Market development strategy and process performance of knowledge-intensive SMEs in the epidemic era: a process-oriented perspective

PurposeThis study analyzes in-depth how knowledge-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can achieve higher new product development (NPD) process performance in the epidemic era and examine the internal development mechanism of knowledge-intensive SMEs in the process of continuous digital transformation.Design/methodology/approachThis issue is tested with partial least squares on data collected via a survey conducted from November 2021 to February 2022. The sample comprises 487 knowledge-intensive SMEs operating in China.FindingsThe results indicate that one form of cross-functional ambidexterity, market development strategy (MDS), plays an important role in process performance from an inside-out financial perspective and an outside-in customer perspective. Simultaneously, product innovation efficiency (PIE) mediates the relationship between MDS and the above results. Big data analytics capabilities (BDACs) positively regulate the relationship between MDS and PIE.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors do not consider other contingency factors. Future research should introduce influential factors such as leadership and competitive intensity to further distinguish the effects of MDS on NPD process performance.Practical implicationsThe study findings offer suggestions to help knowledge-intensive SME managers better manage their NPD process by making better use of their limited resources in developing countries such as China.Originality/valueThis study is one of only a few to adopt a process-oriented perspective to specifically examine how one form of cross-functional ambidexterity, MDS, impacts knowledge-intensive SME process performance in the epidemic era. This study also extends the theoretical framework of cross-functional ambidexterity to BDAC research.

Cutting through the noise during crisis by enhancing the relevance of research to policymakers

Background:It is widely recognised that policymakers use research deemed relevant, yet little is understood about ways to enhance perceived relevance of research evidence. Observing policymakers' access of research online provides a pragmatic way to investigate predictors of relevance.Aims and objectives:This study investigates a range of relevance indicators including committee assignments, public statements, issue prevalence, or the policymaker's name or district.Methods:In a series of four rapid-cycle randomised control trials (RCTs), the present work systematically explores science communication strategies by studying indicators of perceived relevance. State legislators, state staffers, and federal staffers were emailed fact sheets on issues of COVID (Trial 1, N = 3403), exploitation (Trial 2, N = 6846), police violence (Trial 3, N = 3488), and domestic violence (Trial 4, N = 3888).Findings:Across these trials, personalising the subject line to the legislator's name or district and targeting recipients based on committee assignment consistently improved engagement. Mentions of subject matter in public statements was inconsistently associated, and state-level prevalence of the issue was largely not associated with email engagement behaviour.Discussion and conclusions:Together, these results indicate a benefit of targeting legislators based on committee assignments and of personalising the subject line with legislator information. This work further operationalises practical indicators of personal relevance and demonstrates a novel method of how to test science communication strategies among policymakers. Building enduring capacity for testing science communication will improve tactics to cut through the noise during times of political crisis.

Dimensión económica y tecnológica del espacio ultraterrestre

El ecosistema espacial mundial está en pleno crecimiento en cuanto al número de protagonistas y a volumen de negocio, tendencia que es imparable. La entrada en escena de actores privados en la exploración de cosmos con el beneplácito de las organizaciones espaciales gubernamentales y la futura explotación de los recursos existentes más allá de la Tierra va a crear un nuevo mercado de dimensiones incalculables. Todo ello está siendo posible gracias a las tecnologías disruptivas que, paso a paso, se van poniendo a punto. De forma paralela, en el ámbito castrense, cada año son más las Fuerzas Armadas en las que se produce la escisión de las estructuras espaciales de sus respectivos ejércitos. O la alternativa, que es la instauración de organizaciones especializadas en el seno de las Fuerzas Aéreas, procesos que también se prolongarán en los próximos años.Alternate :The global space ecosystem is in full growth in terms of the number of players and volume of business, a trend that is unstoppable. The entry on the scene of private actors in the exploration of the cosmos with the approval of government space organizations and the future exploitation of existing resources beyond the Earth will create a new market of incalculable dimensions. All this is being possible thanks to disruptive technologies that, step by step, are being perfected. In parallel, in the military sphere, each year there are more Armed Forces in which the division of the spatial structures of their respective armies is taking place. Or the alternative, which is the establishment of specialized organizations within the Air Force, processes that will also continue in the coming years.

Questão ambiental e pandemia: a destrutividade do sistema do capital na ordem do dia

O presente artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre a relação entre a questão ambiental, crise estrutural do capital e a pandemia do novo Coronavírus. Compreendemos neste trabalho que a pandemia do novo Coronavírus que gera a doença nomeada de Covid-19 está organicamente relacionada com a crise do capital, como fruto do processo de acumulação capitalista avidamente crescente que necessita da exploração inesgotável dos recursos humanos e naturais, tornando-os mercadorias. Essa dupla exploração em ritmo galopante, inerente à ordem sociometabólica do capital, constituem elementos fundamentais para o atual cenário de crise mundial. Para tal reflexão, caminhamos sob a perspectiva do método dialético-crítico de Marx, utilizando-se como metodologia a pesquisa de caráter bibliográfico e documental. Dividimos o trabalho em duas seções centrais: a primeira discute a questão ambiental e a ordem sociometabólica do capital, relação de acumulação e destrutividade;a segunda realiza a relação entre os três eixos de discussão: a crise do capital, a pandemia e a questão ambiental.Alternate :This article aims to reflect on the relationship between the environmental issue, structural crisis of capitalism and the new Coronavirus pandemic. We understand in this work that the pandemic of the new Coronavirus that generates the disease named Covid-19 is organically related to the crisis of capitalism, as a result of the accumulation process greedily growing capitalist that needs the inexhaustible exploitation of human resources and natural, making them commodities. This double exploration at a galloping pace, inherent to sociometabolic order of the capital, constitute fundamental elements for the current scenario of world crisis. For such reflection, we walk under the perspective of the dialectical-critical method of Marx, using bibliographic and documentary research as a methodology. We divided the work into two central sections: the first discusses the environmental issue and the order sociometabolic of capitalism, relation of accumulation and destructiveness;the second analyzes the relationship between the three perspectives of the discussion: the crisis of capitalism, the pandemic and the environmental issue.

'There will be no law, or people to protect us': Irregular Southeast Asian seasonal workers in Taiwan before and during the pandemic

This paper investigates the everyday lived realities of Southeast Asian migrant workers who left the formal sector of the labour market and entered the informal agricultural sector before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Drawing on observations of migrants' daily lives and farm work and 19 in-depth interviews, it delves into migrants' subjective experiences of vulnerability, paternalism, exploitation, and control at work due to a lack of legal protection and the illegality of their employment. Although the literature has identified a link between 'running away' from formal employment and seeking freedom, this research suggests a continuum between experiences of work in the formal and informal economic sectors. The paper sheds new light on mobility, work, illegality, and informality and how these have constantly shaped 'runaway' workers' subjective experiences of freedom and unfreedom during the pandemic.

Negative Integration Is What States Make of It? Tackling Labour Exploitation in the German Meat Sector

In this article, we trace Germany's recent reform (and its precursors) seeking to remedy precarious working conditions in the meat sector. Focusing on an extreme case of labour exploitation, and asking how unique it is, allows us to uncover which institutional features of EU Member States condition the liberalization effects of negative integration. We thereby contribute to the literature on Europeanization, which has mainly emphasized weak industrial relations to account for the German meat industry's reliance on cheap migrant labour. Complicated enforcement structures, demanding requirements of administrative cooperation, and the complexities of an evolving case law, we argue, further contributed to the precarious conditions of migrant workers in Germany. Major COVID outbreaks in slaughterhouses created the political momentum for reform which specifically addresses this administrative side of labour protection, but remains limited to the meat sector – despite similar patterns of labour exploitation elsewhere.

The Impact of Human Activities on Zoonotic Infection Transmissions.

As humans expand their territories across more and more regions of the planet, activities such as deforestation, urbanization, tourism, wildlife exploitation, and climate change can have drastic consequences for animal movements and animal-human interactions. These events, especially climate change, can also affect the arthropod vectors that are associated with the animals in these scenarios. As the COVID-19 pandemic and other various significant outbreaks throughout the centuries have demonstrated, when animal patterns and human interactions change, so does the exposure of humans to zoonotic pathogens potentially carried by wildlife. With approximately 60% of emerging human pathogens and around 75% of all emerging infectious diseases being categorized as zoonotic, it is of great importance to examine the impact of human activities on the prevalence and transmission of these infectious agents. A better understanding of the impact of human-related factors on zoonotic disease transmission and prevalence can help drive the preventative measures and containment policies necessary to improve public health.

An infectious disease model considering the impact of imported cases on internal spread of COVID-19

The coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic spreads across borders with the frequent global population movement. To explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China's domestic epidemic prevention and control, based on the classical infectious disease dynamics model this paper proposes an infectious disease model that considers oversea imported cases. The model can simulate three situations:national pandemic without imported cases, no domestic cases with only imported cases, and domestic cases with international travellers entering simultaneously. By calculating the peak case number and range of infection spread duration in these situations, as well as the amount of medical resources invested, the model has shown the different results of impact of entry type on the domestic pandemic and different pressures on medical resources. Finally, the paper suggests that testing measures should be taken according to the degree of pandemic risk and resource conditions, that strict prevention and control should be applied to the people not entering through customs, and closed-loop management to the people entering through customs, that entry quarantine measures and quarantine periods should be dynamically adjusted and international exchanges should be gradually resumed in the context of ensuring domestic and overseas epidemic prevention and control in advance, and that it is necessary to integrate medical resources, improve allocation efficiency, and relieve the pressure of resource occupation.

Disclosures for slavery accounting concerning SDG 8 and corporate attributes: a study on the banking industry of Bangladesh

With the continuous adoption of sustainable development goals by all countries, there is a rising demand for implementing and disclosing related information by companies. This paper aims to find an idea about the nature of reporting practices related to slavery by listed banking companies of Bangladesh and the relationship between reporting practice and organizational attributes. Existing literature provides the foundation of this study. Annual reports from 2016 to 2021 were collected from the company websites, and content analysis was used to determine the nature and extent of slavery reporting;an index was developed based on content analysis. Independent variables were determined based on the current literature review. Statistical tools, including the test of multicollinearity, heteroscedastic, correlation, and linear regression and panel data analyses were used to determine the fitness of the model and the impact of independent variables on the dependent variable. Content analysis showed a clear picture of the consciousness about slavery accounting as all of the companies reported a minimum of three components of selected targets from SDG8. The evidence says that the quality and quantity of slavery reporting are improving yearly. A satisfactory correlation was found among the variables. Some variables, such as ownership nature, Board Size, etc., have a positive impact, and insignificant impact was found for Age and leverage on slavery disclosure. This paper only examines the banking industry, and it assesses only a few targets of SDG 8. Thus the results obtained from the study may not be similar to other companies. Data collection also has limitations;our target was to study till 2022 but some information requirements of few companies were not available on websites. This research paper is the first attempt to determine the nature of slavery accounting in Bangladesh. It will encourage business organizations to extend their reporting on slavery and SDGs.

The features and prospects of recreational use of thermal mineral springs by resort hotels

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic have actualized the need to rethink the recreational use of thermal mineral springs by resort hotels in order to treat the consequences of post-war injuries, psychological rehabilitation and health restoration. Solving these problems requires strengthening the role of recreational enterprises and resort hotels in restoring the health of the population by expanding the directions of their economic activity and forming the investment attractiveness of the national resort and recreational product in world markets. The publication pays special attention to determining the physical and chemical properties of thermal mineral springs, which is an important component in the development of healing methods and the creation of specific health recovery programs. The spatial structure of the distribution of thermal mineral springs by regions of the world is clarified. The main types of establishments with thermal mineral springs, which provide recreational, healing and therapeutic services, are determined. In addition, the amount of financial losses suffered by institutions with thermal mineral springs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is determined, as well as the dynamics of volume and forecast of growth of the world market of thermal mineral springs, due to the need to recover health, is identified. According to the results of the study, it is found that thermal mineral springs are a unique natural resource. Their recreational use is the main activity of many resort hotels. As a result of the Russian aggression and the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a shift in emphasis in the functioning of resort hotels from relaxation and rest towards treatment and rehabilitation, which will help restore the demand for resort and recreational services in the post-war period. Thus, the increase in demand for the health-recovering, medical and recreational services will make it possible to expand the recreational use of thermal mineral springs, update the menu of services and become more appealing for attracting investment capital.

Abolition as Durational Performance: Mutual Aid Aesthetics in Chicago's Southeast Asian Neighborhood

Responses to rising anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted multiple, often conflicting, actions including calls to defund the police, calls for more police, bystander interventions, and the exploitation of violence to promote influencers' brands. In Chicago's "Argyle" Uptown neighborhood, an area known as a Southeast Asian refugee business district, Asian Americans and local white government officials promoting liberal multiculturalist urban renewal projects used the news after the Atlanta spa shooting to advance their plans for gentrification and increased policing. How do we understand the colliding narratives of racial antagonisms, racial solidarities, and the genocidal logics of urban renewal, as they emerge at the intersection of settler colonialism and the afterlife of slavery? How is this question complicated by the entwined issues of refugee resettlement and multiculturalist solutions to anti-Asian violence? In this article, I argue abolition as durational performance offers an embodied, performance studies based analytic and methodology for the study and praxis of abolition. Abolition as durational performance centers the creation of life-affirming institutions, relations, and spaces while navigating the histories and bodily impacts of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, native genocide, and US liberal war on refugee resettlement as it is enacted through urban renewal and redevelopment projects. I focus on Axis Lab, a community-based arts and architecture organization based in Chicago, which launched its mutual aid and public arts project in June 2020. This is an abolitionist project inspired by the Black Panther breakfast and political education programs.

How to Deal with a Bully: Debility, Non-Production, and Radical Care

This article examines how resistance toward capitalism's temporal bullying is performed in contemporary art and activism. It addresses the relationship between creativity, institutions, and empowerment. Building on the conceptual work of Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović (1947–2016), the article explores several aesthetic presentations of resistive temporalities we identify as non-production. The case studies of non-production herein marshaled affirm a performance of resistance that centers discussion of radicality in self-consciously interdependent care networks, ostensibly available to all disabled and nondisabled individuals. This care ethic claps back at the idea of self-optimization and fiduciary endurance amidst economic regimes of exploitation as virtuous. In the place of 'wellness,' this article affirms new directions in care and mutual aid, as premised on queer, crip, and feminist portrayals of disability praxis and pedagogy.

History repeats itself: an ethic for two pandemics

The emergence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the 1980s brought ethical conflicts that meant a bioethics challenge. Among others, issues of confidentiality, stigmatization, justice, duty of care and investigation arose. Bioethical reflection had been focused on conflicts involving respect for individual autonomy, nevertheless HIV highlighted the needs of the community. Almost four decades later, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the ethical conflicts typical of public health back to the bioethical scene. Quarantines, various restrictions on mobility, the obligation of masks, poorly protected health care, rationing of scarce resources, rushed research, the vaccines allocation, stigmatization and discrimination, the immune passport, or the moralization of infectious disease have highlighted the need for an ethical framework that helps to reflect and justify public health decisions. In this article we review and analyze the ethical conflicts that arose with HIV and how they have reappeared and been reinterpreted with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Geopolitics of Anti-Asian Violence: Cold War Contradictions In the Era of "Building Back Better"

In this formulation, the US-ROK Alliance—what the State Department deems the "linchpin of peace, security, and prosperity" in the region—stands not as a form of military occupation or imperial clientelism, but one of righteous defense from regional bogeyman such as the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).3 The endemic violence of US militarism—from sexual exploitation in military "camptowns" to the extralegal status of US servicemen—is rendered a mere footnote to a program of liberal internationalism which claims to preside over what the US military euphemistically terms a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific. "4 Blinken's easy distinction between the singular act of the Atlanta shootings and the routinized violence of US imperialism speaks to the contradictions at the heart of the Biden administration's aspiration to restore both racial liberalism and global US power.5 Since the campaign trail, platitudes about restoring global US leadership have made up the core of the Biden administration's foreign policy platform. [...]Biden pitched his presidency as a means to reinstate the era of racial liberalism in order to "restore the soul of the nation" from the crude racism of the Trump era.7 Asian /Americans have been cast to perform the work of legitimation under the intersecting projects of racial liberalism and US hegemony—from the symbolic inclusion of Asian /Americans into the US national body to the incorporation of allied Asian states into a US-led orbit of militarized peace.8 On the one hand, Asian /Americans have become a performative symbol of a reascendant racial liberalism. What does it mean, then, in a region still shaped by Cold War imperialism, to proclaim that "America is back," as Kamala Harris did on her first trip to Asia as Vice President in August 2021?13 Even more, how do we make sense of the declaration of a "new" Cold War, emerging as it does from the unfinished business of an "old" Cold War that never ended?

Organisational learning: COVID-19 strategy for human resource skill adjustment

The survival of the home country and multinationals such as manufacturing companies depend solely on their readiness to learn the new normal by adjusting the behaviour, attitudes, and culture of their human resources through upskilling and reskilling approaches. It is based on this premise that this study investigates organisational learning as a strategy for human resource skill adjustment in manufacturing companies in South-Eastern Nigeria. The overall results revealed that dimensions of organisational learnings have positive significant effects on determinants of human resource skill adjustment which implies that an improvement on organisational learning leads to human resource skill adjustment with regards to new work culture engendered by COVID-19 pandemic. This study implies that for HR managers to effectively adjust the behaviour, attitude, skill, and knowledge of their subordinates, upskilling and reskilling, exploration learning, and exploitation learning should be deployed.

Contribution to a praxeological reading of the entrepreneurial crisis leadership of female SME managers: the example of the Covid-19 health crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic crisis was an adverse situation for all economic actors. By mobilising the concept of entrepreneurial leadership, this article aims to analyse the organisational actions and leadership postures adopted by senior women managers to guarantee the continuity of their economic activity, and even, to ensure the survival of their company. We will try to show that their actions and practices are not univocal. They are characterised, on the contrary, by a form of contingency crossed by fields of tension and a subtle balance between strategic decisions of exploitation and exploration, and a strategic implementation based on both operational and relational processes. This research work will allow us to grasp the contours of a singular form of entrepreneurial leadership linked to the crisis. We will also question the limits of the use of the notion of gender to apprehend entrepreneurial behaviours and decision-making processes deployed by women entrepreneurs in contexts of adversity.

Strategic ambidexterity and its role in achieving contemporary initiatives: an exploratory study of opinions of a sample of managers of travel and tourism companies in holy governorate of Kerbala-Iraq

The research aim to explore influential role of strategic ambidexterity through its two contradictory dimensions (exploration and exploitation) as two strategies that contemporary organizations can adopt in light of achieving contemporary initiatives required by current environment, especially tourism sector in Iraq after the paralysis it suffered as a result of spread of Corona virus and impact of repercussions of this pandemic on various Both industrial and service sectors, as researchers targeted tourism companies in Karbala governorate, which are characterized by attracting tourists to various visitors for religious tourism and in return, it is a port for their roaming to other cities and countries through tourism companies that need to keep pace with surrounding environment of developments and changes based on adoption of the two strategies of ambidexterity in Facing those changes and responding to them, as well as their readiness for rapid developments in this sector, as the questionnaire was adopted as a main tool for collecting data on this study by presenting it to the executive directors of those companies with (40) respondents, and after conducting necessary statistical tests using SPSS program, it was found that there are a strong positive and significant correlation between study variables, as well as a significant effect For strategic ambidexterity across its two dimensions in achieving and promoting contemporary initiatives at corporate level, the study community © The Author 2023. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

A Combined Method Based on the FIPV N Monoclonal Antibody Immunofluorescence Assay and RT-nPCR Method for the Rapid Diagnosis of FIP-Suspected Ascites

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), which is caused by feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV), is a fatal and immunologically mediated infectious disease among cats. At present, due to the atypical clinical symptoms and clinicopathological changes, the clinical diagnosis of FIP is still difficult. The gold standard method for the differential diagnosis of FIP is immunohistochemistry (IHC) which is time-consuming and requires specialized personnel and equipment. Therefore, a rapid and accurate clinical diagnostic method for FIPV infection is still urgently needed. In this study, based on the etiological investigation of FIPV in parts of southern China, we attempted to explore a new rapid and highly sensitive method for clinical diagnosis. The results of the etiological investigation showed that the N gene of the FIPV BS8 strain had the highest homology with other strains. Based on this, a specific FIPV BS8 N protein monoclonal antibody was successfully prepared by expression of the recombinant proteins, immunization of mice, fusion and selection of hybridoma cell lines, and screening and purification of monoclonal antibodies. Furthermore, we carried out a time-saving combination method including indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) and nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-nPCR) to examine FIP-suspected clinical samples. These results were 100% consistent with IHC. The results revealed that the combined method could be a rapid and accurate application in the diagnosis of suspected FIPV infection within 24 hours. In conclusion, the combination of IFA and RT-nPCR was shown to be a fast and reliable method for clinical FIPV diagnosis. This study will provide insight into the exploitation of FIPV N antibodies for the clinical diagnosis of FIP-suspected ascites samples.

Pushed to the Margins: Ethiopian Migrants in South Africa

Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townships, rural areas and in select central business districts across the country. This article documents the experiences of Ethiopian migrants in the informal sector in South Africa. Theoretically, the article rests on the concept of everyday life. It draws on data from interviews, focus group discussions and observations carried out between October 2020 and September 2021. This signals a period in which everyone was challenged by COVID-19, especially migrants, which compounded the hierarchies of marginality in which Ethiopian migrants in South Africa are situated. Coupled with this, Ethiopian migrants face two broad levels of marginality: firstly, marginality from state policies and the communities in which they reside and work;and secondly, marginality from gendered and class-based inequalities within the Ethiopian community. The structural and hegemonic barriers range from lack of documentation to regularize residency status and business respectively, extortion by gangs in the name of "protection fee,” exploitation by local level state/community structures and women restricted to female roles. By the same token, we see the creativity and ingenuity of this community, that focuses on their personhood, to make sense of their lives and create conditions to live meaningful lives. This article explores some of the core contestations emerging out of these twin marginalities the ways in which Ethiopian migrants structure their lives and livelihoods in South Africa.

How Videoconferencing and its Affordances Transformed Teaching in Schools During COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about major changes in digitization in many areas of life and professions. New areas were digitized almost overnight, the school system in Germany was no exception leading to a demand for videoconferencing tools and communication platforms. These technologies have many different functionalities that need to be discovered, explored, and exploited by the user. Given the disruptive events that the COVID pandemic brought to us, this paper aims to shed light on how the dynamics of discovery, exploration, and exploitation unfolds. We use a functional affordance theory perspective to analyze and understand how user learn to use new technologies. To do this, we conducted an exploratory case-study-based research design including interviews with teachers from various schools to analyze how they appropriate new technologies to develop an explanatory theoretical model. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.