Review of Managerial Science最新文献

Abstract

Bibliometric analysis has recently become a popular and rigorous technique used for exploring and analyzing the literature in business and management. Prior studies principally focused on ‘how to do bibliometric analysis’, presenting an overview of the bibliometric methodology along with various techniques and step-by-step guidelines that can be relied on to rigorously conduct bibliometric analysis. However, the current body of evidence is limited in its ability to provide practical knowledge that can enhance the design and performance of bibliometric research. This claim is supported even by the fact that relevant studies refer to their work as ‘bibliometric analysis’ rather than ‘bibliometric research’. Accordingly, we endeavor to offer a more functional framework for researchers who wish to design/conduct bibliometric research on any field of research, especially business and management. To do this, we followed a twofold way. We first outlined the main stages and steps of typical bibliometric research. Then, we proposed a comprehensive framework for specifying how to design/conduct the research and under what headings the relevant stages (step-by-step) will be used and/or presented. Thus, the current paper is expected to be a useful source to gain insights into the available techniques and guide researchers in designing/conducting bibliometric research.

Abstract

Technological advancements have created opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation and enabled the development of new products, services, platforms, and business models, including the freemium business model. The freemium business model is present in several digital services (e.g., music, social networking, and gaming), but, for businesses to succeed, it is of the utmost importance that users convert their subscriptions from free to premium. Previous research has endeavored to explain what motivations drive consumers to adopt different digital services and platforms and what motivations and user characteristics lead them to convert to the premium service, but little research has been dedicated to the motivations for consumers to distinguish between competing platforms. To enhance comprehension of these matters, this study analyzes a group of motivations and user characteristics as explanatory variables. Data was obtained via an online questionnaire, with a sample of 231 users of music streaming platforms. The main results suggest that satisfaction, perceived value, and ubiquity are statistically significant motivations that positively influence choosing a platform. Regarding subscribing to the premium service, the same motivations, as well as users’ age and occupation, present influential results, which are relevant from theoretical and managerial points of view, especially for entrepreneurs aiming to define the best strategy to successfully deploy their digital businesses.

Abstract

The Metaverse is an immersive digital environment that enables users, through avatars, to create worlds, objects, and interact with each other for various purposes. Furthermore, its significance in Business and Management is increasingly evident. The objective of this research is to examine the evolution, trends, and research approaches related to the Metaverse in the field of Business and Management. This study presents a comprehensive contextualization and bibliometric analysis of the existing literature in this area. In the contextualization phase, publications per year, citations received per year, most cited publications, and languages used in publications were examined. These analyses provided an overview of the temporal evolution of research, influential publications, and language diversity in the field of Business and Management. Subsequently, a bibliometric analysis was conducted using Co-citation, Bibliographic coupling, and Co-occurrence of author keywords. These analyses helped identify relationships between scientific works, thematic connections, and collaborations among researchers in the studied field. The use of the Web of Science database ensured the quality and comprehensiveness of the collected data, while the Vosviewer tool facilitated efficient visualization and analysis of the results. The findings of this study provide a detailed understanding of the research landscape in Business and Management, revealing key areas of focus, significant contributions, and existing collaboration networks. These insights can be valuable for researchers, professionals, and regulators in the field of Business and Management.

Professional service firms are common in some areas, in particular auditing and law. They are organized as partnerships, private corporations, or public corporations. This paper discusses the first category of these three. When a partner leaves the partnership, her/his shares are redeemed. Two alternatives for redemption are at book value, the traditional alternative, or at fair market value. By means of a novel discounted dividends model that includes risk taking, it is shown that there may be an economic incentive for risk taking when the redemption value is equal to book value. There may also be an incentive for risk taking when the redemption value is equal to fair market value. However, the level of risk taking in the latter alternative is not higher than the level of risk taking in the former alternative. Switching from book value to fair market value as redemption value is hence suggested as one way to reduce client propensity for litigation. This paper’s incentive for risk taking in a professional partnership has apparently not been noted in the literature.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant economic impact. Different economic agents have been forced to make temporary or permanent changes to their usual patterns of economic activity. In some business sectors, confinement brought activity to a standstill; in others, it led to the spread of teleworking and, in parallel, highlighted, among other aspects, the importance of digital sales channels. In this context, digitalization can be seen as an opportunity (even a necessity) to maintain the level of business activity and to develop new business initiatives. Firms that used digital tools in their pre-pandemic processes were better prepared to face the health and economic crises and could emerge from them earlier than those companies that were less digitized. Drawing on data from The Future of Business Survey, this paper analyzes the adoption of digital tools in the wake of the pandemic and examines the relationship between pre- and post-pandemic indicators of business digitization and business performance, as measured by sales and employeees. It also considers the diversity of existing digital platforms and the possible uses of these tools.

Practical wisdom, an essential component of leadership, has been approached mainly from a theoretical perspective. While there are barely any empirical studies on leaders’ practical wisdom, quantitative ones are even rarer, and no valid measure of a leader’s practical wisdom exists. Thus, our understanding of whether and how wise leaders influence their followers is limited. Inspired by Thomas Aquinas’ ideas on practical wisdom, we operationalize it as a tridimensional capacity of inquiring, judging, and acting in an emotionally regulated way, and develop and validate a corresponding measure of leader-expressed practical wisdom. To support our operationalization, we test how leader-expressed practical wisdom predicts employees’ speaking up behaviors via their psychological safety. Our rationale is that to make better decisions, wise leaders are receptive to employees’ views that address matters of concern and challenge the status quo with the intention of improving the situation – such a receptiveness being enabled by fostering employees’ psychological safety. Through a two-wave field study, a three-wave field study, and a vignette-based experiment carried out in three countries we obtain empirical support for that three-dimensional construct and show that leader-expressed practical wisdom predicts employees’ speaking up behaviors via their psychological safety.

The literature that recognizes the entrepreneurial function as a fundamental factor in regions’ and countries’ growth abounds. When studying the macroeconomic conditions that favor entrepreneurship, most studies analyze the problem from an organizational level. This article assumes the value of entrepreneurship as a mediating element in economic growth. It analyzes the most relevant legal and macroeconomic conditions that improve the suitable adjustment of entrepreneurial initiatives to the demands and available resources of a given economy. These conditions are not analyzed strictly from an economic perspective but in terms of their impact on the entrepreneurial function. To validate our hypotheses, a qualitative methodology focused on Latin American countries is used to reduce the heterogeneity of the cultural and historical context of the studied cases. The results reveal that low or moderate inflation, together with investment freedom and low tax burden, are the most determining factors of economic growth in Latin America.

Contemporary contexts are mainly characterized by the properties of emerging technologies. In theory borrowing, the assumptions and reasoning mechanisms of the original theory may not be realized in the contemporary context. Consequently, the propositions of the borrowed theory may become inconsistent under influence of the properties of the contemporary context. In this respect, the theory propositions cannot be used without considering the impact of new context properties. There are situations where the properties of emerging technologies may directly or indirectly affect theory borrowing. In this study, we develop a model for theory borrowing in contemporary contexts. The model is novel in its reliance on the most foundational components of the theory structure (i.e., assumptions and reasoning mechanisms) in relation to properties of emerging technologies. We articulate that if the properties of an emerging technology can realize the assumptions and reasoning mechanisms of a theory, borrowing the theory is appropriate in the contemporary context. Also, we consider developing the theory propositions to accommodate technological properties. The validity of our model is corroborated by evaluating 14 theories used in blockchain literature. The results of the thematic analysis show how contemporary contexts with blockchain properties realize the assumptions and reasoning mechanisms of 14 theories. Moreover, we show how the propositions of 14 theories can adapt to blockchain properties. Our model contributes to successful theory-driven designs of emerging technology-oriented research to increase the managerial relevance of their results. Finally, we present a decision matrix to inform the practice of theory borrowing for scholarly inquiries.

Abstract

We present an approximation technique for solving multistage stochastic programming problems with an underlying Markov stochastic process. This process is approximated by a discrete skeleton process, which is consequently smoothed down by means of the original unconditional distribution. Approximated in this way, the problem is solvable by means of Markov Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming. We state an upper bound for the nested distance between the exact process and its approximation and discuss its convergence in the one-dimensional case. We further propose an adjustment of the approximation, which guarantees that the approximate problem is bounded. Finally, we apply our technique to a real-life production-emission trading problem and demonstrate the performance of its approximation given the “true” distribution of the random parameters.

The meetings, incentives, conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism has intensively grown in recent decades. The MICE sector has also been strongly affected by social and technological changes, especially new social habits resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research maps the state of the art in MICE tourism and its digitalization from 1997 (first published article found on the subject) to 2022, as well as the changes brought about by COVID-19 to the management of MICE tourism. To identify the main changes caused by COVID-19 pandemic in MICE tourism management, we carried out a survey based on surveys with Conference managers, Exhibition and Trade Fair Centers, and Convention Bureaus in Spain, a leading country in MICE tourism worldwide. For this purpose, we carried out a survey based on surveys with managers of Conference, Exhibition and Trade Fair Centers and Convention Bureaus in Spain, a leading country in MICE tourism worldwide, to identify the main changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused in the management of this type of tourism. Based on the results obtained, a bibliometric analysis was carried out using the software SciMAT to find out the thematic evolution of the terms MICE tourism, digital and Business Tourism. This study identifies the most significant topics in MICE tourism management during the pre-pandemic period (1997–2019), the pandemic, and post-pandemic period (2020–2022). We also analyzed the most cited concepts during 1997–2019, as well as their evolution towards other concepts in 2020–2022. Considering the results obtained, future lines of research related to innovation, digitalization, social networks, and destination analysis are proposed for a better and more competitive management of this tourism activity.