Sustainable Competitive Performance Research Articles

Strategy integration, sustainable drivers of firm internationalization performance—Moderated by environmental uncertainty and firm capabilities

The global environmental uncertainty and the need for an organization to maximize profit and satisfy the interest of wider nonmarket groups/stakeholders in the host market propel and reinforce the need for strategic integration to achieve sustainable internationalization performance. The interest of this article is to examine the relative impact of market, nonmarket strategy, and strategy integration on the performance of medium and large organizations in Portugal. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty and firm capabilities were used as moderation to evaluate the performance implication of these strategy configurations on firm market advantage in the host country. Given the need to examine the relationship between the latent and measured variables in this study, structural equation models were used to test the stated hypotheses, while confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the fitness of our model. Our findings revealed that strategy integration provides a more sustainable competitive performance than either market or nonmarket strategy when used separately, especially in highly regulated and standardized business contexts such as Portugal. Furthermore, our findings show that organization needs to design market-oriented strategies and select the types of nonmarket practices (lobbying, campaign contributions, etc.) that best fit and align with their overall corporate objectives without neglecting the host market environmental culture. Research on market and nonmarket integrations have long been overdue given its extensive proposition to firm sustainable performance in a foreign country. Our research shed light on the importance of strategy integration to combat the ever-changing dynamism of the business environment and the negative sentiment surrounding globalization and how a firm can successfully compete in an uncertain, highly regulated, and standardized market context.

Understanding the Antecedents and Consequences of Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Testing Intellectual Capital and Organizational Performance

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital (human capital, relational capital, and structural capital) and sustainable competitive advantage, and the relationship between sustainable competitive advantage and organizational performance. The sample used was 308 SMEs located in Denpasar, Bali Province, Indonesia. Data were collected using a questionnaire that was sent directly to the CEO of the SMEs. Data were analyzed using SEM-PLS with WarpPLS 8.0. The findings show that there is a significant positive relationship between each dimension of intellectual capital (human capital, relational capital, and structural capital) and sustainable competitive advantage. Sustainable competitive advantage is also significantly and positively related to organizational performance. This study contributes to the understanding of intellectual capital in the value creation process of SMEs in developing countries. This study also enriches the previously developed conceptualization of intellectual capital by proposing intellectual capital as an important variable underlying the sustainability practices of companies, which allows them to achieve superior performances.

The impact of digital supply chain capabilities on enterprise sustainable competitive performance: an ambidextrous view

PurposeThe construction of digital supply chains to integrate internal and external resources is becoming an important path for manufacturing enterprises to gain competitiveness. However, at present, research on the internal mechanisms of digital supply chain capabilities (DSCC) and enterprise sustainable competitive performance (ESCP) has not been sufficiently studied. Based on contextual ambidexterity theory, this study investigates whether DSCC could enable the realization of supply chain ambidexterity and further explains the mediating role of supply chain ambidexterity on DSCC and ESCP, and the boundary conditions of supply chain governance on supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP.Design/methodology/approachWith a survey data set of 232 Chinese manufacturing enterprises from different industries, the study empirically tests a moderated mediating model and conducts hierarchical linear modeling and bootstrap to test the study's hypotheses.FindingsThe results demonstrate that: (1) DSCC positively enhance ESCP; (2) supply chain ambidexterity, which can be regarded as a synergic ability of supply chain alignment and adaptability, partially mediates the positive relationship between DSCC and ESCP; and (3) supply chain governance such as incentive governance positively moderates the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, but there is no evidence that relational governance moderates their relationship.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a new interpretive perspective to understand digital supply chains. More importantly, it reveals the importance of DSCC in contributing toward supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, and demonstrates the differential regulating action of incentive and relational governance on the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, with implications for both academics and practitioners.

Global Inclusive and Sustainable Competitive Industrial Performance (ISCIP): An efficiency based spatio-temporal analysis for 139 countries

The most recent debate championed by World Economic Forum suggests that competitiveness, social cohesion and environmental sustainability may be compatible. This gives hope to policymakers that a productive, low-carbon, and inclusive economy is possible and perhaps the only viable option going forward. In the context of industrial development, a diagnostics and monitoring tool that can benchmark a country’s industrial competitiveness within the broader framework of the post-2030 agenda is therefore highly sought by policymakers. The original contribution of the present study is to expand the scope of United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s Competitiveness Industrial Performance Index by proposing the Inclusive and Sustainable Competitive Industrial Performance Index which (i) considers a new set of social and environmental dimensions in addition to the industrial competitiveness; (ii) provides the flexibility of a dual-formulation of manufacturing-specific and whole-economy scenarios to reflect different policy needs of countries; (iii) applies a cross-efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis model and a spatio-temporal analysis to optimize the composition of Inclusive and Sustainable Competitive Industrial Performance Index indicators for 139 countries (2010–2019). With a different method of aggregation and new dimensions being taken into account, results concerning the Competitive Industrial Performance Index and the Inclusive and Sustainable Competitive Industrial Performance Index country rankings are aligned in flagging that industrial competitive and high-income countries are more effective than their peers in promoting industrial development by minimizing tradeoffs with social and environmental indicators. A limitation of the present study is that results do not reflect the global shocks affecting world megatrends after 2019. Second, as the Inclusive and Sustainable Competitive Industrial Index remains a composite indicator, a high rank can still hide significant negative externalities in absolute terms. Finally, the set of the composing ISCIP sub – indicators cannot be exhaustive to capture all the aspects of sustainability.

Technological Innovation in Supply Chains and Sustainable Development: A Structural Approach Exploring the Impact of Agile Supply Chain on Sustainable Competitive Performance

Technological Innovation in Supply Chains and Sustainable Development: A Structural Approach Exploring the Impact of Agile Supply Chain on Sustainable Competitive Performance

Technological innovation in supply chains and sustainable development: a structural approach exploring the impact of agile supply chain on sustainable competitive performance

Technological innovation in supply chains and sustainable development: a structural approach exploring the impact of agile supply chain on sustainable competitive performance

Influence of Digital Accounting System Usage on SMEs Performance: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19

In the literature, studies have evidenced the efforts adopted by firms to develop digital technology with the hope of achieving sustainable decisions and competitive performance. However, studies have yet to provide an extensive explanation of the mechanisms used by firms in their digital technology adoption to impact and enhance value, particularly among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In this regard, accounting information has served as a fundamental basis for business decision-making and the extensive use of digital technology has paved the way for the efficiency and effectiveness of accounting functions in modifying information relating to such functions. More specifically, a digital accounting system (DAS) enables the reporting and processing of large transaction amounts and generates the data required for analysis. However, despite these advantages, SMEs have been slow in their adoption and usage of DASs. Accordingly, this study drew upon resource-based view theory and the technology-organization-environment framework to propose an integrated model for examining the determinants and impact of using DAS among SMEs. The proposed model encapsulates the use and performance aspect of DAS. The study utilized a self-administered survey questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument. Data from 183 SMEs in Jordan were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that compatibility, organizational readiness, top management support and government support all had significant effects on DAS usage, which, in turn, had a positive and significant effect on DAS performance. With regard to the moderating effects, COVID-19 was found to have a moderating role on the DAS usage–DAS performance relationship. The study findings explain the way firms can enhance their DAS use to obtain optimum performance, thereby contributing to the literature on the antecedents and effects of using current information technology/information systems. The study recommends that the government of Jordan prepare and carry out a campaign concerning the importance of DASs for SMEs.

Open Innovation Strategies and SMEs’ Performance: The Mediating Role of Eco-Innovation in Environmental Uncertainty

Abstract The current increasing topic around empirical study is environmental issues. Several previous studies examined how open innovation strategies could affect eco-innovation amid research debates about environmental conservation in corporate innovation. This study aims to prove the effect of open innovation strategies on creating eco-innovation to affect SMEs’ sustainable competitive advantage and performance empirically. This study developed and empirically tested the mediating role of eco-innovation on sustainable competitive advantage and performance. A quantitative approach in testing the empirical research model was implemented. A total of 223 SMEs in the batik sector in Yogyakarta were examined. We used purposive sampling approach to select the research sample. The criteria used in the sampling is SMEs batik which has been operating for three years or more. The results revealed that open innovation strategies significantly positively affected eco-innovation while eco-innovation significantly positively affected competitive advantage and SMEs performance. Environmental uncertainty strengthened the eco-innovation relationship on competitive advantage, but not on the SMEs’ performance.

Innovation and Asymmetric Cost Behavior

From a manager’s rational decision-making perspective, cost stickiness is caused by holding surplus resources rather than disposing of them immediately and can be applied as part of the information on expected future sales rebounds. This paper investigates how innovation, as a key component of business strategy, changes cost behavior. Innovation is closely tied to the long-term survival of an enterprise and plays an important role in creating sustainable competitive advantage and superior performance. We hypothesized that the resource retention rate will change according to the managers’ aim and the expectation over the innovation process. Using Korean manufacturing firm data from the Korean Innovation Survey, we provide evidence that firms implementing innovation exhibit greater cost stickiness than those that do not. Furthermore, the reservation of resources occurred mainly in a pessimistic situation, which confirms that the company’s innovation strategy aims to overcome the unfavorable current situation of the company. We also verified the different resource commitment decisions that depends on strategic differences by product and process innovation. The findings of the study help to understand how resource allocation is driven by managers’ decisions in the context of each type of innovation.

Intellectual capital, corporate social responsibility and sustainable competitive performance of small and medium-sized enterprises: mediating effects of organizational innovation

PurposeThis study aims to explore the mechanism by which intellectual capital and corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence the sustainable competitive performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the mediating role of organizational innovation in an emerging economy.Design/methodology/approachThe data collection was conducted through a survey completed by 208 owners and top managers operating in the service, trading and manufacturing sector SMEs, positioned within twin cities of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized for data analysis.FindingsThe results of the study suggest that intellectual capital and CSR have a markedly positive influence on the sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. The organizational innovation appears to mediate these relationships.Originality/valueThis study pioneers research on the links between intellectual capital, CSR organizational innovation and sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. The current research contributes to the literature by defining intellectual capital and CSR as an antecedent and organizational innovation as an intervening variable for the sustainable competitive performance of SMEs. In addition, this study underlines the significance of intellectual capital and CSR activities as valuable intangible assets for the achievement of sustainable competitive performance of SMEs.

Strategic Orientation and Sustainable Competitive Performance of Family Firms: Evidence of an Emerging Economy

This study tried to shed light on the relationship between strategic orientations and sustainable competitive performance with the mediating effect of strategic flexibility of family-owned SMEs in an emerging economy. This study is significant because family firms need a more flexible and quick organizational structure to respond effectively to external market demands. For achieving fruitful insights, data was collected from family-owned manufacturing firms operating in Islamabad and Rawalpindi verified from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA). In addition, structured questionnaires were used to collect the data from top management through an online source; for testing the hypotheses, Smart PLS-SEM was deployed. The finding suggests that strategic flexibility firmly explains the mechanism to support the relationship between both strategic orientations (entrepreneurial and market) and sustainable competitive performance. Thus, our study suggests several recommendations to the policymaker and governmental bodies to support the family-owned firms in modifying existing resources according to the market demand.

Correction to: Impact of network structure on sustainable competitive performance among Pakistani small and medium enterprises: does government financial support matter?

Correction to: Impact of network structure on sustainable competitive performance among Pakistani small and medium enterprises: does government financial support matter?

Increasing competitive performance through effective use of performance management systems

PurposePrivate telecommunication companies in Yemen face huge challenges to improve their competitive position. Many of them suffer from performance management systems (PMS) that are not aligned nor integrated and do not give adequate support. This research aims at identifying the current state and quality of PMS in Yemeni private telecom companies and developing recommendations that will assist in improving their performance and competitive position.Design/methodology/approachAs research tools, the performance management analysis – used to measure the quality of a PMS – and the high performance organization (HPO) framework – used to measure the quality of an organization and thereby its ability to achieve sustainable high competitive performance – are applied at three Yemeni private telecom companies.FindingsThere is a considerable performance gap between the actual and the ideal PMS in the Yemeni private telecom companies; this performance gap is highly correlated with competitive performance in a negative relationship. Both the structural and behavioral dimensions’ performance gaps have a significant impact on competitive performance, with the impact of the behavioral dimensions being considerably higher than that of the structural dimensions.Originality/valueThe current academic literature on HPOs and PMS in Yemen is scarce. This study adds knowledge to these areas, and thus provides a basis for further study. This research results also help managers of the Yemeni private telecom companies to take strategic action to redesign and implement new and improved PMS to increase their competitive performance.

Impact of network structure on sustainable competitive performance among Pakistani small and medium enterprises: does government financial support matter?

Impact of network structure on sustainable competitive performance among Pakistani small and medium enterprises: does government financial support matter?

The impact of Strategic Leadership Styles on Financial Business Performance and Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Travel Agencies and Hotels: Corporate Social Responsibility as a Mediator

The present study focuses on one of the recent concerns in management which is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As there is a relation between strategic leadership styles and CSR perceptions, this research analyzes attitudes differences of CSR dimensions by concentrating on two leadership styles, transformational and transactional, and consequently its effect on financial business performance and Sustainable Competitive Advantage. A total of 381 employees of Egyptian hotels and travel agencies were surveyed by a structured questionnaire. Accordingly, the main purpose of this paper is investigating the impact of strategic leadership styles on CSR. Moreover, investigation of the effects of CSR on financial business performance and sustainable competitive advantage in Egyptian hotels and travel agencies. In this study, a model which engaged structural equation modeling was assessed. As a study result, it is seen that transactional strategic leadership effects significantly on the CSR more than transformational strategic. On the other hand, they, through CRS, also have a significant effect on financial business performance and sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, travel agencies and hotels managers should implement CSR in order not to be left behind and miss considerable opportunities to have sustainable competitive advantage and financial performance progress.

Analisis Strategi Keunggulan Kompetitif Berkelanjutan Perusahaan Crowd Business Syariah (Studi Kasus pada Halal Network International)

Business model innovation of a company is a form of adaptation to the current economic turmoil to determine competitive advantage. To deal with this, PT HPA Indonesia or Halal Network International (HNI) which is based on the Muslim crowd and consistently is considered to be developing and getting the leading position must be able to survive in the middle of challenging market. The purpose of this research is to analyze the strategy of sustainable competitive advantage for HNI as sharia crowd business firm. The mixed method approach was carried out using literature studies, guided interviews, and online questionnaires for certain experts. The data processing technique used in this research is ANP (Analytical Network Process) to involve the analysis of the relationship between the network elements. The results of this research indicate that effective strategy is the right strategy for sustainable competitive performance. This strategy focuses on developing resource capital. The three elements with the lowest priority in this pride strategy model are reputation & quality control, technology & buyer fulfillment and sales of product content. By combining institutional capital and resource capital, a sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved by focusing performance on the subfactors of corporate image and leadership.

Competitive advantage and dynamic capability in small and medium-sized enterprises: a systematic literature review and future research directions

Competitive advantage is a significant concept both in studies of strategic management and in the practice of organizations. The dynamic reality of the market and competitors' innovation capacity make it difficult for companies to achieve their goals and maintain sustainable competitive performance. In small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this difficulty is often compounded by a scarcity of strategic resources, which can considerably decrease their competitive advantage sources. In the present study, we discovered, through a systematic literature review (n = 70), a conceptual typology, with identification of five classes, categorized as (i) methodological procedures, (ii) organizational environment, (iii) organizational performance, (iv) resources/profile and (v) organizational research which were used to capture notions around dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage for SMEs. Likewise, as a result, a diverse selection of three clusters was found to show the positive influence (direct and indirect) of dynamic capabilities on competitive advantage and that performance variables mediate the impact on innovation capacity. Given this, we have answered two research questions related to the (i) discovery of state of the art and (ii) future research directions on Dynamic Capabilities and Competitive Advantage for SMEs.

Internal Control Effectiveness and Business Survival: Evidence from Thai Food Businesses

This study aims at investigating the effects of internal control effectiveness on business survival of food businesses in Thailand through the mediators of productivity improvement and value creation. In this study, 155 food businesses in Thailand are the samples of the study. The results show that internal control effectiveness has a significant influence on productivity improvement and business survival. Productivity improvement critically affects value creation and business survival while value creation is an important determinant of business survival. However, internal control effectiveness has no relationship with value creation. Also, productivity improvement explicitly mediates the internal control effectiveness-business survival relationships. In summary, internal control effectiveness can enhance firms' sustainable competitive advantage, superior performance and long-term survival. Firms need to focus on internal control effectiveness through investing their assets and resources and utilizing their abilities, competencies and capabilities in order to continuously develop and improve their appropriate concepts and characteristics in an organization. Better internal control effectiveness definitely leads to more long-term survival. To generalize the research results, future research needs to collect data from other businesses and industries. Increased response rate of the study is important for future research to verify and confirm the research results.

Effect of CSR and Ethical Practices on Sustainable Competitive Performance: A Case of Emerging Markets from Stakeholder Theory Perspective

An extensive work has been done on corporate social responsibly practices (CSRPs) that mainly emphasized the larger firms within developed nations. Nonetheless, still work is needed to observe the importance of CSRPs’ and ethical cultural practices (ECL) in terms of sustainable competitive performance (SACP) that garnered far less attention by the existing literature. This study explores the impact of CSRPs on SACP with the mediating role of ECL from SMEs of two emerging nations, i.e., China and Pakistan based on stakeholders’ theory and practices. The results using SEM affirmed the positive linkages of CSRPs—environment responsibility (EnvR), community responsibility (ComuR), customers' responsibility (CustR), suppliers responsibility (SupR), employee responsibility (EmpR), and Govt. rules & regulations’ responsibility (GRulR)—on SACP. It found that CSRPs have positive relationships with ECL whereas ECL further positively correlated with SACP in the context of both countries. The findings revealed the positive mediating influence of ECL between CSRPs and SACP, respectively. This study furnishes insightful information for management on how firms may achieve sustainable performance by incorporating ethical cultural practices and corporate social responsibility practices as the strategic tools. The study reports numerous implications for management together with lines for future directions.

Unleashing the importance of creativity, experience and intellectual capital in the adaptation of export marketing strategy and competitive position.

Export marketing strategy has become an exciting research topic in strategic management literature because of its momentous role in sustainable competitive advantage and performance of firms. However, it is not yet recognized what factors enable top management team in adaptation of the export marketing strategy. This research aims to unleash how the intangible skills; creativity, business experience and intellectual capital facilitate marketing managers in adaptation of the expert marketing strategy (product, price, promotion and distribution) that can spur sustainable competitive performance. We collected data from 293 SMEs and used structural equation modeling for testing the hypotheses. The results indicate that the intangible skills; creativity, experience and intellectual capital do not directly contribute to sustainable competitive performance. However, creativity has a significant influence on product, price, promotion and distribution strategy, experience has a significant influence on product, price and promotion strategy and intellectual capital is only a significant predictor of product strategy. In the dimensions of export marketing strategy, product, price and distribution significantly while promotion does not significantly contribute to sustainable competitive performance. Moreover, export marketing strategy adaptation fully mediates the relationship between creativity and sustainable competitive performance as well as between experience and sustainable competitive performance while it does not mediate the path between intellectual capital and sustainable competitive performance. The findings recommend SMEs to emphasize highly skilled marketing staff who have competencies (experience, creative and intellectual) in order to build an effective export marketing strategy—resulting sustainable competitive performance. Further implications are discussed.