This study explores the rhetorical strategies that a new form of organizations, namely farmers markets, use to both delegitimate the distribution practices of large grocery stores and legitimate the sustainability of their alternative food distribution system to their community. Building on a novel framework, the rhetorical strategies of 103 farmers markets that raised funds on Kickstarter in 2022 were examined. Conventional entrepreneurs, those who are more economically oriented, tend to use rhetoric that builds on the industry's existing argument field to convince the community. In contrast, institutional entrepreneurs, those who are more socially oriented, attempt to shift the argument field from economic goals to social goals in order to delegitimate large incumbents and advocate that the role of local food distributors must incorporate social inclusion, economic development of the community, social exchanges between members of the community, well-being of the community, and community identity.

The literature has shown that manufacturing firms that develop green innovations will benefit from important intangible assets such as improved organizational capabilities and market advantages. While these benefits are valuable, a more environmentally relevant and unanswered question is whether developing green innovations can also help the focal manufacturing firm reduce its own level of carbon and toxic emissions, or simply put, whether the green innovative firm pollutes less than other firms. To answer this question, the author used fixed-effects models and collected data on the green patents and emissions of 190 manufacturing firms over a period of 25 years. Findings reveal that developing green innovations leads to lower emissions levels for the innovating firm. Moreover, the impact of green innovations on emissions levels is stronger when the type of green innovation is process-oriented (vs. product-oriented) and when the manufacturing firm operates in countries with more stringent environmental regulations.

PurposeThis research explores how artificial intelligence's (AI's) distinct capabilities (interactivity, autonomy, inscrutability and abstraction), manifested as unique characteristics, impact decision-making in resource-limited social entrepreneurship, assessing their effect on competitive advantage with resource allocation as a key moderator. By analyzing such tensions, this research aims to bridge critical gaps in understanding how emerging technologies influence decisions in social entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachBy adopting a dual theoretical framework (next-generation perceived characteristics of innovations [PCI] and resource-based view), this research employs a quantitative empirical approach by gathering data through e-surveys (n = 269) from a professional database and two prominent conferences in AI and social entrepreneurship.FindingsLinear and nonlinear relationships among AI characteristics and decision-making emerge, with the potential for moderation effects influenced by resource allocation.Originality/valueThis research makes four key contributions: empirically examining how distinct AI capabilities, manifested through unique characteristics, influence decision-making in the social entrepreneurship context; conceptually introducing "abstraction" as a novel AI capability; theoretically integrating the next-generation PCI framework with the resource-based view for a novel theoretical lens and practically developing a calibration graph as a "prototype" tool to quantify AI abstraction for resource-limited social entrepreneurship, thus potentially enabling optimal decision-making and consequently competitive advantage.

Purpose An important but neglected area of investigation in digital entrepreneurship is the combined role of both core and peripheral members of an emerging technological field in shaping the symbolic and social boundaries of the field. This is a serious gap as both categories of members play a distinct role in expanding the pool of resources of the field. I address this gap by exploring how membership category is related to funding decisions in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI). Design/methodology/approach The first quantitative study involved a sample of 1,315 AI-based startups which were founded in the period of 2011–2018 in the United States. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 32 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define the boundaries of their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field. Findings The author finds that core members in the newly founded field of AI were more successful at attracting funding from investors than peripheral members and that size of the founding team, number of lead investors, number of patents and CEO approval were positively related to funding. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 30 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field. Research limitations/implications This study is one of the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to bring empirical evidence that investors adapt their funding strategy to membership categories (core and peripheral members) of a new technological field in their resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, I find that core and peripheral members claim distinct roles in their participation and contribution to the field in terms of technological developments, and that although core members attract more resources than peripheral members, both actors play a significant role in expanding the field’s social boundaries. Practical implications Core AI entrepreneurs who wish to attract funding may consider operating in fewer categories in order to be perceived as core members of the field, and thus focus their activities and limited resources to build internal AI capabilities. Entrepreneurs may invest early in filing a patent to signal their in-house AI capabilities to investors. Social implications The social boundaries of an emerging technological field are shaped by a multitude of actors and not only the core members of the field. The author should pay attention to the role of each category of actors and build on their contributions to expand a promising field. Originality/value This paper is among the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to study the resource acquisition strategies of entrepreneurs in a newly establishing technological field.

PurposeWe explore how NGO's local entrepreneurial initiatives to empower women entrepreneurs can compensate for weak state policies for women in a context of male-dominated socio-cultural norms.Design/methodology/approachWe use the case of a local entrepreneurial initiative launched in the Atlas region of Morocco, the Empowering Women in the Atlas Initiative (EWA). We collected data through 51 semi-structured interviews of women entrepreneurs in three cooperatives which exploit the natural resources of their region to establish a social venture. Our data are longitudinal as they were collected at two time periods: before and after the initiative.FindingsThe findings of this study suggest that local entrepreneurial initiatives can have a significant impact on rural women entrepreneurs' empowerment. The improved perception of empowerment has not only helped them develop capacities to leverage the business opportunities linked to the natural resources of their region, but it has also increased their status and role within their family and community.Practical implicationsWe make recommendations for policymakers to encourage this type of initiative to compensate for the absence of supporting policies geared toward women.Originality/valueOur study is one of the first to look at empowerment as a policy instrument to develop women entrepreneurial activities in rural areas of developing countries. Our paper uses a unique hierarchical perspective and a multidimensional framework for analyzing social cooperative ventures and rural women entrepreneurs' empowerment. Our paper unravels interesting insights for women entrepreneurs' narration strategies.

PurposeCrises, such as COVID-19 pandemic, are critical events that provoke important changes in organizational practices, regulations and actors' roles. The pharmaceutical sector has been strongly affected because of the urgency to produce drugs that are effective and safe. However, the validation process and regulations are historically restrictive in this sector. This study aims to study how biotechnology firms, small companies lacking resources, have undertaken strategic actions during crisis time to induce important changes to their advantage within such a highly regulated environment.Design/methodology/approachInterviews were conducted with 21 managers in four mRNA-based biotechnology firms.FindingsResults showed that rhetorical strategies and institutional actions are used in order to manage change opportunities. Media attention, greater openness of state agencies and public willingness to accept new ways of treatment illustrated this opportunity of change in favor of biotechnology firms.Originality/valueHighly regulated environments tend to be unfavorable to smaller firms with limited resources to overcome these constraints. The authors show that times of crisis can reverse this assumption through the provision of new opportunities as long as the smaller firms skillfully use strategic actions to exploit the institutional changes at play.

Our study examines the impact of the diffusion of the Internet on two important CSR practices among Chinese manufacturing firms: Corporate donation and environmental pollution. Based on the data of listed industrial firms operating in manufacturing sectors in China between 2010 and 2018, we run a series of regressions to examine the impact of Internet penetration on the two CSR practices of Chinese firms. We found that the diffusion of the Internet has a positive non-linear impact on donation and pollution. Our findings advance research on the impact of macro-level technologies on firms’ micro-level responses to stakeholder social concerns.

We employ the literature on institutional theory and environmental management to argue that environmental innovation as an unconventional source of innovation can lead to financial performance through environmental legitimacy. Using data on environmental innovation (in the form of patents), environmental legitimacy, and market valuation for 191 industrial firms in polluting industries for a 25-year period, our analysis supports our argument. The results show that environmental innovation has a positive impact on market value, but this relationship is partially mediated by legitimacy. Although firms tend to not consider environmental innovation as a conventional source of competitive advantage and financial returns, our findings indicate that managers of industrial firms should focus their operations on developing environmental innovations to attain legitimacy in industries that are stigmatized by high pollution levels. In turn, environmental legitimacy will not only shield the firm from the industry’s mounting institutional pressures but also lead to higher market valuation.

Innovation management has attracted considerable attention from management scholars in all disciplines given the critical importance of innovation activities to all firms. While our knowledge of the innovation process has advanced, there is little debate that the tasks within the main stages of the process remain not only resource-intensive but also fraught with ambiguity. In the meantime, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been rising as a powerful general-purpose technology that promises to lower uncertainty with more accurate predictions and to reduce the cost of laborious tasks. Here, we perform a critical review of the literature at the intersection of artificial intelligence and innovation management to present our thoughts on the ways AI can augment innovation managers in dealing with their tasks at each of the four stages of the process. We also present the articles in this special issue and explain their contribution to advancing our knowledge on how AI can act as an enabler for innovation.

This research adopts a consumer focus in examining the impact of perceived legitimacy of sharing economy platforms on attitude and behavioural intention in the accommodation sector. By investigating tourist adoption of sharing economy platforms from a legitimacy perspective, this research differs from past studies which focused on characteristics of new services to predict adoption. Results show that (1) tourists evaluate legitimacy through comparisons with traditional offers in the accommodation sector rather than with other sharing economy offers, (2) lack of legitimacy has a negative effect on guest behavioural intentions and (3) this effect is moderated by relativism. Even though sharing economy platforms’ commercial success may imply that they are enjoying a high level of legitimacy in the eyes of tourists, our results suggest that tourists act as societal actors and that the legitimacy issues raised by the sharing economy are relevant to them and inform their decisions.

Digital platforms are an important organising form in business-to-business markets and have mirrored increasing research in end-user customers' interactions with digital platforms. Much less studied are the digital platform infrastructures underpinning this customer interfacing activity which must be built and maintained for digital platforms to exist and operate. We explore how institutional pioneers attempted to build a new digital platform with a vision of the cashless society beyond the traditional payment methods. Our findings demonstrate the insightful role of institutional pioneers in digital infrastructure-building through energizing the direction, network goals, positioning with other market-actors in the backstage. We show how the tensions produced by the organizing and ordering activities in the digital infrastructure field are resolved through brokering, alignment and workarounds. We unravel the way institutional pioneers use articulation work to define a legitimate course of actions for all actors in their organizing of standards, structure and behavioural focus.

Recent developments in the innovation literature suggest that even when an organization truthfully implements the adopted R&D policy, it may still fail to achieve its intended goals, a phenomenon called means-ends decoupling. We employ a systematic literature review to answer the question of "what is the current state of knowledge in the phenomenon of means-ends decoupling in the literature" and "where it can move in the future." Our paper provides a framework that delineates means-ends decoupling from policy-practice decoupling and identifies the underlying mechanisms that explain when and how means-ends decoupling may occur within an organization's activities.

Research in corporate environmental practices has shown that stakeholders impose coercive and normative forces that drive firms to perform environmental protection actions. However, limited attention has been placed on how different constituents of stakeholders value the firm's environmental actions. By focusing on industry peers as a constituent of stakeholders, we examine how the firm's environmental actions impact its reputation. Based on institutional theory and signaling theory we propose that symbolic environmental actions negatively affect reputation, whereas substantive actions improve firm's reputation among its peers. Building on the notion of signaling process, the authors also observe that a firm's reporting practices moderate positively the negative effect of symbolic actions. Data from a sample of 213 publicly traded firms operating in polluting industries from 2006 to 2013 support these results. The findings emphasize the danger of using symbolic actions to signal environmental commitment in a context of high-involvement information search and opportunistic behaviors.

Information systems literature suggests that reputation is the main judgment form that captures user-related information online. Drawing on social judgment literature, we contend that a user's online characteristics and past actions are not all reputation-based, but also legitimacy-based, and that transaction stake determines whether users will use reputation or legitimacy judgment to evaluate other users. Using Airbnb, we show that level of stake in a transaction determines the judgment form (reputation or legitimacy) that guests resort to when evaluating a host. Moreover, we find that providing extensive information on a host to potential guests in lowstake transactions is counterproductive.

This study investigates the effects of entrepreneurs allocating time and resources for pro-social initiatives on the perceptions of potential financial investors. Conducting two experiments, we investigate these effects and report findings that suggest corporate social responsibility initiatives may lead to increased favorable judgments of legitimacy, which in turn, facilitate obtaining funding from financial investors. We also find that these effects are more likely to occur in environments marked by low levels of dynamism. The contribution of this research is both novel and important, as it is concerned with entrepreneurs who are uniquely not necessarily concerned with being regarded as "green," but may incorporate green initiatives in their for-profit ventures. Therefore, this study improves our understanding of how non-green entrepreneurs who act upon their pro-social values may be perceived by financial investors.

Managing goals is a key network management function and is critical in the implementation of industrial R&D projects. In this paper, we explore the implementation of an industrial R&D project, focusing in particular upon the role of means-ends decoupling work to understand how the goals are managed. We combine several data sources in our case research to explore project implementation through an understanding of means-ends decoupling work. We collected in-depth interviews, archival records and field observations within the R&D research setting of an industrial R&D project in the period of 2015 to 2017. Our findings identify three types of means-ends decoupling work in R&D project implementation: ‘work on’ causal complexity, ‘work at’ behavioural invisibility, and ‘work with’ practice multiplicity. In addition, we uncover six dynamic micro-mechanisms that collectively influence the making and nature of means-ends decoupling work and therefore serve to allow for the fluid switching of work as the institutional conditions permit. Overall, our findings have significant implications for understanding means-ends decoupling as a highly skilled network competence for managing R&D project implementation goals.

Although firms widely use product preannouncements as a signaling strategy to influence external audiences' perceptions and decisions, environmental scholars have rarely investigated this medium as a legitimation strategy. This study explores the impact of environmental performance on firms' propensity to use symbolic green new product preannouncements to signal their green actions. Building on a sample of 503 green product preannouncements from 2008 to 2012, the findings show that firms with lower environmental performance tend to issue more symbolic green preannouncements. We also found that the level of concentration in the industry moderates the relationship between environmental performance and symbolic green preannouncements, such that firms tend to issue more symbolic preannouncements in highly concentrated industries independently of their environmental performance to deter- or respond to competitive signals. This study contributes to the environmental literature by unraveling the determinants of symbolic green product preannouncements.

Peter Drucker once remarked that everything degenerates into work, and if it does not degenerate into work, nothing gets done. This special issue presents our vision for generating more analytical attention to the nature of industrial marketing work and to explore ways in which future research can contribute to this nascent research area. In this introductory article we seek to scope out an agenda for taking some of the themes of industrial marketing work further. In particular, the review points to the opportunities within industrial marketing, drawing on the intersections of Margaret Archer's morphogenetic agency approach with the neoinstitutional and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) fields of study. It then highlights the useful contributions of the papers in this special issue. Our contribution lies in advancing new avenues for researching and, in so doing, ensuring something gets done to research this nascent area.

Most studies investigating the mechanisms through which companies can reduce their environmental footprint have been conducted in the context of developed economies. However, corporate environmentalism in emerging economies is also an important and timely topic. Emerging economies will soon account for more than half of the global emissions and possess specific market conditions that require particular attention from scholars. Building on the international business and knowledge spillover literature, we examine in the context of emerging economies the channels through which environmental spillovers can take place from manufacturing Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to local companies in the host country. We used data from 24 manufacturing industries in China over the period 2005–2010 to test our contention. Our findings indicate that horizontal (with competitors), backward and forward vertical linkages (with supply chain actors) all had a positive effect on the overall environmental performance of an industry. Moreover, we found that backward industrial linkages (with suppliers) have stronger environmental spillovers than forward (with distributors) and horizontal industrial linkages. Our research contributes to the literature at the intersection of international business and sustainability by unraveling the mechanisms of environmental spillovers in host countries, from the perspective of an emerging economy.