Foreign knowledge spillovers provide valuable inputs for innovation in cross-border business-to-business (B2B) collaborations, yet their contribution to faster new product development (NPD) depends on how boundary-spanning teams (BSTs) integrate and apply this knowledge. Leveraging the knowledge-based view and integrating sufficiency and necessity logics, we examine digital interoperability capability as a technological integration mechanism and collaborative conflict resolution capability as a relational boundary condition in translating foreign knowledge spillovers into faster NPD. Using time-lagged survey data from 338 BST managers and leaders in Ghanaian manufacturing firms, we test a moderated mediation model using PLS-SEM and NCA. The results show that foreign knowledge spillovers do not directly accelerate NPD speed but operate indirectly through digital interoperability. Particularly, exploratory additional findings indicate that digital interoperability exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with NPD speed, revealing diminishing returns at higher levels. Collaborative conflict resolution strengthens the foreign knowledge spillover–digital interoperability and digital interoperability–NPD speed relationships but dampens the direct foreign knowledge spillover–NPD speed relationship. These factors also emerge as necessary conditions for achieving higher NPD speed. The study extends the KBV by showing that translating interorganizational knowledge into NPD speed requires technological and relational capabilities that present both enabling and trade-off effects.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has emerged as a strategic imperative in business-to-business markets. Yet, existing DEI implementation frameworks underplay the roles of frontline translation and organizational resistance. This omission is consequential in global sales contexts, where institutional forces amplify structural barriers to gender-focused DEI initiatives. Drawing on institutional theory and interview data from 41 sales and marketing professionals in India, this study examines how gender-focused DEI initiatives are received within a business context characterized by high power distance and entrenched masculine norms. Conceptualizing DEI implementation as a process of frontline translation, the authors develop an empirically grounded 2 × 2 typology of resistance to DEI initiatives. The typology is organized along two dimensions—form (ideological vs. operational) and level (active vs. passive)—and reveals four distinct resistance types, each driven by specific antecedents rooted in cultural norms and sales-specific constraints. The authors also identify contextually adaptive mitigation strategies and theorize the causal mechanisms linking them to specific drivers of resistance, offering actionable pathways for achieving sustained change. Collectively, findings demonstrate that effective DEI implementation requires strategies that are both culturally informed and operationally grounded. Further, the resulting framework provides a foundation for future research on gender-focused DEI across diverse institutional settings.
This study examines how ESG washing influences firm financial performance by unpacking the stakeholder mechanisms through which symbolic ESG signals are translated into economic outcomes. Drawing on neoinstitutional and signaling theory, we conceptualize ESG washing as a dual strategy combining structural decoupling and external signaling under conditions of information asymmetry. We propose that ESG washing triggers two distinct pathways: symbolic stakeholder actions, which sustain decoupling through visibility-oriented gestures, and substantive stakeholder actions, which promote recoupling through resource-intensive operational alignment. Using a two-wave survey dataset of 460 South Korean firms and complementary qualitative interviews, we find that ESG washing is positively associated with financial performance. However, contrary to conventional assumptions, symbolic stakeholder actions do not mediate this relationship. Instead, substantive stakeholder actions constitute the primary mechanism through which ESG washing translates into financial gains. Furthermore, B2B affiliation strengthens the relationship between ESG washing and symbolic stakeholder actions but does not significantly affect substantive stakeholder actions. These findings contribute to the ESG literature by opening the “black box” between ESG washing and financial performance, distinguishing between visibility-driven and operational pathways, and highlighting the role of market context in shaping decoupling and recoupling dynamics. In doing so, we introduce the concept of “accidental authenticity” to explain how symbolic ESG initiatives may unintentionally evolve into substantive change. This study offers implications for theory, managerial practice, and policy design in promoting more effective ESG governance.
This study examines how sustainability narratives are constructed, legitimised, and contested within power-imbalanced supply chains. Drawing on the concept of cultural hegemony, the study offers insights into how dominant sustainability meanings become accepted as legitimate and taken-for-granted, even when they generate uneven outcomes for weaker actors. The research is conducted in the UK dairy supply chain, a highly regulated business-to-business context. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with retailers, processors, farmers, and industry representatives, we develop a qualitative, theory-building account of hegemonic sustainability governance. Findings identify four mechanisms through which sustainability narratives are stabilised and challenged: (1) narrative framing around measurability and auditability, (2) legitimisation through consent and voluntariness, (3) marginalisation of alternative sustainability concerns grounded in lived producer constraints, and (4) incipient counter-hegemonic mobilisation through horizontal collaboration and alternative legitimacy-building. The study contributes to sustainable supply chain governance research by conceptualising sustainability narratives as a hegemonic governance mechanism and helping explain the persistence of dominant sustainability arrangements beyond coercive power. Regarding social implications, findings suggest that industry frameworks can marginalise weaker actors under the guise of sustainability compliance. The study calls on managers and policymakers to recognise narrative dominance, move beyond molecular changes, and adopt inclusive governance that protects vulnerable actors.
This study addresses a significant gap in industrial B2B branding research by conceptualising, developing, and validating a generalisable measurement scale for Corporate Brand Avoidance (CBA). Grounded in Social Exchange Theory and Signalling Theory, the research adopts a sequential mixed-methods design to uncover how and why firms avoid corporate brands across industrial markets. The first study involves a qualitative exploration through semi-structured interviews with managers in the lift industry, chosen as a representative proxy for complex B2B environments, to generate initial insights into the drivers and outcomes of CBA. The second study develops and validates a multidimensional CBA scale using a large-scale survey sampling diverse sectors across the broader industrial value chain, and PLS-SEM analysis.The resulting reflexive six-dimension scale introduces two new B2B-specific dimensions – Deficit-Liquidity Avoidance and Work-Related Avoidance – reflecting financial fragility and operational performance issues that motivate avoidance in industrial contexts. The findings further reveal that corporate brand distrust and corporate brand inauthenticity are the most influential antecedents of CBA, whereas negative corporate brand equity is its most prominent consequence. By demonstrating that negative past experience does not significantly trigger avoidance in long-term B2B relationships, the study highlights the distinctive nature of industrial decision-making. Overall, this research makes a clear contribution to advancing the theoretical understanding of negative corporate brand relationships across B2B contexts and provides a robust measurement instrument applicable across various industrial sectors.
