Competitive Business Environment Research Articles

The Relationship between Strategic Planning, Strategic Flexibility and Firm Performance in SMES of Saudi Arabia: Mediating Role of Strategic Flexibility

The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector plays a significant role in any economy, particularly in a competitive global business environment. However, the SMEs sector could achieve its targets only if it embraced proven strategic management practices. Therefore, this study investigates the mediating role of strategic flexibility on the relationship between strategic planning and firm performance within the context of SMEs in Saudi Arabia. The resource-based view and contingency theories support the study's framework and conclusions. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect the primary data from a sample of 400 owners and managers of medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. Hypotheses were tested using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. The study tested the correlation and mediation analysis using PLS-SEM. The study found a significant relationship between strategic planning and firm performance. Also, there is a relationship between strategic planning and strategic flexibility. The association between strategic flexibility and firm performance is also significant for medium enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The results also revealed that strategic flexibility mediates the relationship between strategic planning and firm performance. The study’s finding contributes to the planning-performance literature. The study provides helpful recommendations for SMEs that they can use to improve the overall systems of their organizations.

Factors affecting employee social relations and happiness: SM-PLUS approach

Employee happiness plays a significant role in the functioning of a contemporary business organization as it helps to boost the skills and abilities of employees and assists them to function better in their jobs. Moreover, it helps to create a cordial relationship between the employer and the employee, which further assists in retaining skilled staff within an organization. Employee happiness further helps an organization to achieve successful operational channels as well as organizational growth and sustained development. The aim of this research is to study a set of aspects that affect employee-to-employee relationships and how these relations influence happiness, which, in turn, helps an organization to flourish in the current competitive business environment. The selected aspects are employee engagement, employee emotions, shared values, employee knowledge, employee rewards, employee empowerment and work performance.A set of hypotheses have been developed and tested in real business contexts in addition to the study’s model. Results indicated that all the studied concepts affected employee-employee relationships inside the workplace and enhanced the business workplace environment and helped in shaping employee happiness. This paper presents additional practical and theoretical implications in addition to a number of future research venues.

HR Analytics: Concept, Application, and Impact on Talent Management, Branding, and Challenges

Purpose : Making wiser decisions about employees to improve performance at the individual and/or organizational levels is the process of HR analytics. HR analytics is a method for determining the correlation between HR practices and organizational performance outcomes such as sales volume or customer satisfaction. Human Resource Analytics was established in 1978 by Jac Fitz-Enz, the pioneer of human capital strategic analysis and performance benchmarking. In this paper, the researcher wants to discuss the concept of HR analytics, its application, impact on talent management, branding, and challenges in its application. Design/methodology/approach : The researcher examines secondary data and conducts a thorough literature review to understand the concept and its application across industries and nations, as well as to identify any challenges encountered during deployment and any benefits perceived by various industry professionals. Findings : The study's findings indicate that using HR analytics can help businesses build their brand and gain a competitive edge in today's fiercely competitive business environment while also enhancing workforce and employee productivity. Originality/value : This study has significant implications for both literature and HR analytics. Researchers will know more about the factors that contribute to and the mechanisms by which HR analytics improve organisational performance. The author's second claim is that having access to HR technology both facilitates and precedes HR analytics. Finally, concrete data from the literature demonstrates its influence on branding and organisational success. Keywords : Human resource (HR) analytics, People analytics, Branding, Talent Management, Organizational performance. Paper type : Research paper JEL Code : M12, M15 & M51 DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-8-06 Publication date: April 30 th 2023

A meta-analysis of the relationship between collaborative innovation and innovation performance: The role of formal and informal institutions

To cope with highly competitive business environments, an increasing number of firms are actively exploring collaborative innovation strategies. Yet, among the studies on this subject, there has been no consensus regarding the impact of collaborative innovation on innovation performance. To address this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of 50 independent empirical samples, comprising 29,456 observations, to test the collaborative innovation–innovation performance relationship. We carried out both subgroup analyses and meta-regressions to explore how formal and informal institutions might moderate the collaborative-innovation–innovation-performance link. This work demonstrated that collaborative innovation strongly and positively correlates with firms’ innovation performance. Then, to further deepen our understanding of this subject, we examined two different collaboration types and found that supply chain (SC) collaborative innovation has a more significant impact on firms’ innovation performance than the effect produced through industry–university–research (IUR) collaborations. Furthermore, this study revealed that formal and informal institutions strengthen the positive relationship between collaborative innovation and innovation performance. This paper offers new insights for collaborative innovation research and provides important managerial implications for firms’ innovation strategies.

MODELING STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

This paper proposes a knowledge-based customer-centric strategic model to respond to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) in the supply chain management (SCM) context. The proposed model strives to leverage knowledge-based distinctive core competencies (DCCs) to improve customer satisfaction and achieve SCA. An exploratory research design has been adopted. The study undertook a systematic literature review approach with 36 articles or books published between 1970 and 2020 to construct the strategic planning model. The paper presents an integrated multi-dimensional model for SCM, including value chain activities, competitiveness strategies, business process re-engineering (BPR), and SCA. The practical result of the article is to develop a theoretical strategic planning model for SCM as a holistic framework for using the company’s DCCs and creating an SCA in a highly competitive and dynamic business environment. The proposed model comprehensively covers the supply chain (SC)’s competitive advantage strategy. For businesses that tend to adapt and triumph, the proposed model helps reduce order cycle times, reduce inventory levels, increase accuracy and efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer service and satisfaction.

Research on the Determination of the Factors Affecting Business Performance in Beekeeping Production

A competitive business environment pushes beekeepers to the creation of value at a higher level than the competition in a way that is difficult to imitate. In order to survive in a competitive business environment, beekeeping producers must direct their resources towards innovative solutions, which can include honey quality assurance programmes and further product development, as well as creation of value-added honey products that is translated in good business performance. As the potential of the Republic of Serbia’s beekeeping production can be strengthened and its products exported beyond the national market, there is a need to examine the influence of a set of factors that can impact the beekeeper’s business performance. Therefore, this paper will examine the direct and indirect influence of the competitive environment (the business environment opportunities, threats and the relationships with the consumers) and innovative performance (in the field of marketing, product design, product quality, distribution, manufacturing and time to market) on the business performance of Serbian beekeepers. This research uses the SEM method with the SmartPLS tool. The findings of the model have confirmed that a competitive environment and innovative performance have a direct positive, statistically significant impact on the business performance of Serbian beekeeping production. A weak indirect influence of a competitive environment on the business performance of beekeepers has been confirmed. The model has proven to be significant, and a high percentage of variations in beekeepers’ business performance has been explained by the influence of two independent variables (competitive environment and innovative performance). As there is no previous research on the nexus of the competitive environment, innovative performance and business performance of Serbian beekeepers, these findings may be of special interest to authors and researchers, beekeeping organizations and representatives of agricultural advisory services.

Online Information-Based Product Evolution Course Mining and Prediction

In today’s fiercely competitive business environment, product design and development play critical roles in an enterprise’s success; therefore, consumer demand must be understood. Enterprises used to understand their consumers’ demands through time-consuming questionnaire surveys and statistical analyses. As the Internet and the popularity of virtual communities have grown, more consumers are leaving comments about their perceptions of the appeal of products on online social media platforms, thus enabling enterprises to more objectively understand consumers’ product preferences and demands. Therefore, determining how to effectively assist enterprises in analyzing valuable information beneficial to product design and development that can be gleaned from the large amount of social media data available is critical to promoting an enterprise’s competitive advantage in the product market. However, previous studies have primarily focused on understanding consumer viewpoints of products through review articles or electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM; it is a common channel for spreading product appraisals) from online social media. For these review articles and eWOM that can imply consumer demand for product features, there were no relevant studies focused on analyzing consumer demand by using both online review articles and eWOM for product feature evolution. Therefore, for new product features, this study developed a mechanism for product evolution course mining from product-related review articles (such as product functions or specifications) and eWOM on online social media to realize the prediction of future product features or specifications, and then assist enterprises in rapidly and accurately grasping product development trends to effectively discern key reference information for product design and development. The study was achieved by (1) designing a process for online information-based product evolution course mining and prediction, (ii) developing techniques related to online information-based product evolution course mining and prediction, and (iii) implementing and evaluating an online information-based product evolution course mining and prediction mechanism. The experimental results indicated that approximately 81% of developers were satisfied with the proposed system for predicting smartphone features. The results of the study can facilitate the mining and prediction of online information-based product evolution course to assist enterprises in rapidly and accurately grasping product development trends and effectively provides important reference information for product design and development; therefore, it can enhance competitive advantages and customer satisfaction of enterprise products in the marketplace.

Is the dark triad always detrimental to firm performance? Testing different performance outcomes and the moderating effects of competitive rivalry.

There is growing evidence that CEOs who have the 'dark triad' of personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) detrimentally influence firm performance. However, there is still much we do not know. The present study suggests that the CEO dark triad might directly influence typical performance indicators in different ways: positively affecting external performance indicators (breakthrough sales), but negatively affecting internal performance indicators (organizational performance). We argue that the CEO dark triad can be interpreted differently by those external to the firm versus internally, where managers are much closer to the CEO's dark personality. Our model includes managerial capital as a mediator and competitive rivalry as a moderator, and ultimately tests a moderated mediation model. Using data from 840 New Zealand firms, we find that the dark triad links to outcomes, as expected. While the CEO dark triad is negatively related to managerial capital, managerial capital does positively predict both performance indicators, and partially mediates the CEO dark triad effect. Overall, moderating effects highlight that the CEO dark triad is less detrimental in fiercely competitive business environments, acting as a consistent boundary condition across models. As competitive rivalry increases, the indirect effect of the CEO dark triad on performance decreases. We discuss the implications for understanding the role that the CEO dark triad can play in firms.

Driving Operational Excellence: Assessment of the Impact of Information Technology on Business Strategies and Business Processes Reengineering

Organizations have undergone transformation as a result of the modern, globally competitive business environment, which has compelled them to be inventive and adopt cutting-edge tools, techniques, and technology. The business procedure and available resources are seen as rivals by them. As a result, they continuously redesign, reorder, and upgrade their technology resources. In recent years, BPR has grown to be one of the most significant and well-liked change management strategies, garnering significant interest from academics and practitioners. This paper critically examines the how IT influence business strategies and further affect BPR and uses theory to explore extent to their interrelations drive operational excellence in organizations.

More is not always better: Reconciling the dilemma of R&D collaboration in high-tech industries in transition economies

To cope with highly competitive business environments, firms in high-tech industries are increasingly opening up their organizational boundaries and tapping into external resources via research and development (R&D) collaboration. Drawing upon organizational boundary theories, our study indicates that the marginal benefits of R&D collaboration in driving firms' new product innovations decrease while its marginal costs increase. To investigate this subject, we develop a conceptual framework to account for the relationship between R&D collaboration and firms' new product innovations. Further, drawing on both the knowledge-based and institutional perspectives, we examine the moderating effects of absorptive capacity and political ties on the R&D collaboration-new product innovation relationship. Using data from 315 high-tech manufacturing firms in China, we find that R&D collaboration has an inverted U-shaped impact on new product innovation, meaning that the new product innovation of firms initially increases and then decreases as the level of R&D collaboration increases. Further, we find that absorptive capacity (as an internal factor) and political ties (as an external factor) moderate this inverted U-shaped effect such that firms with greater absorptive capacities show a higher peak of maximum innovation performance at higher levels of R&D collaboration than firms with lower absorptive capacities. We also reveal that for firms with stronger political ties, the benefits of R&D collaboration are enhanced while the risks and costs of R&D collaboration are mitigated. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the nonlinear relationship between firms' R&D collaborations and their new product innovation outcomes as well as the contingent conditions in this relationship.

Multilevel outcomes of creativity in organizations: An integrative review and agenda for future research

SummaryEmployee creativity is critical for an organization's innovativeness and survival in today's competitive business environment. As such, scholars have devoted significant attention to the predictors of employee creativity, seeking to understand how to best increase employees' creative output. However, employee creativity may not always translate into organizational innovation and performance. In fact, employee creativity may result in various outcomes for creative individuals, their coworkers, teams, and organizations. While there have been several integrative reviews on the antecedents of creativity, an in‐depth review of the outcomes of creativity is still needed to gain a holistic understanding of the benefits and costs of employee creativity and identify fruitful areas for future research. Thus, we aim to provide a comprehensive multilevel examination of the theories, methods, and creativity‐related constructs used to examine the outcomes of creativity. We also provide several theoretical and empirical opportunities for future research. This review may provide managers with knowledge of the pros and cons of employee creativity, enabling them to make informed decisions on how to better manage employee creativity.

Role of Absorptive Capacity, Digital Capability, Agility, and Resilience in Supply Chain Innovation Performance

Digitalization is essential for supply chain (SC) systems to thrive in the extremely dynamic and competitive business environment of the present day. The purpose of this study is to examine the role and the importance of absorptive capacity (ACAP) on supply chain innovation performance (SCIP), mediated by digital capability (DCAP), supply chain resilience (SCR), supply chain agility (SCA), and digital innovation (DI). The study has been designed to empirically investigate the hypothesized relationships on a sample of 116 firms across industries in Saudi Arabia, using a partial least-squares-based structural equation model (PLS-SEM). Based on the findings, all the hypothesized paths are supported, justifying that ACAP positively and significantly impacts DCAP, SCA, and SCR. Moreover, SCA and SCR partially mediated the relationship between ACAP and SCIP. This study contributes to the resource-based view (RBV) and a dynamic capability (DC) theories by examining how the innovation of digital technologies affects SCIP, providing empirical support to the ACAP and SCIP interaction through numerous mediators to develop SCIP, from which also many practical implications emerged. For instance, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses must improve their SC performance by building and integrating their ACAP to make the most of their digital-platform-based dynamic capabilities.

AI-Based Sales Forecasting Model for Digital Marketing

Sales prediction with minute accuracy plays a crucial role for an organization to sustain amidst the global competitive business environment. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) on top of the existing information technology environment has become one of the most exciting and promising area for any organizations in the current era of digital marketing. E-marketing provides customers to share their views with other customers. In this paper, the authors proposed a model which will be helpful to the digital marketers to find out the potential customers to extract value from customer feedback. The proposed model is based on artificial neural network and will make it possible to identify the customer demand depending on previous feedback and to predict the future sales volume of the product. The authors tried to utilize AI, mainly neural networks (NNs), to construct an intelligent sales prediction and also to apply ANNs for prediction regarding sales of mobile phone (Redmi, Note 6 Pro) one month ahead depending on customer feedback on two e-commerce platform, namely Amazon.in and Snapdeal.in.

Augmented Reality (AR) as A Promotion Tool in Influencing Housing Purchase Intention

Contemporary rapid technological transformation demands the most optimal marketing approach to ensure organisational survival in a highly competitive business environment. Numerous studies were conducted to focus on selecting appropriate promotion tools, such as e-marketing, social media, and extended reality (XR) applications, to be applied in the current marketing methods. Nonetheless, the technological advancement availability was not thoroughly harnessed by the property sector, which lagged in adopting the innovative marketing approach to promote relevant products. Furthermore, minimal research was performed to investigate the effects of augmented reality (AR) applications in the property sector to encourage consumer purchases. The current study aims to determine the relationship between AR applications and potential house buyers’ purchase intention. Respondents were recruited based on the stipulated inclusion criteria, namely age and monthly income. A total of 130 survey booklets with housing design stimuli in the AR applications were distributed for self-completion. Resultantly, 100 completed booklets were returned. The findings revealed that AR applications possessed a significant moderate correlation with potential house buyers’ purchase intention. The results contributed additional insights into the existing marketing and consumer behaviour literature and provided several implications on the AR application potential as a property developers’ promotion tool.

Decision-making using regression analysis: a case study on Top Tier Holidays LLP

Research methodology This study aims to investigate the factors that contribute to the overall tour experience and services provided by Top Tier Holidays. The study is mixed in nature, and the researchers have used analytical tools to analyse the data factually. Multiple regression using MS Excel is used in the study. Case overview/synopsis This case is based on the experiences of a real-life travel and tour company located in New Delhi, India. The case helps understand regression analysis to identify independent variables significantly impacting the tour experience. The CEO of the company is focused on improving the overall customer experience. The CEO has identified six principal determinants (variables) applicable to tour companies’ success. These variables are hotel experience, transportation, cab driver, on-tour support, itinerary planning and pricing. Multiple regression analysis using Microsoft Excel is conducted on the above determinants (the independent variables) and the overall tour experience (the dependent variable). This analysis would help identify the relationship between the independent and dependent variables and find the variables that significantly impact the dependent variable. This case also helps us appreciate the importance of various parameters that affect the overall customer tour experience and the challenges a tour operator company faces in the current competitive business environment. Complexity academic level This case is designed for discussion with the undergraduate courses in business management, commerce and tourism management programmes. The case will build up readers’ understanding of linear regression with multiple variables. It shows how multiple linear regression can help companies identify the significant variables affecting business outcomes.

The Influence of Customer Retention Practices on Performance of Micro and Small Agro-processing Enterprises in Tanzania

Customer retention practices are considered as derivers to accelerate firm performance in highly competitive business environment. However, scanty literature exists on agro-processing MSEs in developing economies. This study was carried out in Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Morogoro regions to examine the relationship between customer retention practices and performance of agroprocessing micro and small enterprises (MSEs). The study employed quantitative research approach and a cross-sectional research design. Proportionate stratified sampling was used to select a sample of 302 MSEs. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from these firms. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the relationship between customer retention practices and firm performance. Firm performance was found to be positive and significantly influenced by assessment to customers, analysis of competitors, response to customer needs, inter-functional coordination practices and employees behavioural practices. Business-supplier relational practices posited positive relationship with the firm performance. The findings suggest that customer retention practices are influential determinants of the performance. This implies that owner-managers of agro-processing MSEs who wish to improve the performance of their firms should put emphasis on understanding the needs of their customers, analyse the actions and behaviours of competitors, appropriately coordinate internal functions of their firms and manage employees behaviours towards customers to ensure sufficient response to needs of the customers, and they should maintain positive relationship with the suppliers of raw materials. Likewise, practitioners and policy makers should appreciate the role of customer retention practices when designing policies, trainings and support services for MSEs.

Trade–Finance Nexus: The Centrality of the Quality of Institutions in Sub-Saharan African Leading Economies

The study examines the interaction effect of trade and institutional quality on financial sector development in 20 leading economies in sub-Saharan Africa selected based on 2018 GDP per capita ranking (top 20 richest economies by GDP per capita released by the IMF) over the period 2005–2020. Using system-generalised method of moments estimation, the results indicate that the effect of the interaction term of trade and regulatory quality on financial development is positive and significant. Further findings show unidirectional causality running from the interaction term to financial development, implying that the likelihood of trade enhancing financial development depends on the soundness of the regulatory framework. It is confirmed that the magnitude and direction of the effect of trade on financial development are sensitive to the quality of institutions. Therefore, the poor quality of regulations on business activities and financial services could undermine the salutary impact of trade on financial development. It is suggested that creating a conducive regulatory environment to improve the level of financial development is crucial for mitigating the potential impact of the weak institutional quality risks. This remains a significant prerequisite for having a competitive business environment, thereby stimulating the role of trade in the process of financial development.

Sustainable Development Strategy of Low-Cost Airlines: Empirical Evidence for Indonesia Based on Analysis of Passenger Loyalty

The rapid progress in the competitive business environment has increased customer expectations and demands, thus leading to a situation where many companies are competing fiercely, especially low-cost airline companies or low-cost carriers (LCCs). The company carries out a strategy of providing satisfaction for its passengers to generate great loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out what factors can affect passenger loyalty, such as service quality (SQ), price (P), customer satisfaction (S), and perceived value (PV) on LCC airlines in Indonesia. This study used quantitative methods through surveys which were conducted on 313 respondents in Indonesian, via online questionnaire data collection in July–August 2021. To test the relationship between variables, this study used statistical analysis with LISREL structural equation modelling (SEM). The present study was conducted concerning LCC companies in Indonesia and refers only to Indonesian consumers. There are 7 hypotheses in this study, of which 4 hypotheses are confirmed and 3 are invalidated. Some results obtained show that, in this case and with reference to Indonesian consumers only for the substitution service offered by LCCs, we have to discuss atypical manifestations of consumer behaviour (good SQ does not necessarily lead to increased S and lower price does not necessarily lead to increased S, etc.). At the same time, this study shows that consumer loyalty remains the essential factor for the survival of LCCs in the market.

EFFECT OF SALESPERSON’S SERVICE BEHAVIOUR ON SALES PERFORMANCE IN THE B2B CONTEXT IN NIGERIA

In today’s competitive business environment, many salespersons appear to struggle in meeting sales targets and build long-term, profitable business relationships with customers. This paper examined the effect of salesperson’s service behaviour on sales performance in Henkel-Egil Limited, South-East, Nigeria. Four specific objectives and hypotheses guided this paper. A survey research design was employed and the sample size was 324 salespersons in the organization. The Census method was used in sampling respondents and the major instrument of data collection was a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean score, Likert scale, and Pearson Product Moment Correlation, which helped test hypotheses. Findings revealed that there is a positive but weak relationship between diligence and sales performance. It also indicated that information communication has a significant effect on sales performance. Results also showed a positive correlation between sportsmanship and sales performance. Again, it was observed that empathy has a significant effect on significantly sales performance. This paper concluded that without diligence, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy, salespersons might be performing below average until adequate consideration is given to these important service behaviors. It recommended among others, that as firms begin to recognize the importance of salespersons’ role in not just closing sales but also providing service to customers, it is important periodic training is given to them as to increase their service orientation and sales performance. Managers should emphasize both service excellence and sales targets during recruitment, training, design of reward systems, and promotion decisions.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0202/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

КОНКУРЕНТНЕ СЕРЕДОВИЩЕ МІЖНАРОДНОГО БІЗНЕСУ

The article examines the peculiarities of the competitive environment of international business. It was determined that the important tools of the modern mechanism of the open economy are the means of economic competition. It was analyzed that the frequency and depth of changes in the strategies of enterprises in international business depend on market success or failure, and the duration of competitive confrontation depends on the extent to which the strategy is suitable for specific market conditions. The competitiveness of enterprises makes it possible to obtain specific indicators for comparing the position of the enterprise. Each company follows its own competitive strategy to gain a better position and benefit from a competitive advantage. It has been determined that the competitive strategies that rival firms can devise and the ways they can determine to implement these strategies are different. The general direction of improving the competitive environment of international business is to improve conditions for international trade and investment, create more favourable rules and ensure a level playing field for all participants of the global market. the competitive environment of international business is a complex of factors, conditions and entities that influence the activities of enterprises in international markets and competition between them. Improving the competitive environment of international business is an important goal for the development of the global economy. The competitiveness of international enterprises is manifested in the achievement of competitive advantages in international competition. The objective necessity, which in practice is a consequence of the economic competition of commodity producers, is the constant acceleration of the processes of renewal of production and products. Carrying out a competitive struggle, the company seeks to find and implement a way to profitably compete in its industry. There are no single and universal competitive strategies for a significant number of competing companies and their competitive advantages. Only strategies that match the conditions of a competitive industry, the skills and capital possessed by a particular enterprise can bring success.