Business Commons^™

Development And Validation Of Ethical Blindness Scale, Darija Aleksić, Guido Palazzo

Economic and Business Review

Recent models of ethical decision making have underlined the influence of unconscious processes of unethical behavior, and ethical blindness has been identified as a construct that deepens the understanding of unintentional unethical behavior. However, to date, no empirically tested measure of ethical blindness exists. Consequently, we have explored and developed a tool for measuring ethical blindness, which is presented in this paper. Based on qualitative data from interviews with individuals employed in different industries and a literature review, we developed a multidimensional measure of ethical blindness. The measure was tested and validated in several consecutive steps on three quantitative data …

Smes “Growing Smart”: The Complementarity Of Intangible And Digital Investment In Small Firms And Their Contribution To Firm Performance, Eva Erjavec, Tjaša Redek, Črt Kostevc

Economic and Business Review

Like large companies, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are turning to new digital technologies and knowledge-based capital to bolster their productivity and growth. However, data show that smaller companies lag significantly in implementing new Industry 4.0 technologies and in the intensity of their use. Lack of skills and human capital is often cited as one of the biggest barriers. This paper examines the benefits of digital technologies, intangible capital, and in particular the role of complementary investments in new technologies and intangible capital to maximize the impact on productivity growth. The analysis draws on extensive firm-level datasets combining business and …

Human Resource Management Systems And Firm Innovation: A Meta-Analytic Study, Yang Zhang, Matthew D. Griffith

Economic and Business Review

Building on the resource-based view, this paper examines the meta-analytic relationships between Human Resource Management (HRM) systems and different types of firm innovation (innovation in products or services, innovation in processes, and innovation in people and organizations) and the moderating role of sampled industries and sampled cultural clusters in these relationships. With 119 records from 57 unique papers published between 2000 and 2020, this study found that HRM systems positively contribute to innovation in products or services, innovation in processes, and innovation in people and organizations. Sampled industries and cultural clusters significantly moderate the relationships between HRM systems and innovation …

The Effect Of Primary School Entrepreneurship Education Programs On The Evolution Of Pupils’ Human Capital Assets, Janez Gorenc, Alenka Slavec Gomezel, Željka Kitić, Blaž Zupan

Economic and Business Review

The formation of entrepreneurship-related human capital in primary-school entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) is of great interest to European policymakers. European education systems have widely implemented EEPs since the Oslo Agenda for entrepreneurship education in Europe was passed in 2006. However, primary-school EEPs remain an underresearched domain of entrepreneurship education. The present article investigates the development of entrepreneurship-related human capital in EEPs for 9–14-year-olds in 22 primary schools. It uses a quasi-experimental design with repeated measures. Based on data obtained from a sample of 180 participants, the analysis finds that the whole group partly improved only one of the components of …

The Impact Of Fdi And Financial Depth On Eu Regional Growth: Income And Spatial Heterogeneity, Marialena Petrakou, Randolph Luca Bruno, Nick Phelps

Economic and Business Review

Background and objective: The paper explores the impact of foreign direct investment and financial development on regional growth at the EU regional level for 2005–2017. Both FDI and financial development are important determinants of the regions’ growth, but not for all EU regions homogeneously. Some EU regions seem to benefit more than others, depending on certain characteristics, which implies that FDI attraction policies need to bear in mind not only country specificities, but also regional specificities, hence confirming the need for developing FDI attraction policies at the subnational level: financial development, capacity building, and Investment Promotion Agencies are key, …

Macroeconomic Drivers, Governance, And Foreign Direct Investment In Central And Eastern European Countries (Ceecs), Parfait Bihkongnyuy Beri, Gabriel Mhonyera

Economic and Business Review

Background and objective: The transition to market-oriented economies in CEECs entailed significant structural economic and institutional reforms. Over the past years, studies have investigated how these reforms affected foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. However, the evidence remains debatable and varies across countries. This study provides new insights by considering the impact of macroeconomic factors, governance, and the moderating effect of governance on the macroeconomic drivers–FDI nexus.

Methods: A panel of 12 countries from 1991 to 2020 are analysed within the framework of conventional methods and Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR).

Results: Results robustly suggest that gross capital formation, macroeconomic stability, and …

How Do Brand Communication And Brand Personality Shape Consumer Loyalty?, Emilija Heleta Švrakić, Maja Arslanagić-Kalajdžić

Economic and Business Review

The concept of brand personality plays a crucial role in brand literature as consumers tend to anthropomorphize brands by attributing human characteristics to them. The creation of a brand personality that resonates with consumers leads to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty over the long term. This study investigates the mediating potential of brand personality dimensions, specifically Competence and Sophistication, in the relationship between brand communication (both controlled and uncontrolled) as an antecedent and brand loyalty as an outcome. Using a sample of 340 users of a cosmetic brand, we employed structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Our results indicate …

Relationship Between Customer Expectations And Financial Performance Of Food Industry Businesses In A Customer Satisfaction Model, Petr Suchanek, Maria Kralova

Economic and Business Review

Research on customer satisfaction in repeat purchases shows that the relationship between customer expectations and customer satisfaction can be inverse to what is commonly reported. This also has an impact on the financial performance of an enterprise, which is therefore directly influenced by customer expectations. The goal of this paper is to determine whether customer satisfaction affects customer expectations and whether these expectations have a direct impact on the financial performance of an enterprise. The variables representing factors of customer satisfaction, including customer expectations, are measured using a customer survey. Business financial performance (BFP) was measured using the ROA, ROE, …

Knowledge Hiding In Organizations: Meta-Analysis 10 Years Later, Miha Škerlavaj, Matej Černe, Saša Batistič

Economic and Business Review

A decade since the seminal paper on knowledge hiding in organizations (Connelly et al., 2012) emerged, this research area has witnessed rapid evolution, resulting in a fragmentation of the field and conceptual proliferation. Given the increasing interest in knowledge hiding, this study complements a set of recently published (systematic) literature reviews and proposes an organizing framework (nomological network) for antecedents and consequences of knowledge hiding, and tests it using meta-analytic procedures. Based on an effect analysis drawn from 131 studies and 147 samples, comprising 47,348 participants, the relationships between knowledge hiding and different antecedent and consequence categories are examined. The …

The Impact Of Wisdom And Courage On Presencing And Absencing At Work: The Mediating Role Of Mindfulness, Melita Balas Rant

Economic and Business Review

Background and Objective: Wisdom and courage are positive psychological capacities. Presencing and absencing at work are novel employee attitudes and behaviours. The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of wisdom and courage on presencing and absencing at work, while also considering possible mediation through mindfulness.

Methods: This paper hypothesises that wisdom has a positive impact on presencing and a negative impact on absencing, while courage has a negative impact on presencing and a positive impact on absencing. We expect mindfulness mediates the aforementioned relationships. An analysis is performed on a sample of 274 employees in …

Giving Sense To Change Leadership: Towards A Narrative-Based Process Model, Antonio Sadarić, Miha Škerlavaj

Economic and Business Review

Introduction: Recent studies on change agency and organizational change failure have significantly broadened the organizational behavior perspective on individual change experiences, however, the underlying mechanism for change leaders’ influential behavior remains a relatively underspecified area.

Objectives: Our central theoretical contribution focuses on the ways in which linking the findings from different research areas that deal with storytelling and persuasive communication can contribute to understanding the underlying mechanism of change leaders’ influential behavior.

Methods: We examine the various strands of research in management concerned with change leadership and persuasive communication, and propose a multidisciplinary perspective from developmental psychology, linguistics, political science, …

The Process Of The Intergenerational Succession Of Leadership In A Family Business, Bojan Dolar, Roberto Biloslavo

Economic and Business Review

Background and objective: In this paper, we explore first-generation leadership succession in family businesses which, despite extensive literature on the subject, remains insufficiently understood. Our goal is to acquire new knowledge and understanding regarding this phenomenon with a view to making it more effective.

Method: The basis of our research is a qualitative multiple case study that includes six medium-sized manufacturing family businesses. We conducted semi-structured interviews with incumbents, successors and family representatives, and analysed the data obtained using the content analysis method.

Results: The data analysis and interpretation led to a definition of the category “The way ahead: the …

A Literature Review Of Hrm Systems And Firm Innovation, Yang Zhang

Economic and Business Review

Background and objective: This paper integrated different theoretical perspectives and investigated how, when, and why human resource management (HRM) systems influence different types of firm innovation. Moreover, this paper presented the current dilemma and future research directions in the field of HRM systems and firm innovation.

Methods: A thorough literature review.

Results: In the HRM system perspective, there are three main types of firm innovation: innovation in products or services, innovation in processes, and innovation in people and organizations. Empirically, researchers have considered organizational capacity, capital, and climate both as moderators and mediators to explain the relationship between HRM systems …

Corruption: A Review Of Issues, Sandra Damijan

Economic and Business Review

This paper provides a historical overview of the concept of corruption, the existing models for studying it, and the main costs that corruption imposes on the economy and society at large. Corruption was first understood as a disturbance of the balance of state power, and later as the immorality of political patronage and favouritism of certain groups. It evolved from the public sphere to the intertwining of the public and private spheres, from a political issue to the intertwining of political and economic issues. The fight against corruption evolved from the maintenance of necessary checks and balances, from moral struggles …