The integration of cryptocurrencies into formal banking environments raises important questions regarding technology adoption within regulated financial environments. This study examined the factors influencing Jordanian bank employees’ behavioral intention to adopt cryptocurrencies, using an extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) framework incorporating perceived risk, legitimacy and trust. Although cryptocurrency adoption has been widely explored among individual users and investors, limited research has examined banking contexts where institutional considerations play a central role in shaping behavioral intention to adopt cryptocurrencies. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 404 bank employees in Amman, Jordan and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicated that performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, legitimacy, and trust positively influenced behavioral intention to adopt cryptocurrencies, while perceived risk negatively affected behavioral intention. In contrast, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, price/value and habit were not found to be significant predictors in this professional banking context. The results suggest that trust, legitimacy, and functional considerations play a more important role in shaping behavioral intention to adopt cryptocurrencies among bank employees than hedonic or habitual considerations. Perceived risk, however, remained a key barrier in regulated banking environments. This study is expected to contribute to technology adoption research within regulated financial settings and provide practical insights for policymakers and financial institutions regarding institutional and technological conditions that may support informed cryptocurrency adoption. The study also highlights potential broader implications for future innovation-related initiatives within banking organizations.
Entrepreneurship education research has increasingly moved beyond intention formation toward understanding how educational experiences translate into startup-oriented cognition and early entrepreneurial action. However, limited evidence explains how different educational pathways—experiential entrepreneurship education, digital entrepreneurship education, and university entrepreneurial ecosystem support—shape startup-related outcomes through sequential cognitive mechanisms. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, Entrepreneurial Cognition Theory, and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study develops and tests a moderated serial mediation model linking educational inputs to entrepreneurial intention, nascent entrepreneurial behavior, and startup readiness through entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness. Using survey data from 323 respondents and partial least squares structural equation modeling, the findings show that experiential and digital entrepreneurship education significantly enhance entrepreneurial self-efficacy, whereas university entrepreneurial ecosystem support does not. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively influences entrepreneurial alertness, which subsequently predicts entrepreneurial intention and nascent entrepreneurial behavior, but not startup readiness.The results further support serial mediation effects of experiential and digital entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention through self-efficacy and alertness, and of digital entrepreneurship education on nascent behaviour, while no serial pathway reaches startup readiness. Mentorship support shows a negative interaction with alertness in predicting nascent behaviour, in the direction an autonomy-based account predicts, but the effect does not reach the 5
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming management practice through predictive systems and algorithmic nudges that reshape decision authority, managerial judgment and organisational routines. These developments reveal the limits of governance approaches to AI ethics, which rely on compliance, oversight and risk mitigation to define responsible conduct. This study reframes AI ethics in management through a shift from governance toward stewardship, an orientation that emphasizes attentiveness, reflective judgment and long-term organisational purpose. A systematic literature review combined with Multiple Correspondence Analysis in R, identifies three conceptual clusters: (i)a dominant governance-oriented AI ethics, (ii)an emergent stewardship-oriented AI ethics and (iii)a structural perspective that interprets responsibility through organisational processes influenced through predictive AI. The findings demonstrate that stewardship provides a coherent conceptual alternative that responds to epistemic dependence, algorithmic influence, nudges and managerial role transformation. The study contributes to management research with an integrative view of AI ethics that clarifies how stewardship strengthens responsible managerial engagement.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly reshaping business models (BMs), yet the literature remains conceptually fragmented. This study provides a bibliometric synthesis of 189 articles indexed in the Web of Science, combining co-citation and bibliographic coupling to map both the intellectual foundations and current research fronts of AI-driven BM research. The analysis identifies five core conceptual pillars, centred on dynamic capabilities, digital transformation, ecosystem strategy, and entrepreneurial orientation, and six emerging thematic clusters, including AI commercialisation, sustainable entrepreneurship, generative AI applications, and ecosystem governance. Findings show that AI becomes strategically transformative not when adopted as a stand-alone tool, but when embedded across the business model architecture, reshaping value creation, coordination mechanisms, and capture logics. The review clarifies the mechanisms through which AI acts as an “architect” of business models and highlights boundary conditions related to data access, platform dependence, regulatory constraints, and capability asymmetries. By integrating science mapping with structured qualitative content coding, the study advances theory by linking AI-enabled business model change to capability renewal and entrepreneurial scaling dynamics. Managerially, it identifies hybrid intelligence, governance design, and AI-readiness as critical levers for competitive advantage. The article concludes with a research agenda that moves the field beyond adoption narratives toward mechanism-based and context-sensitive explanations of AI-driven business model innovation.
This study investigates the influence of digital entrepreneurship on tourism business performance in cross-border regions, focusing on the La Raya/A Raia border territory between Spain and Portugal. Using a qualitative multiple case study methodology, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 tourism entrepreneurs equally distributed across both countries. Through systematic analysis using ATLAS.ti, we examine how external factors (legal frameworks, market access, ecosystem barriers) and internal factors (organizational culture, human resources, technology adoption) condition digital transformation in this unique geographical context. Our findings reveal that the border effect simultaneously acts as a barrier and catalyst for digital innovation, creating distinctive dynamics not captured in traditional entrepreneurship models. The study identifies three emerging variables: Border Effect, Digital Sustainability, and Digital Resilience, which significantly influence business performance. The research contributes to cross-border contexts and provides practical insights for entrepreneurs, policymakers, and regional development agencies seeking to foster digital transformation in peripheral territories.
This study examines the effect of a high-tech venture’s industry adherence to the green-tech sector on its ability to secure external equity funding. By considering the acquisition of venture capital (VC) as a two-step process, where the search for VC has the characteristics of a censoring event, we show that, despite an elevated likelihood for a venture with green-tech industry adherence to search for VC, the likelihood that it will proceed to obtain funding is decreased. Backed by a theoretical foundation in principal agent and signalling theories, a two-stage Heckman-probit model is used to disentangle between the probabilities of applying and, respectively, obtaining VC funding. This new methodological approach significantly deepens the understanding of industry influences on venture capital acquisition, thus supplying venture capitalists and entrepreneurs from the green sector with much-needed awareness of the practised selection process and how to optimally manoeuvre through its challenges.
The current study determines the impact of green-hushing, which is the intentional under-communication of genuine sustainability initiatives to avoid scrutiny, on consumer trust, brand performance, and social media engagement, while examining the moderating role of brand authenticity. Grounded in Stakeholder theory and Signaling theory, this research employs a quantitative approach utilizing survey data gathered from 380 managers within China’s startup ecosystem, specifically focusing on the manufacturing and textile sectors. Hypothesized relationships were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), including bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples to evaluate complex mediation and moderation paths. The outcomes indicate that green-hushing has a positive effect on consumer trust which in turn contributes towards brand performance and generates a social media response. Additionally, brand authenticity enhances the relationship between green-hushing and consumer trust, indicating that even restrained, discreet sustainability communications work better when the brand is perceived as authentic, as it alleviates consumer skepticism often associated with aggressive green marketing in the Chinese market. These findings have theoretical value as they broaden the present discussion on sustainability communication beyond greenwashing by illustrating that under-communication strategies are capable of generating performance and trust. Practically, the outcomes of this study could be used by start-ups and marketers as a guide for tailoring sustainability messages in a way which ensures authenticity and that messages do not face consumer-skepticism. Ultimately, the study contributes towards knowledge on how green-hushing works in China’s rapidly transforming digital markets and shows how it could be used as a trust-building and performance enhancing strategy in sustainability marketing.
As sustainability becomes more important and digital transformation happens, entrepreneurial companies are under immense pressure to make sure their digital skills match their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance. This study creates and tests a dynamic capabilities-based model that looks at how digital innovation leadership, digital risk intelligence, and ESG-aligned digital compliance affect sustainable ESG performance and resilient financial outcomes through two serial mediators: digital mindfulness and eco-financial agility. The results, which are based on industries that rely heavily on technology, show that digital innovation leadership and ESG-aligned digital compliance greatly improve digital mindfulness. This, in turn, boosts eco-financial agility, which is an important skill that allows companies to change their financial plans to meet their sustainability goals. Eco-financial agility has a beneficial effect on both sustainable ESG performance and resilient financial outcomes, which shows that it is dual performance enabler. It is interesting to note that digital risk intelligence did not have a big effect on digital mindfulness. This suggests that just being aware of technical risks may not be enough to encourage mindful involvement. The paper builds on dynamic capabilities theory by showing that digital mindfulness and eco-financial agility are cognitive and operational mediators that turn digital intelligence into ESG results. To establish businesses that are financially stable and can last, executives, compliance systems, and digital cultures need to work together. The study gives a new way to think about developing digital skills in business that are focused on ESG.
This article investigates how a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making shapes the performance of student-founded new ventures across countries through the psychological resource of founder resilience and varying institutional conditions. Building on the theory-based view, psychological capital theory, and an institutional perspective, the study conceptualizes scientific decision-making as a deliberate, evidence-oriented logic that entrepreneurs employ in uncertain environments, and examines how this logic translates into better performance when founders are more resilient. Using a cross-country dataset of 19,071 new ventures established by student entrepreneurs across 47 countries at different stages of economic development, the article shows that the indirect effect of a scientific approach on venture performance through founder resilience systematically varies with a country’s economic development level, highlighting important boundary conditions for the effectiveness of “acting as scientists”. In doing so, the study advances international entrepreneurship research by revealing when and where science-based decision-making and founder resilience jointly enhance new venture performance.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) represents one of the most rapidly expanding Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), demonstrating significant growth in deployment rates and a profound impact on business outcomes through enhanced relationship management. This adoption process is situated within the broader framework of Digital Transformation (DT), a transition currently being undertaken by Spanish industry in its pursuit of sustained competitive advantage. Indeed, the degree of DT maturity appears decisive for corporate survival within increasingly dynamic and competitive markets. Among the myriad Information Technology (IT) systems underpinning DT, this study focuses on CRM as a pivotal tool for customer knowledge management, now recognized as fundamental to commercial success. The objective is to evaluate which factors most significantly influence firm performance, specifically regarding both the cultural and technological implementation of CRM, whilst accounting for key complementary variables. This research provides an empirical validation of CRM’s impact within the Spanish construction sector, a cornerstone of the national economy. The findings reveal a robust correlation between CRM utilization and innovative capacity; both elements prove instrumental in enhancing performance expectations and fostering sectoral development. Ultimately, this study substantiates the hypothesis that CRM is central to effective management within the realms of innovation and entrepreneurship, primarily through its contribution to superior firm performance.
This explorative study examines how European crowdfunding platforms interpret and operationalise sustainability. Drawing on qualitative interviews with managers of 16 platforms from nine EU member states and the UK, the study addresses two research questions concerning how European crowdfunding platforms conceptualise sustainability within their organisational strategies and practices, and how they operationalise sustainability across the pre-funding, funding and post-funding phases of funder–project interaction. The findings show that the COVID‑19 pandemic intensified public interest in conscious investment, leading platforms to adjust and strengthen their sustainability practices in response to evolving stakeholder expectations. The three phases of funder–project interaction – pre-funding, funding, and post-funding – serve as critical touchpoints where platforms can enhance transparency, reduce information asymmetry, and improve impact measurement. While many platforms perceive themselves as having strong sustainability orientation, their long-term contributions to sustainable development remain constrained by limited data availability and the absence of standardised reporting frameworks. The study offers context‑specific insights that refine stakeholder‑theoretical perspectives by showing how crowdfunding platforms mediate and balance the expectations of funders, entrepreneurs and regulators when operationalising sustainability across multi‑actor ecosystems. It also outlines practical implications for platform governance and digital-tool adoption, and highlights how EU regulatory instruments may support more consistent sustainability disclosures and strengthen investor protection.
This paper answers the following question: in the context of rural entrepreneurship, what role does risk management play in ensuring business stability? Risk management is essential in rural entrepreneurship, where economic and social conditions present distinct challenges. In rural areas, entrepreneurs face risks related to agricultural market volatility, limited access to finance, and poor infrastructure. In this context, risk management entails adopting sustainable agricultural practices, diversifying economic activities, and using agricultural insurance to mitigate the impact of potential losses. Rural entrepreneurs must develop adaptation and innovation strategies such as using modern technologies for crop monitoring and resource optimization. Collaboration with the community and access to support networks are crucial to assess uncertainties and capitalize on opportunities. Thus, risk management becomes a continuous process of assessment and adaptation to ensure the sustainability and development of rural businesses. This study shows the essential role of managerial competence and strategic planning in successfully managing the challenges and opportunities of rural entrepreneurship. It contributes to the wider discussion on rurality, providing valuable insights into the integration of innovative technologies and modern practices into business models in rural areas of Romania. The results highlight the need for a cohesive and forward-looking approach in business strategy. They also stress the importance of aligning technological advances with flexible and responsive management practices to effectively manage risk in rural settings.
In the digital economy era, reliance on traditional factor inputs alone can no longer enhance firms’ total factor productivity (TFP). Data elements, as an emerging factor of production, have become a critical driver of efficiency enhancement and entrepreneurial performance. This study examines the impact of data elements on enterprise TFP and explores the mechanisms through which this effect operates. Using panel data from all A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2021, we construct a provincial-level indicator of data elements based on the cost method and empirically assess their productivity effects. The results show that data elements significantly enhance firms’ TFP. More importantly, we identify two key entrepreneurial mechanisms through which data elements exert this influence: strengthening innovation capability and improving resource allocation efficiency. By linking data elements with entrepreneurial resource orchestration and dynamic capabilities, this study provides new evidence on how digital resources reshape productivity in modern enterprises. The findings offer practical implications for policymakers and entrepreneurial managers aiming to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through data-driven strategies.
With the widespread application of artificial intelligence technology, green financial regulation has enhanced the precision of credit support, creating opportunities to strengthen supply chain integration and optimise capital allocation efficiency. This study manually gathers subsidiary data of China’s listed industrial enterprises from 2007 to 2023 and employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method to empirically examine the impact of the Green Credit Guidelines (GCGs) on cross-regional entrepreneurship of industrial enterprises. It reveals that the GCGs significantly inhibit cross-regional entrepreneurship by heavy-polluting enterprises. The mechanism analysis indicates that the GCGs primarily impact the level of cross-regional entrepreneurship by strengthening credit financing constraints, promoting environmental information disclosure, and altering entrepreneurs’ personal traits. Additionally, the green credit regulation has a significant impact on samples featuring non-state-owned enterprises, executives with environmental backgrounds, regions with higher marketisation, and industries with more competition. Moreover, it curbs ‘pollution-driven’ cross-regional entrepreneurship and stimulates green entrepreneurial activities. However, the policy does not promote green innovation in these enterprises, displaying a lack of synergy with green subsidy policies. This study extends the existing literature on green credit regulation and provides policy insights into stimulating the vitality of green entrepreneurship and innovation.
The research meso-structure follows a clear logic in highlighting the existing body of literature, the main themes, and the gaps within the discipline. Starting from the three pivotal dimensions as performance measurement and management systems (PMMS), artificial intelligence (AI) and decision-making (DM), the investigative strategy goes beyond a traditional systematic and gap analysis approach, establishing a longitudinal examination over an 18-month timeframe from the initial inquiry, enhanced by textual and co-occurrence analyses, performed using both machine-driven and critical human-centric sensitivity. The authors shape the lines of a roadmap that, on one hand, simplifies the navigation of academic contributions and on the other, moves the initial steps toward a formulation of an alternative trajectory capable of injecting new vitality into organizational practice. This objective has been conceptually achieved through the development of a trinomial approach: an integrative model of PMMS, human capital and AI. Starting from PMMS evolutionary paths, the authors depict the potential for enabling organizational performance processes within complex environments. The roadmap helps to understand the reshaping of the human role within the inter-intra-organizational perspective across both private and public sectors in the contemporary context and in the near future of decision-making. This structured view goes beyond the traditional information system logic, involving a hybridized and coordinated action between emerging “disruptive” technologies and human resources. In this way, the human role would find its enhanced expression within a redesigned organizational structure, also and above all, drawing on data interpretation and the entrepreneurial judgment that distinguishes decision-making between risks and opportunities.
This study provides a comparative analysis of the thematic evolution of research in Waste Management (WM), Circular Economy (CE), and their joint research domain (WM CE) over the period 2004–2024. Using bibliometric techniques —specifically co-word analysis and strategic mapping— the study examines the evolution of scientific production and conceptual structures across these domains. Based on a representative sample of articles indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, the research pursues two objectives: (1) to examine the evolution of scientific output through key bibliometric indicators such as publication volume, authorship, citations, and international collaboration; and (2) to compare the diachronic thematic trajectories of WM, CE, and WM CE. The results reveal differentiated modes of knowledge development. WM follows a stable and mature trajectory characterised by strong thematic continuity, but also by signs of conceptual lock-in that constrain the consolidation of novel approaches. CE exhibits rapid growth and dense international collaboration networks, yet many emerging themes show limited stability and fail to progress towards mainstream positions. The WM CE domain occupies an intermediate position: while more recent and smaller in scale, it displays a coherent set of promising and motor themes combined with low stability values that reflect processes of conceptual recomposition. From a theoretical perspective, the findings suggest that thematic evolution does not always follow a linear niche-to-mainstream progression. Instead, themes often persist through reinterpretation and expansion, leading to non-linear movements across strategic positions. The study contributes methodologically by applying a longitudinal bibliometric approach, empirically by offering a systematic comparison of three key sustainability-related domains, and theoretically by advancing the understanding of knowledge accumulation and research lock-in.
In this age of rapid advancements in technologies and heightened volatility in markets, sustainable performance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups has increased the hinges on their ability for the adoption and innovation. This study has explored the crucial and complex relationships between entrepreneurial resilience, innovation capabilities, digital capabilities and market turbulence, with main focus on how these dimensions would collectively shape the sustainable performance of Chinese SMEs and entrepreneurial ventures. By drawing on these dynamic capabilities theory and innovation-driven growth frameworks, this research has aim to explore the mechanisms through which the resilient entrepreneurial behavior facilitates the digital transformation and fosters economic innovation, ultimately leading towards enhanced sustainability outcomes. For empirically investigating these relationships a quantitative research design has been employed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Primary data collection has been collected with structured surveys from a purposive sampling of 400 Chinese entrepreneurs and business owners, who are actively engaged in digital and sustainability-oriented transformation initiatives. The entrepreneurial resilience has also shown a significant impact on the development of digital capabilities, that provides firms a basis for improving the innovational capabilities. These capabilities have shown key drivers of sustainability performance that is delivering a measurable improvement across environmental, social and economic dimensions. This research has determined market turbulence as a moderating variable that amplify the relationship between resilience and digitally capable development. The outcomes of this research has shown a contingent nature of digital adoption and innovation outcomes, specifically under volatile external conditions. The findings offer a practical implication for the business leaders, policy makers and innovation strategists.
This study examines whether the Theory of Planned Behaviour operates symmetrically when rural youth evaluate two competing career paths: entrepreneurship and civil service employment. This comparison is especially relevant in rural contexts characterised by structural constraints and limited professional alternatives. Using survey data from 599 students enrolled at a rural higher education institution in Spain, we estimate structural equation models linking entrepreneurial attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control to both entrepreneurial and civil service career intentions. Entrepreneurial intentions are positively and significantly driven by entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioural control, while subjective norms are not significant. In contrast, civil service intentions are negatively associated with perceived behavioural control and show no significant relationship with entrepreneurial attitudes or subjective norms. Overall, the findings indicate that the Theory of Planned Behaviour operates asymmetrically across vocational domains in rural contexts, with perceived behavioural control acting as a key discriminator between autonomy-oriented and stability-oriented career trajectories. The study contributes to entrepreneurship-intention research by clarifying the boundary conditions of the Theory of Planned Behaviour across competing vocational domains. The study also offers policy-relevant implications for rural youth employment strategies. Compares entrepreneurial and civil service career intentions using a unified TPB framework in a rural context. Entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioural control positively predict entrepreneurial intentions, while subjective norms are non-significant. Civil service intentions are negatively related to perceived behavioural control, indicating an asymmetric TPB pattern across career paths.
This study examined the impact of social media on managers’ intrapreneurial behaviors in the hospitality industry, focusing on the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the moderating effect of gender. It explored how social media enhances managers’ confidence in their intrapreneurial abilities and the gender-specific barriers that hinder such behaviors. This paper provides actionable insights for interventions in the Kuwaiti hospitality industry and beyond. Data were drawn from 102 managers across hotels, restaurants, and entertainment facilities who represented first-line, mid-level, and top management. Including these three managerial tiers enabled a comprehensive examination of how social media engagement predicts intrapreneurial behaviors across various organizational levels and degrees of operational involvement and strategic influence. By examining managers’ perspectives at different hierarchical levels, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how digital engagement translates into innovative, value-creating actions within organizations. The article focused on understanding the relationship between social media engagement, self-efficacy, and intrapreneurial behaviors. The findings showed that engagement with social media boosted strategic renewal and entrepreneurial action by increasing managers’ confidence to behave entrepreneurially. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is crucial for turning social media engagement into tangible intrapreneurial outcomes, with gender differences shaping how these impacts unfold. This study also provides novel insights into how digital platforms facilitate intrapreneurial behavior, highlighting the importance of self-efficacy and gender. It offers a conceptual lens for understanding how managers can leverage social media to drive innovation within organizations. The results can guide hospitality firms aiming to encourage intrapreneurial actions among their managers.
Amid a global generational shift in consumption, traditional Chinese silk brands are facing structural challenges as Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2009) emerges as the dominant consumer force. This study employs the Kano model and the Better–Worse coefficient method to construct a four-dimensional demand framework encompassing product, technology, service and communication to analyse Generation Z’s consumer preferences and propose strategic transformation paths for silk brands. Our quantitative analysis of 915 valid questionnaires reveals that service (personalised customisation and virtual experience) and communication (brand collaborations and offline experiences) dimensions have the most significant impact on consumer satisfaction and serve as core levers for brand upgrading. Gender-based analysis demonstrates differentiated demand wherein male consumers are more technology-oriented (e.g. flexible electronic silk, self-healing technologies), and female consumers show stronger preference for aesthetic and cultural factors (e.g. intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, colour innovation). This study provides practical guidelines for traditional silk brands’ global entrepreneurial transformation by optimising technology integration pathways through design management, reconstructing brand narratives based on cultural resonance and capturing global niche markets via agile segmentation strategies. Our findings contribute theoretical insights for globalising of cultural heritage brands by integrating consumer demand analysis with strategic innovation frameworks.
