation over the last decades. [...]the interrelation between OI and food industry is still offering several opportunities for scholars as the recent events related to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the vulnerability of global supply chains and additionally pressured companies to look for different, more flexible and more collaborative approaches to innovation and new business models (Chesbrough, 2020;FAO, 2020a;Walker et al., 2021). Human resource management practices fostered the participation of employees in organizational dynamics and boosted the levels of vigour, dedication and absorption at work, stimulating their commitment in inbound and outbound flows of ideas, knowledge and skills, setting the conditions for OI. [...]the study remarks on the opportunities for agritech in becoming open, creating a tied network with supplier and including the customers in the development of new offerings.

Talent management in English universities during the coronavirus pandemic

This article reports a longitudinal study exploring talent management, through narratives provided by a group of managers of doctoral programmes in eight UK universities during the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. These managers were also academics, researchers and doctoral supervisors and their perspectives were gathered before and during ?lockdown,? and then into the subsequent confused period of semi-lockdown / second lockdown, as cases of Coronavirus increased again in late 2020. Changing socio-economic circumstances, together with the added pressures of family responsibilities, impacted on participants' perceptions of changing roles and relationships during the pandemic. Over 12?months, six semi-structured online interviews (each lasting between 50 and 120?minutes) were conducted, using available platforms, with intervening emails. The narratives showed both formal and informal ?talent management methods? and emphasized the need to use both to attract and retain international students.

Frugal innovations: A multidisciplinary review & agenda for future research

Frugal innovation is about achieving more value while using fewer resources. This concept has found application across multiple domains, ranging from healthcare and transport to energy and manufacturing. This straddling of multidisciplinary domains fragments our academic understanding of the literature in this field. This state-of-the-art literature review, performed using multiple correspondence analyses across 199 articles, along with a Delphi study of prolific authors and practitioners working on frugal innovation, integrates multidisciplinary academic literature to offer a holistic picture of the current scholarly literature, outlining its key theoretical approaches and providing a glimpse of the future of the field. This study outlines the relevance of frugal innovations in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing the key areas for future research in frugal innovation, such as new product development, ease of use, the performance of frugal innovations, strategy, and sustainability, among others.

Corporate Entrepreneurship and ICT: Trends and Future Research Agenda

Despite the breadth in the scope of scholarly literature concerning both Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) respectively, intersectional research of these two domains is scarce. This paper explores whether and to what extent ICT and digital transformation (DT) are recognized within the CE research domain. Based on the analysis of articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database - considered one of the most influential sources, with various records offering citation for numerous different academic areas - this study reveals six predominant research trends: Entrepreneurial Orientation, Digital transformation (DT), Innovation, Performance, Entrepreneurship, and Technological Change.

Guest editorialKnowledge sharing and its management in an international work environment: drivers, challenges and consequences

[...]as organizations begin to rely on a much broader range of global personnel (Reiche et al., 2019;Shaffer et al., 2012) to tap into opportunities that can yield new organizational learning and other positive outcomes, a vast range of global work categories emerged. [...]international work arrangements do not have to necessarily be connected to physically transcending borders. The onsite-offshore phenomenon of service EMNEs,” authored by Hussain Rammal, Parth Patel, João J. Ferreira and Verma Prikshat, examines how emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) operating in the service sector manage knowledge and team members in their overseas subsidiaries and what role expatriates play in their operations. The findings show that Indian IT firms mostly transfer knowledge from headquarters to subsidiaries in host countries using the onsite-offshore model where work is divided and coordinated between team members situated between the two locations.

Open innovation in the manufacturing industry: A review and research agenda

In today's competitive world, globalization touches all industries. The open innovation (OI) paradigm has garnered increasing importance in academic research and industrial applications. Considering this interest, this paper aims to synthetize up-to-date findings, outline the intellectual structure of OI within the manufacturing research domain, and suggest a future research agenda. Building upon the content analysis of 239 articles indexed in Web of Science and Scopus databases, using homogeneity analysis by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS), this study reveals the theoretical underpinnings, research trends, and methodologies of this research field. Our analysis revealed that the study of sustainability, commitment-based human resource practices, and Industry 4.0 (I40) represent important future research streams for OI in the manufacturing industry. In collaborating throughout the supply chain, manufacturing firms could minimize production waste, ensure better working conditions, and adapt business models. In the “new normal” posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to study the effects of managerial competencies, employee training and development, and reward systems on open cultures in manufacturing firms. This study goes on to outline research opportunities in I40, particularly regarding knowledge exchange and technology transfer among partners and OI's influence on the adoption of I40 technologies.