Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy (E-Journal)
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Innovation in the Book Market Retail. Preferences Among Romanian Readers
Get PDFToday’s dynamic business environment forces companies to differentiate more than ever and focus on gaining long-term competitive advantages through innovation. The book market faces new challenges, mainly related to the shifting behaviour of readers. Innovation might be perceived as a path towards differentiation, attaining competitive advantage, and market success. Understanding the preferences of the readers and knowing the retail innovation trends could help all the decision-making actors of the book market adapt better to the dynamics of contemporary society and the business environment. The present paper aims at identifying the preferences of Romanian readers regarding the innovations employed in the book market retail. To gather the data, we applied an online questionnaire to a sample of 486 respondents from Romania. The main conclusion of the study underlines that the consumers are not necessarily sensitive to technological innovation or an innovative format of the stores but are highly sensitive to the atmosphere in the bookstores and to the special offers of the bookstores
Human Resources Strategies & Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Literature Review
Get PDFThe novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been the most devastating public health crisis since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920. COVID-19 has impacted every human being and operational system throughout the land. The pandemic has caused challenging times for businesses, financial markets, government agencies, and academia. One area frequently overlooked is COVID-19’s impact implications for workplaces, working practices, and Human Resource Management (HRM) operationalization. This literature review aims to identify best practices implemented for the sustainability of Human Resources (HR) functions and the survival of institutions in the age of a dynamic public health crisis. This is an effective approach to better understand the disruptions caused by COVID-19 on HRM and examine how this pandemic has impacted organizations. The findings obtained focus on four main pillars: (1) recruitment, retention, and the Great Resignation, (2) employee well-being and wellness, (3) remote work options, practices, and professionalism, and (4) HR practitioners' leadership development. These have continued to be salient themes interwoven throughout many articles. These findings suggest that talent and having the most experienced, operationalized, and professional individuals as part of one’s organization are paramount to its success. Upskilling is imperative, and all stakeholders must be open to the inevitability of change as change is constant
Pondering Digitalization: An Exploratory Study on Organizational Capitalization of Digital Media for Disclosing CSR
Get PDFThe goal of this study had as a premise a perceived gap of knowledge regarding the use of digital media and platforms by Romanian organizations with the purpose to disclose corporate social responsibility (CSR) information. In the context of the ever-increasing digitalization process, the research aimed to explore the current situation within the organizational setting to provide evidence on the type of media and content used and with a view to identifying possible trends. To objectively assess the situation, the study employed models developed by various researchers to measure CSR disclosure on corporate websites, Facebook and Twitter accounts. The results of the study indicate that the selected Romanian companies make limited use of online media for the purpose to reveal CSR. They rather prefer corporate websites and Facebook accounts to communicate such information to stakeholders, while Twitter is rarely utilized. The findings point to the fact that education and social development are the areas of CSR where Romanian companies mostly contribute, but, at the same time, they signal that the advantages and advances availed by systemic digitalization are yet to be properly exploited against the backdrop of CSR disclosure
Looking into the Antecedents of the Transformation of IT Jobs. A Country-based Perspective
Get PDFTechnology is changing at an exponential rate. As a result, it does have a disruptive life on society and our lives. It changes our personal lives, socialization, and interaction with people and businesses. Technology has changed and does continue to change the way we work. Along with the four industrial revolutions, many jobs have disappeared, more jobs have been created, and almost every job was transformed by automation. The 4th industrial revolution leading to Industry 4.0 is powered by artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of things. The Information Technology (IT) industry and IT professionals primarily drive this transformation. While information technology specialists contribute with the technology they build to change their world, technology is transforming the profession responsible for this transformation. The paper looks at how digital transformation impacts the transformation of IT jobs, how government policies and managerial strategies impact the transformation of IT jobs and how employees and organizations are responding with investment in skills development. The research relies on a questionnaire-based survey with 132 Romanian IT professionals, students and computer science professors representing small and large organizations. Seven out of the nine hypotheses were supported by the data, confirming that digital transformation impacts the transformation of jobs, particularly IT jobs, and that this drives the need to build new technical and soft skills
Exploring the Effect of Intellectual Capital Management on Innovativeness in a R&D Institute
Get PDFThe literature that empirically investigates the relationship between intellectual capital management and innovativeness in R&D institutions is scarce. Moreover, no sources have been found to extend the analysis to include the technological orientation as a strategic approach to developing innovative capabilities. This study builds on the theoretical premises of the intellectual capital-based view of the firm and the dynamic capabilities view. The paper addresses a research gap by setting out to study the impact of intellectual capital management on innovativeness in an R&D institute while also considering the relationship with technological orientation. It is proposed that intellectual capital management, through its components of human, structural and relational capital, positively affects innovativeness in an R&D institute. Moreover, it is hypothesised that human capital and innovativeness positively affect innovativeness in an R&D institute. The research employs PLS-SEM analysis on data collected from a sample of N=61 employees of an R&D institute. Data has been acquired using a questionnaire measuring intellectual capital management through human, structural and relational capital components as well as innovativeness and technological orientation. Findings confirm the significant direct effects of structural and relational capital on innovativeness and the positive direct effect of human capital and innovativeness on technological orientation. This research represents an original contribution to the academic literature by bringing new evidence concerning the relationships between intellectual capital management, innovativeness, and technological orientation in an R&D institute in Eastern Europe
Teachers’ Attitudes and Insurance Curriculum: Empirical Evidence from Senior Secondary Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria
Get PDFEducation is the most veritable and viable option for national development and redress. Its existence guarantees the nation's building and sustenance. This study evaluated the effects of teachers’ attitudes on insurance curriculum in senior secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive research design cum survey method. A structured questionnaire was employed for data gathering. The questionnaire consisted of the research variables such as teachers’ personalities, teachers’ perceptions, teachers’ learning capacities, and insurance curriculum. The study adopted a multistage sampling technique. A sample size of 147 was drawn from teachers in Senior Secondary Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. Research hypotheses were tested using simple regression techniques. The study confirmed the strategic influence of teachers' attitudes on insurance curriculum in Lagos State. The study contributed significantly to knowledge by adding to the growing literature in teachers’ attitudes and insurance curriculum. School administrators are advised to move swiftly in their quest to provide enlightenment insurance curriculum to teachers in senior secondary schools in Nigeria. Schools Administrators in collaboration with teachers should endeavor to continually drive insurance curriculum awareness and thus ensure to entrench insurance in their respective curricula
Advertising Value Constructs’ Implication on Purchase Intention: Social Media Advertising
Get PDFSocial media advertising has become one of the most popular and profitable advertising modes in today’s business world. Thereby, many firms have adopted digital marketing strategies to promote their business and to increase customer purchases. This study was conducted to examine how identified influential factors, namely, Informativeness, Entertainment, and Irritability, affect social media advertising value and find the ultimate implication on customer’s purchase intention. An online questionnaire was developed and used as a survey instrument to gather the required information from social media users. Relevant research hypotheses were developed and tested using structured equation modelling to identify targeted relationships. The analysis results indicate a more substantial implication of advertising value on customer purchase intention. It implies customers’ positive perception of the advertisement; nevertheless, irritability generates a negative effect. Though the informative components and entertainment acts of promotion had a positive impact on Advertising Value, a more substantial implication was recognized through customers’ evaluation of the entertainment content of those advertisements. Further, the more significant importance of advertising value on brand image and purchase intention was identified through the analysis. The study contributes by identifying needed actions in advertised content to gain customers’ attention through social media advertisements. Further, the model presented confirms the requirement of an effective social media advertising strategy to gain more significant benefit to the firm by enhancing advertising value. Firms need to express a more profound concern about advertised content and repetition frequency since the irritating perception of customers can weaken the advertising value of social media advertisements
Managerial Skills for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs)
Get PDFEffective managerial skills can play a key role in the internal governance of micro and small businesses in Africa, enabling them to survive, compete and thrive in a dynamic business environment. However, due to the low absorption capacity, many micro and small entrepreneurs and managers lack the necessary managerial skills. We collected data from MSMEs owners and managers in Tanzania to examine the managerial skills required and their effect on business performance based on thematic content analysis and regression analysis. The results show that the managerial skills of MSMEs owners and managers have a significantly positive effect on MSMEs performance, in particular, financial management, marketing, human relations, and entrepreneurial skills were crucial skills in running small businesses successfully. However, financial management, marketing and entrepreneurial skills were the main skills gaps for many MSMEs owners and managers, suggesting that education, mentoring, and training in these areas for MSMEs owners and managers need to be strengthened. This study argues that since young people form the majority of the stakeholders running small businesses, targeted policies and strategies to promote entrepreneurship among young people through entrepreneurial learning and experiences can help instil an entrepreneurial mindset, one of the crucial skills in small business management
The Impact of COVID-19 on Sustainability and Changing Consumer Behavior in the Textile Industry. Is it Significant?
Get PDFUnderstanding consumer behavior and clearly predicting its subsequent direction is a complex process. We can often see significant differences between how a consumer behaves in a given market and what his attitudes, needs, or expectations are. It is very important to place much more emphasis on the area of consumer behavior than on the individual, to meet his needs and wishes as much as possible. In the following article, we conducted a survey in the form of a questionnaire on an online platform with a sample of 500 respondents from the Slovak Republic. The foundation of our study was to examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still a topical issue and it is a significant impact on daily life, has changed the shopping behavior in the clothing industry with which they consciously purchase. We were also interested in the dependence between income and frequency of purchase. The methods used in the paper were based on a theoretical elaboration of the issue of consumer behavior and the clothing industry as the second-largest polluter of the environment after the oil industry, subsequent analysis and synthesis. Another statistical method that we used in the paper was the analysis of qualitative data from the questionnaire survey through the creation of contingency tables and determining the dependence, respectively, independence between individual variables. We consider this article to be a good basis for further research
Managerial Interpersonal Competencies - Benefiting from Learning Organization Characteristics in SMEs
Get PDFTo succeed in today's ever-changing business environment, enterprises must rely heavily on their own abilities to learn and manage acquired knowledge. In this sense, the concept of learning organization has been proposed as an ideal type of organization for competing and surviving in the contemporary, highly demanding business environment. The presumption that employees will be more open to discussions, new ideas, to acknowledge and correct their own mistakes in a favorable and supportive work environment implies that managers potentially play significant roles in developing such environments. The behavioral approach that managers take in interpersonal dynamics with their subordinates stands out as a particularly important factor in developing favorable work environments for learning and change, i.e., encouraging employees to engage in, for them, often risky and unpleasant processes of learning and changing their initial ideas, standpoints and eventually mental models. In the relevant literature, these topics have been explored a number of times in large enterprises, while they are, with a few exceptions, mostly neglected in the case of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that managers’ interpersonal competencies (MIC) have in the emergence and the development of learning organization characteristics (LOC) in their enterprises. In addition, this paper investigates the effects of the interrelationship between MIC and LOC on overall managerial effectiveness in order to gain a deeper insight into the potential managerial and organizational benefits of the dynamics between MIC and LOC. To provide answers to the stated research agenda, empirical research has been conducted on the sample of 87 employees and managers from Croatian SMEs. Collected data were processed via SPSS 23.0 and Microsoft Excel. Results obtained suggest that there is a significant interplay between MIC and LOC and that LOC may play a positive mediating role in the effect of MIC on managerial effectiveness