Department of International Business, Marketing, Strategy and Law

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/23

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How does remedial voice impact the target’s romantic relationship? Examining a spillover-crossover model
(2025) Oyet, Mercy C.; Chika-James, Theresa A.
Purpose Positing remedial voicing as the social sharing of a negative emotional experience, and drawing on goal progress theory, and the spillover-crossover model, this study aimed to examine the effects of targets’ remedial voice on their romantic relationships. It examines whether remedial voicing is positively related to spouses’/partners’ enacted hostility toward targets through a spillover-crossover serial mediation pathway involving targets’ rumination and their spouses’/partners’ boundary management strain. Furthermore, it examines a moderated serial mediation relationship wherein relationship quality moderates the spouses’/partners’ experienced boundary management strain-enacted hostility relationship. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data used in the study were collected from 153 spousal/romantic partner couples. Primary respondents were individuals working and residing in the United States or Canada, recruited using convenience sampling from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTURK). Primary respondents invited their spouses/partners to participate in the study. Separate surveys completed by primary respondents and their spouses/partners were matched before data analysis. Correlational and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted in SPSS, and hypothesized mediation, serial mediation and moderated serial mediation relationships were analyzed using SPSS PROCESS. Findings Remedial voicing was found to be positively associated with targets’ rumination. Further, results showed that targets’ rumination spills over into the family domain and then crosses over to spouses’/partners’ boundary management strain, which leads to them to enact hostility toward targets. The results further indicate that high-quality relationship exacerbates the spouse/partner boundary management strain-enacted hostility relationship in the moderated serial mediation relationship examined. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to link remedial voicing to outcomes on targets’ romantic relationships, and to identify the psychological pathway underlying these relationships.
Societal religiosity for commercial and social entrepreneurship
(2025) Muralidharan, Etayankara; Pathak, Saurav
Our study, using 23,395 individual observations from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from 18 countries and supplemented with data on societal religiosity from the Gallup Survey, demonstrates that the influence of societal affective religiosity on the likelihood of individual-level engagement in commercial entrepreneurship (CE) and social entrepreneurship (SE), is contingent on a country’s cultural and socioeconomic conditions. Societal in-group collectivism and performance orientation both moderate positively the influence of affective religiosity on CE and SE. Furthermore, while societal income mobility moderates negatively the influence of affective religiosity on CE and SE, societal income inequality positively moderates the influence of affective religiosity on only SE. Our findings establish cultural and socio-economic conditions as contexts for the effects of affective religiosity on CE and SE to be realized in society.
International experience, growth opportunities, and repatriate job satisfaction
(2025) Roberts, Michael; Muralidharan, Etayankara; Cave, Adam H.
Multinational Enterprises expect to retain repatriates (i.e., returning employees from international assignments) and to gain from the new knowledge and experience they bring back from international assignments. Drawing insights from social exchange theory and using the perspective of psychological contracts, our study findings demonstrate that repatriate perception of recognition of foreign experience influences their job satisfaction, and this influence is mediated by perceived growth opportunities in the organization. Further, this mediation is nuanced in that it is stronger when there is an organization repatriation plan in place. The study contributes to the theoretical underpinnings of the antecedents of repatriate job satisfaction. Moreover, it demonstrates the need to have a strong repatriation plan in place along with growth opportunities within the organization to heighten job satisfaction of these highly valued employees upon their return from an international assignment.
Cultural differences in thinking outside of box: the influence of context-independent versus context-dependent thinking styles on creative task performance
(2025) Guo, Wenxia; Muralidharan, Etayankara; Pathak, Saurav
Previous research has examined cross-cultural influences on creative performance. Findings of this line of inquiry are, however, not consistent. While some scholars suggest that individuals from Western cultures, who tend to apply context-independent thinking styles, produce more novel ideas given a cognitive task than individuals from Eastern cultures, who tend to apply context-dependent thinking styles, others do not find such differences. Our research attempts to explore this dilemma and identify conditions that drive cross-cultural differences in creativity. Overall, our findings suggest that cross-cultural differences in creativity exist, but they may be contingent on the nature of the cognitive tasks that may restrict individuals' cognitive flexibility. In particular, the current research shows that the more the cognitive tasks fit individual differences (context-independent vs. context-dependent thinking styles), the better the task performance.
Societal well-being, self-control and entrepreneurial re-entry
(2025) Pathak, Saurav; Muralidharan, Etayankara
Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of societal levels of well-being and self-control on re-entry of entrepreneurs who have had unfavorable exits during an external crisis. Design/methodology/approach Using 5,351 survey responses from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor obtained from 29 countries post the 2008 economic crisis and supplementing with data from the World Values Survey, the authors show how well-being at the societal level influences entrepreneurial re-entry. Findings The study finds that societal-level dimensions of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being positively influence entrepreneurial re-entry. Further, this influence is mediated by societal-level self-control. Originality/value The study invokes the psychological dimensions of well-being and self-control as higher-order societal constructs that influence entrepreneurial re-entry. The novelty lies in suggesting the mechanisms through which societal-level well-being influences entrepreneurial re-entry after an exit during a crisis. While societal-level dimensions of well-being function as distal drivers of entrepreneurial re-entry, self-control acts as a proximal driver, and the effect of well-being in influencing re-entry is felt through self-control.
Tourism travel post-pandemic: drivers and value co-creation
(2025) Hussein, Rania; Hassan, Mohamed
This research aims to examine the factors that affect people’s attitude toward tourism travel post-pandemic. Additionally, it aims to examine how attitude affects people’s intentions to travel for tourism as well as to engage in value co-creation based on their experiences. This study used a deductive approach with a single cross-sectional survey using a structural questionnaire to test the proposed model. Data was collected from a random sample of Egyptian travelers and resulted in 251 usable questionnaires. Partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used to analyze data. Results indicate that safety measures, social media involvement and destination health risk are significant factors. The results also show that perceived risk mediates the relationship between social media involvement and attitude toward travel. Additionally, attitude has a significant impact on travel intentions as well as value co-creation. This study fills a research gap by developing a well-integrated model to study the variables that affect post-pandemic travel for tourism purposes, as well as what leads customers to assume a more active role through engaging in value co-creation with travel destinations, which is something seen as especially important now, for the recovery process of the tourism sector.
Loneliness and cannabis use among older adults: findings from a Canada national survey during the COVID-19 pandemic
(2024) Li, Lun; Deng, Qian
Background: Cannabis use has been increasing among older adults in Canada, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to examine the association between loneliness and cannabis use among older Canadians during the pandemic. Methods: Quantitative data analyses were performed based on 2,020 participants aged 55 years and older from the Canadian Perspectives Survey Series 6, 2021: Substance Use and Stigma During the Pandemic. Results: This study found that participants who used cannabis in the 30 days before the survey reported significantly higher loneliness scores than those who never used cannabis after adjusting social-demographic, social interaction, and pandemic-related factors. Participants who kept using cannabis during the pandemic also reported significantly higher loneliness scores than those who never used cannabis. Conclusion: The findings about the correlation between cannabis use and greater loneliness contribute to the discourse on potential health and wellbeing harms of cannabis use among older adults.
Equality and harmony: diversity management in China
(2019) Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Wei, William X; Swallow, Phillip
Research into diversity and diversity management has a history going back some forty years or more. As a concept, diversity management developed within the management literature, focusing initially on equal opportunity issues and then going on to embrace, successively, affirmative action policies, diversity management methodologies, and finally diversity management theories and models. The great many articles and books written on the subject reflect its increasing scope, complexity, and nuances of diversity. One limitation of the literature is that it is based almost entirely on American research, which is hardly surprising given that the concept originated in the United States (US) (Agócs and Burr, 1996; Teicher and Spearitt, 1996; Zhang and Tsui, 2013). How best to manage diverse workforces is now, however, a global concern. In the literature there are very few studies on diversity management from developing countries. In particular, there exist very few articles that delve into issues of diversity management in China. This seems to be at odds with that country’s status as a powerhouse driving the global economy.
Leadership and crisis management for businesses globally: the role of leadership in business sustainability in a crisis environment
(2023) Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Roache, Darcia; Muschette, Richard; Singh, Amita
The reach of businesses is expanding, customers’ needs and wants are increasing, and natural and man-made disasters permeate the business environment causing tremendous financial implications on business productivity. Given these crises, there is the need for business leaders to develop leadership skills or adapt different leadership approaches to mitigate the negative effects of crisis and disaster in order to maintain business effectiveness. Considerable literature on disaster management seeks to aid business leaders on how to address/manage disasters in business. This conceptual chapter explores leadership approaches that leaders can implement in times of crisis. We suggest that a leadership function in a crisis environment intensifies the impact of management functions. The chapter concludes by examining the implications of leadership approaches. This then leads us to a discussion of business sustainability and the impact of decision-making on leadership. Although the literature states that transformation is the best in times of crisis, we opine that situational leadership is more appropriate in the dynamic environment of a crisis.
Times of crisis: women and leadership
(2023) Johnson, Teresa Sims; Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Singh, Amita
The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated that countries with greater women’s rights and support for female leadership exhibit more socially progressive policies and competencies when managing crisis. Throughout this tumultuous time, headlines celebrating the success of female leaders’ abilities to manage the spread of Covid-19 dominated popular media prompting a reexamination of gender and leadership during times of crisis. Unique to times of crisis, those traits associated with femininity are welcomed and deemed appropriate by communities and corporations alike and are associated with strong leadership abilities. At a time when the likelihood of failure is heightened, women are often promoted into leadership positions (glass cliff). This suggests that they are being set up to fail. Whether the act of setting women up for failure is true or an unconscious gender bias, it must not be assumed that female leaders are ill equipped for the task at hand nor are they naively accepting these fallible roles. Women show a natural tendency for transformational leadership which means they have the ability to lead with empathy and integrity and inspire followers to act selflessly for the greater good. These are the very traits that are appropriately suited for leadership roles during crises. This ability to understand followers’ needs at a deeper level and act accordingly explains actions that female transformational leaders have made. The barriers in place preventing the rise of women into higher-level leadership positions in business are based on outdated concepts of gender roles. They are not based on merit. Further research needs to investigate the effectiveness of women in leadership roles during crisis situations.
Teaching, technology, and time: revisiting Ellen Rose’s call for reflection in an AI era
(2025) Stasiewich, Ashley
Ellen Rose’s "On Reflection" explores the importance of reflective thought in education, particularly in response to the technological shifts that have reshaped post-secondary teaching. She outlines three forms of reflection—reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, and reflection-then-action—drawing from established concepts previously discussed in literature. While Rose grounds her arguments in interdisciplinary theory, including the work of Dewey and Schön, the latter half of the book adopts a nostalgic tone, advocating for a return to pre-digital modes of reflection—an era that no longer exists. This paper critiques that stance by addressing the current realities of post-secondary educators who must navigate bureaucratic barriers, limited time, and rapid technological advancement. These challenges demand ongoing pedagogical adaptation, often leaving little room for the deep, sustained reflection Rose calls for. Reflection remains essential but must be reimagined to align with contemporary constraints. As institutions respond to demands for accountability and innovation, reflective practice is increasingly sidelined, creating new tensions around academic integrity, assessment design, and student learning. This paper examines how educators can respond to the ethical and instructional challenges posed by AI while maintaining pedagogical integrity and calls for renewed institutional support for reflection as a foundational element of effective teaching and learning.
Teaching students how to succeed in group assignments
(2025) Benson, Lyle
The ability of university students to function effectively as team members in group assignments is essential for their success as they transition to the workforce. For this reason, many universities have teamwork as a required learning outcome for their graduates. Researchers have identified both the problems university students encounter with group assignments and the solutions to these problems. However, one main issue remains—university faculty do little in the way of teaching their students how to work as a team on group assignments. This descriptive practice-based paper reviews the problems associated with university group assignments and provides solutions to these problems and curriculum guidance with specific suggestions on how faculty can teach students to work in group projects. These suggestions can apply to any university group assignment.
Avanzando en la oscuridad: una revisión de los métodos de investigación del liderazgo distribuido
(2023) Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Beckford, Wilfred; Roache, Darcia; Delgado, Miguel Ángel Díaz; Cabrera, Óscar Julio Mauriera; Newton, Paul Michael; Pérez, César Omar Mora
El concepto de un enfoque distribuido del liderazgo ha estado presente desde principios de la década de 1950, pero la investigación sobre el liderazgo distribuido (LD) en un contexto educativo comenzó a principios del siglo XXI y ahora parece ser aceptado como el paradigma de liderazgo para la educación. Sin embargo, el LD no está exento de problemas. Algunos lo han calificado como otra moda de liderazgo, mientras que otros afirman que es simplemente un subconjunto de un enfoque de liderazgo establecido (Edwards, 2011; Fitzsimons, James y Denyer 2011; Jambo y Honge, 2020); de cualquier forma, parece que ha llegado para quedarse.
Digital technologies and the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises
(2024) Yordanova, Desislava; Dana, Leo-Paul; Manolova, Tatiana S.; Pergelova, Albena
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make important contributions to sustainable economic growth, employment, poverty alleviation, local development, and human wellbeing in developed and developing countries. SMEs are also increasingly active international players due to the technological advances that have lowered the risks and costs of foreign market entry. The key among these technological advances is the advent of digital technologies. Indeed, as early as 2010, Etemad, Wilkinson, and Dana noted that “internetization” is a pre-requisite for internationalization in the new economy. Previous research has revealed complex links between internationalization, digitalization, and sustainability in the context of SMEs, and observed that this field is rapidly evolving; however, there are still many gaps in our knowledge about the relationship between digitalization and SME internationalization. Hence, this Special Issue focused on unraveling various ways in which digital technologies affect the internationalization of SMEs. In this Editorial, we present a brief overview of the topic of SME internationalization, followed by the role of digital technology in the internationalization process, and finally offer a summary of the articles in this Special Issue.
Guest editorial: marketing via smart technologies in hospitality and tourism
(2024) Stylos, Nikolaos; Jiang, Yangyang; Pergelova, Albena
Smart technologies are revolutionizing services across various sectors. Smartness creates an innovative substratum of technological advances that offer new ways for service optimization via capitalizing on intelligence capabilities to best serve consumer needs (Stylos et al., 2021). Consequently, the design, operations management, organization of resources, marketing and communications and actual provision of services have a lot to benefit from adopting and disseminating smart technologies in the service organizations and across service partners, to ultimately influence wider service ecosystems (Priporas et al., 2017). In this vein, value creation as influenced by sophisticated apps and other smart technologies is an area of interest for both marketing scholars and practitioners and requires further investigation to support marketing effectiveness in the Industry 4.0 era (Ekren et al., 2023; Osadchaya et al., 2024). Notwithstanding the opportunities that have emerged from this new technological environment, various challenges also need to be addressed. These challenges span across service ecosystems and influence the roles and actions of all stakeholders involved. Thus, there are organizational challenges, ethical considerations, environmental concerns and technological challenges that may need to be tackled, mitigated or even avoided (Marder et al., 2024).
Understanding SMEs’ internationalization through digital platforms: the role of knowledge sharing and consumer education
(2024) Hu, Lala; Filipescu, Diana A.; Pergelova, Albena
Purpose The aim of this study is to understand how digital platforms and context-specific characteristics of China – such as swift guanxi – affect opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) entering this market. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a qualitative approach based on a multiple-case study of Italian SMEs in the wine industry that have activated international activities in China. Primary data consist of 32 interviews with SMEs’ managers, local consumers and other stakeholders involved in firm internationalization. Findings The findings of this study highlight that in SMEs’ internationalization, the process of knowledge/learning on digital platforms takes place in a bidirectional way thanks to the interactions among multiple stakeholders, which activate consumer education and knowledge sharing. Originality/value While previous research has emphasized firms' knowledge acquisition in the internationalization process, this study incorporates both the consumer perspective and the firm perspective, along with considering interactions with various stakeholders.
The human element in digital transformation: the role of talent management for SMEs
(2024) Pergelova, Albena; Yordanova, Desislava
The role of digitalization for business performance has attracted significant research interest. While many studies have advanced the literature with insights on digital tools and strategies, what is less well understood is the role of the human factor in this process. The objective of this study is to assess the role of the human element in the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Theoretically, we draw on sociotechnical theory and dynamic capabilities to underline the importance of integrating the technology and human aspects for enhancing SME performance. Empirically, we use a representative dataset of 1,000 Bulgarian SMEs and perform structural equations modeling. Our findings reveal that the existence of digital strategies by themselves may not lead to improved performance unless they are well integrated with the appropriate talent management practices that support organizational agility. The results underscore the importance of considering the pathways through which digital strategy affects organizational performance for SMEs.
Cultural and distributive justice in firm's response to product failure
(2023) Muralidharan, Etayankara; Guo, Wenxia; Maheshkar, Chandan; Sharma, Vinod
Extant research suggests that in a service failure context, consumer's power distance value orientation interacts with the nature of the firm's response to influence perceptions of distributive justice and satisfaction. We examine whether this interaction is applicable in a goods failure context. In our study that uses an experimental design and data from Canada and Hong Kong, we find that for consumers with high power distance value orientation perception of distributive justice remains the same regardless of the status (higher versus lower) of the individual providing an apology for the goods failure; whereas for consumers with lower power distance value orientation justice perceptions will be lower when the apology is provided by an individual of higher status (versus lower status). These findings are contrary to the findings in a service recovery context and therefore reveal that cultural value orientations (e.g., power distance) may shape customer reactions to the nature of organizational responses in goods and service contexts differently. Justice perceptions further influence customer satisfaction, which is a key for complaints management.
Positive leadership approaches: principles and practices for flourishing schools
(2021) Roache, Darcia; Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Marshall, Jason; Kutsyuruba, Benjamin; Cherkowski, Sabre; Walker, Keith D.
The world is evolving. Economic activity is no longer driven solely by the capitalist ideals of land, labour, and capital; there has been a shift toward a knowledge-based economy. As a result, schools are at the pinnacle of societal growth and development as they are the primary institutions where knowledge is generated, translated, and mobilized. Consequently, it is imperative that school climates based on respect, collegiality, collaboration, gratitude, and engagement are at the forefront of education. These types of climates are critical if schools are to flourish. Creating these flourishing school environments will require a positive leadership approach.
Transformational leadership in practice: bridging the chasm
(2023) Salem, Tarek; Thomson, Stanley Bruce; Roache, Darcia Ann Marie
This chapter captures the bi-furcated challenge of implementing the transformational leadership practices in a complex organizational context. The authors embark on Bass' 4I transformational leadership model and suggest a variety of imperative skills necessary for the proper implementation. From the suggested pool of skills, two are highlighted as the most important and resonate with the 4I model. These are creativity and innovation skills and change management skills. The authors expect to find out the importance of transformational leaders to empower and enable the second line of operational leaders that are capable of efficiently and effectively bridging the transformational leadership chasm from the leaders' vision to the followers' practice.

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