Small Business vulnerability to floods and the effects of disaster loans

In this paper, we examine the impacts of floods on businesses and the efficacy of small business administration (SBA) disaster loans on mitigating disaster aftereffects. We find lack of business adaptation to extreme events in the short term, indicating their extreme vulnerability to flood disasters. Our results further indicate that subsidized disaster loans are important for businesses, with statistically significant effects estimated for businesses employing fewer than 50 people. At the margin, for every additional dollar spent on disaster loans per establishment in a county, four small businesses survive. Gloomy projections about increasing frequency and severity of disasters imply there will be significant loss in local economic activities because of increased vulnerability of small businesses to these incidents. Moreover, these effects will have implications nationwide, given the vital role small businesses play in creating jobs.     

Implementing global corporate citizenship: An integrated business framework

Recent economic, social-political, and natural disasters have all served to highlight the fragility of the global marketplace. As such, it is no longer questioned as to whether or not companies should be good corporate citizens; that is a given. Rather, concern in the 21^st century centers on how businesses can become better global corporate citizens. Unfortunately, without clear guidance regarding how this may be accomplished, global corporate citizenship will remain a fringe activity and not become a critical component of an organization's core business strategy. The integrated framework presented herein identifies key elements and tips for implementing a business-based approach to global corporate citizenship.     

Reducing Demand for Litigation in Consumer Disputes—a Randomized Field Experiment with Social Information

It has long been argued that alternative dispute resolution is superior to traditional court litigation. The paper reviews traditional and behavioural arguments and findings for why litigation rates remain high. The paper then reports on a natural field experiment designed to test how to improve disputes between consumers and businesses in Denmark resolution by including social information into the dispute process. The experiment demonstrates that social information significantly affects litigants’ need for litigation, but that the effect on settlement rates is non-significant. The results are discussed along with suggestions for possible future research into improving the willingness to cooperate in consumer disputes.     

Effects of Entrepreneurial and Environmental Sustainability Orientations on Firm Performance: A Study of Small Businesses in the Philippines

Why do small businesses in developing countries embrace sustainable business practices and what are the effects on their performance? We address these questions by drawing on the natural‐resource based view of the firm to argue that the environmental sustainability orientation of small businesses can be explained by their entrepreneurial orientation. Our study of 197 small businesses in the Philippines shows that an entrepreneurial strategic orientation enables them to develop a more proactive stance toward environmental sustainability practices which lead to superior firm performance. The implications of the findings for future research and for public policy for small businesses are also discussed.     

Qur’anic Ethics for Environmental Responsibility: Implications for Business Practice

Despite the growing interest in examining the role of religious beliefs as a guide towards environmental conscious actions, there is still a lack of research informed by an analysis of divine messages. This deficiency includes the extent to which ethics for environmental responsibility are promoted within textual divine messages; types of environmental themes promoted within the text of divine messages; and implications of such religious environmental ethics for business practice. The present study attempts to fill this gap by conducting a thorough content analysis of environmental themes within the divine message of Muslims (the Qur’an) focusing on their related ethical aspects and business implications. The analysis has revealed 675 verses in 84 chapters throughout all 30 parts of the Qur’an, with environmental content relating to the core components of the natural world, i.e. human beings, water, air, land, plants, animals, and other natural resources. This environmental content and its related ethics are grounded on the belief that humans are vicegerents of God on the earth and their behaviours and actions are motivated by earthly and heavenly rewards. Implications of these findings for different sectors/businesses are also highlighted.     

Spatial competition and agglomeration in the visitor attraction sector

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to understanding spatial competition by examining visitor attractions in two contrasting clusters of lower and higher levels of agglomeration of businesses in Cornwall, UK. The study found that competition is mainly for customers and labour and is related differently to the levels of agglomeration, spatial proximity and thematic product similarity between visitor attractions at the local compared with the regional scale. Location can be used differently for employing ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ competitive strategies. The study contributes to the knowledge on the spatiality of competition and the locational strategies of service businesses.     

家族企业社会责任与企业绩效:内部能力与外部关系的调节效应

文章利用浙江和重庆两地351家家族企业调查数据,在将家族企业社会责任区分为内部人责任、外部人责任和公共责任的基础上,实证检验了家族企业社会责任与企业绩效关系及内部能力和外部关系的调节效应.结果显示:第一,高内部能力(制造能力、吸收能力)家族企业内部人责任对绩效的影响更大;高吸收能力家族企业公共责任对绩效的影响更小;具有丰富外部关系(高密度、大范围关系网络)家族企业外部人责任对绩效的影响更大.第二,高内部能力家族企业中,内部人责任对绩效有显著的正向影响,公共责任对绩效有显著的负向影响.低吸收能力家族企业中,内部人责任对绩效有显著的负向影响;具有低密度关系网络家族企业中,内部人责任对绩效有显著的正向影响,公共责任对绩效有显著的负向影响;具有大范围关系网络家族企业中,公共责任对绩效有显著的负向影响.     

回顾 研判 部署 谱写黑龙江省商务事业新篇章——开拓进取 求实创新 推动商务工作更好更快发展

2011年——"十二五"开局之年,黑龙江省商务事业实现了开门红,成绩斐然。2012年是实施"十二五"规划承上启下的关键一年、是加速发展的一年。2012年,国际环境错综复杂,世界经济增长动力明显减弱;国内经济总体运行态势向好,工业化、信息化、市场化、城镇化、国际化深入发展,区域梯次发展格局正在形成,消费需求增长空间很大;商务领域成本推动价格上涨压力依然存在,自然灾害、市场调控手段和流通设施相对薄弱问题依然突出,扩大消费面临的制约因素仍然较多。基于上述研判,黑龙江省商务事业唯有开拓进取、求实创新、方能实现更好更快发展,谱写新的篇章,方能以商务事业的新跨越推动全省经济社会的大发展。     

The impact of natural disaster on absenteeism, job satisfaction, and job performance of survival employees: An empirical study of the survivors in Wenchuan Earthquake

Natural disasters cause serious damage to businesses in the stricken areas and greatly affect survivors’ psychology and behaviors. Based on data from 206 survival employees in 33 affected firms in Wenchuan Earthquake, this study analyzes the impact of natural disaster on absenteeism, job satisfaction, and job performance of survival employees. Results indicate that after the earthquake, survival employees’ absenteeism and job satisfaction (including intrinsic, extrinsic, and general job satisfaction) decrease significantly, but their task performance, contextual performance, and overall job performance improve significantly. Employees’ learning and innovative performance have no significant change in comparison with that before the earthquake. The authors thus suggest that the affected businesses need to communicate with the survival employees actively, focus more on job security, compensation and working conditions, in order to maintain these employees’ job satisfaction. In addition, enterprises outside the affected areas should give priority to the recruitment of the survival employees given the same conditions, because it is beneficial to both the employing enterprises and the reconstruction of affected areas.     

The Calm before the Storm: Examining Emotion Regulation Consumption in the Face of an Impending Disaster

In the midst of the physical damage and collective stress created by natural disasters, individuals come to terms with their utter lack of control. In the process, a myriad of emotions are experienced, with many of them being negative in nature. Research suggests that during moderately challenging situations individuals experiencing negative emotions may engage in coping attempts to improve their emotional state. Consumption has been one strategy used by individuals to mitigate negative emotions. This research extends previous research by exploring whether such emotion regulation processes occur in extreme conditions such as natural disasters. Specifically, it examines the emotions experienced by individuals, the antecedents of these emotions, as well as how individuals regulate their emotions through consumption. A conceptual model is proposed and tested in Study 1 and findings are once again corroborated in a follow‐up study. Implications for mitigating negative emotions and improving subjective well‐being during extreme crisis situations are discussed.     

Bouncing back from a sudden-onset extreme event: exploring retail enterprises’ resilience capacity

ABSTRACT

A feature of recent decades has been the sudden and unexpected occurrence of catastrophic events seriously affecting people and territories. From an economic viewpoint, this has led scholars to pay increasing attention to factors and determinants taking enterprises face-to-face with extreme and catastrophic events, through the resilience lens. In this context, this study aims to contribute to the literature on resilience to natural disasters which is currently still limited in the business and management fields, both theoretically and empirically. This is particularly true as regards retailing, despite the key role played by retail in the aftermath and recovery periods following on from sudden-onset extreme events such as earthquakes.

The 2012 Emilia earthquake is a case in point with which to explore small retail enterprises’ resilience to sudden-onset disasters. Specifically, our empirical research consisted of administering a structured questionnaire to a sample of small retail enterprises which experienced an earthquake. The unit of analysis adopted was the retail enterprise. Data was processed applying Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM). The structural model aims to verify the impact of sales capabilities, market orientation and networking capabilities on the resilience capacity of retail enterprises affected by an extreme event, controlling for certain financial indicators such as suppliers’ payment timeframes and the use of debt capital, as well as respondent age and gender. The findings show that all the antecedents analysed exert a significant and positive effect on small retail enterprises’ resilience capacity and ability to bounce back from natural disasters. Moreover, suppliers’ payment timeframes showed a direct relationship with retail enterprises’ resilience capacity, with lower use of debt capital equalling higher retail business resilience. Age and gender do not exert any significant effect. Scientific, managerial and public policy implications are derived.

Abbreviation: SEM     

Why Do Some Small Businesses Grow Faster and Become “Successful” While Others Do Not Get Beyond the ‘Foothills’?

Abstract

A great deal of research has been undertaken in the area of growth and yet the reason why some small businesses grow faster and more successful than others, has not received sufficient research attention and little is known. This study sought to provide some understanding of the broad question “Why do some small businesses grow faster and ‘successful’ while others do not get beyond the ‘foothills’”.

The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that it is the actions of the individual entrepreneurs and their management teams that are more significant in achieving business growth. The entrepreneurs in the sample possessed some willingness to pursue opportunities, to marshal resources and initiate actions rather than to react to other people's actions. The owner-managers did not possess the entrepreneurial and management skills authomatically but were acqwuired over time. Our understanding of the growth of small businesses was derived from the in-depth interviews held with the owner-managers themselves on how their businesses evolved over time.     

美国、荷兰政府对大学生创业政策扶持经验及启示

美国、荷兰政府对大学生创业扶持政策的成功经验在于:其完善的创业教育体系、成熟的创业投融资机制、创新型创业教育培训模式、应急创业、项目带动创业和政府鼓励建立地方性创业中心的创业政策。我国应借鉴美国、荷兰政府的先进经验,从更加注重创业素质,树立创业理念,推行有利于创业发展的金融政策等方面进行改进;高度重视培养"企业家精神"教育意识,通过创业教充把解决就业问题与提高社会创新能力融为一体,为建设创新型国家输送高素质人才。     

Governance Structure and the Credibility Gap: Experimental Evidence on Family Businesses’ Sustainability Reporting

This paper examines the success of corporate communication in voluntary sustainability reporting. Existing studies have focused on the perspective of the communicators but lack an understanding of the perspective of information recipients to clearly evaluate this interactive communication process. This paper looks at the issue of a credibility gap perceived by external stakeholders when they doubt the authenticity of communicated information due to the reporting company’s governance structure. The paper uses family businesses to exemplify the emergence of such a gap when outsiders become concerned about the potential agency problem of the integrated ownership and management controlled by a few members of the same family. Following source credibility theory, these concerns raise a credibility gap associated with a family firm’s trustworthiness and goodwill, even if the family has the expertise to carry out sustainability reporting. The findings of two experimental studies indicate that family businesses suffer a greater credibility gap than non-family businesses. An external and independent assurance service can mitigate such gaps, especially when the service is comprehensive and targets family businesses. The paper provides a complete view evaluating corporate communication by looking at the interaction between the communicating company and the information recipients.     

Going green: the evolution of micro‐business environmental practices

This paper examines the process through which micro‐businesses ‘go green’. It builds upon previous studies that have identified the different drivers of this greening process. However, rather than a static focus on specific drivers, the study articulates the evolution of environmental practices over time. The paper uses comparative case studies of six micro‐businesses to build a composite sequence analysis that plots the greening process from its roots through to large‐scale and ambitious ecological projects. The study identifies three distinct stages that businesses pass through during this greening process. This has important implications for policy‐makers and advisors as it was found that the support needed by the businesses changed as they passed through these different stages. In particular, it was found that appropriate support is currently lacking at certain key points of the businesses' greening development. The paper therefore adds to current understanding of small business ecological responsibility by showing how activities and drivers change with the level of engagement. Pointers are provided as to how support can be improved.     

Critical Mass of Women on BODs, Multiple Identities, and Corporate Philanthropic Disaster Response: Evidence from Privately Owned Chinese Firms

Although previous studies focus on the role of women in the boardroom and corporate response to natural disasters, none evaluate how women directors influence corporate philanthropic disaster response (CPDR). This study collects data on the philanthropic responses of privately owned Chinese firms to the Wenchuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, and the Yushu earthquake of April 14, 2010. We find that when at least three women serve on a board of directors (BOD), their companies’ responses to natural disasters are more significant. Age diversity among women on BODs as well as good corporate profitability (e.g., high earnings per share) positively moderates the relationship between women on BODs and CPDR.     

Chirping birds and barking dogs: The interactive effect of ambient sensory cue source and valence on consumers’ choice of natural products

A longstanding assumption underlying retail atmospherics is that positive sensations are inherently more advantageous to sales than negative ones. Using an approach-avoidance motivation framework, we challenge this assumption and highlight situations where unpleasant sensations may be beneficial to both consumers and businesses. In two studies with consequential decisions involving natural and conventional/processed products, we demonstrate an interactive effect of ambient sensory cue source and valence on product choices. We find evidence for this effect across auditory and olfactory sensory modalities. We further demonstrate that this effect is mediated by accessibility of natural (vs. non-natural) concepts and that it occurs primarily among individuals who are intrinsically motivated to consume natural products. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that ambient sensory cues may have a strong impact on consumers’ product choices. Our findings extend prior work on ambient sensations within retail environments and highlight the role of affect-laden sensations, particularly negative ones – an area that has received very little attention in the literature.     

Manufacturer Responsiveness to Consumer Correspondence: An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Perceptions

Although there is general agreement on the importance of the consumer correspondence handling function, specific steps businesses can take to satisfy consumers are relatively unexplored empirically. This study examines 300 consumers’ responses to actual manufacturers' letters addressing complaints and compliments. The discussion focuses on understanding the components of consumer satisfaction to manufacturers'responses and provides suggestions to businesses to increase that satisfaction level.     

The Endogenous African Business: Why and How It Is Different,Why It Is Emerging Now and Why It Matters

ABSTRACT

Africa is currently undergoing a transition that is unprecedented in its history. For the first time, the demand of urban populations pulls business development, thus creating economies with higher levels of specialization than before. This essay highlights the phenomenon of the endogenous African businesses that are arising in this process. These businesses tap into the natural resources and the social, economic, and cultural systems that build upon them. These resources and systems make the African business environment different from business environments in other parts of the world. Furthermore, the endogenous businesses have access to knowledge on how to manage modern businesses in the formal sector of the economy. In combination with African resources and systems, such knowledge enables them to create and sustain and competitive advantage in modern dynamic marketplaces. Endogenous African businesses are important because they have the potential to fuel economic growth, to revitalize rural areas, to contribute to food security and healthy diets, and to provide role models of which Africans can be proud. Hence, these businesses deserve our attention in the next two decades of scholarly research and education on African business.     

Business Ethics Should Study Illicit Businesses: To Advance Respect for Human Rights

Business ethics should include illicit businesses as targets of investigation. For, though such businesses violate human rights they have been largely ignored by business ethicists. It is time to surmount this indifference in view of recent international efforts to define illicit businesses for regulatory purposes. Standing in the way, however, is a meta-ethical question as to whether any business can be declared unqualifiedly immoral. In support of an affirmative answer I address a number of counter-indications by comparing approaches to organized crime and to corporate crime, comparing the ethical critique of businesses studied in business ethics and those socially banned, and comparing the business ethics assumption as to businesses’ ethicality to societal ethical neutrality regarding war-related businesses. My conclusion: to help advance respect for human rights, business ethicists should apply their expertise to the task of defining illicit businesses.