Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.001
Ben Miller , Angelika Rettberg
{"title":"“Todos pagan” (Everybody pays): SMEs and urban violence in Medellín, Colombia","authors":"Ben Miller , Angelika Rettberg","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Medellín, a bustling city of 2.5 million, is marked by convivial relations between formal and informal economic activity, and between legal and criminal actors. This article examines what this context means for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how they respond to it. In Medellín and elsewhere, SMEs are more numerous than large firms but operate at a smaller scale. They are organizationally more informal, less mobile (i.e., more dependent on specific contexts), more accountable to customers and legal authorities, and less prominent in public debate. Their need to act collectively to counter violence may be greater than that of larger companies, yet they may also find it more challenging to organize collective action. As a result, they face possibilities that are different from those of large companies in the context of violence. The article suggests that most SMEs in Medellín have adapted to, or navigate, the multiple, intersecting layers of legality and illegality, of formality and informality, and of actual or threatened violence. Only very few respond by deliberately seeking to change the external environment. Based on a review of official documents, academic literature, and our own observations during several field trips and 39 interviews, we develop a three-part typology of SME responses to violent actors: acquiescence, avoidance, and mitigation. The implications of our findings will be relevant to managers interested in understanding business conditions in the presence of organized criminal activity and the ways in which SMEs have adapted their own practices to those conditions. The findings suggest that some SME strategies are more effective than others in supporting the survival and growth of SMEs in violent contexts. But while cooperation with illegal actors for the purpose of safeguarding economic activities may be conducive to keeping the peace and ensuring enterprise viability in the short run, it also poses challenges to outcomes that would be more beneficial to communities in the long run: empowerment, institutional strengthening, and inclusive economic development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 6","pages":"Pages 743-754"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141934265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.003
Chiara Valentini , Juha Munnukka , Hui Zhao
{"title":"Stakeholder satisfaction with corporate conflict engagement actions: Exploring the effects of goodwill, trust, and value alignment","authors":"Chiara Valentini , Juha Munnukka , Hui Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.08.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the last decade, businesses have played an increasingly significant role in promoting stability, democracy, and human rights, particularly concerning the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which emphasize peace, justice, and strong institutions. Consequently, there has been a greater focus on corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship. Research has explored business motivations and actions in conflict mitigation. Nevertheless, less attention has been given to the impact of conflict engagement actions on stakeholders’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. This study aims to fill this gap by testing the effects of types of corporate conflict engagement actions (CCEAs) on stakeholders’ satisfaction with business choices and overall corporate goodwill. This study employs an experimental design in which respondents are exposed to CCEAs in scenarios related to the Russia–Ukraine conflict. The findings of this study are particularly relevant to business firms and their quest for whether to engage in regions undergoing conflict. The results illuminate the key factors of CCEAs that shape stakeholder satisfaction and corporate goodwill perceptions in today’s complex geopolitical landscape.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 6","pages":"Pages 797-813"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141934264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.004
Knar Khachatryan
{"title":"Entrepreneurship amid armed conflicts: Insights from Artsakh","authors":"Knar Khachatryan","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Armed conflicts are exogenous shocks that engender multifaceted turbulence. This article explores the corporate behavior of companies operating in the active conflict of Artsakh and their strategic responses to the devastating war of 2020 by using multiple case studies. Building on the Business for Peace literature, this article contextualizes the mission and governance mechanisms of companies and their interlinkages with the company activities perceived as peace-enhancing. The research findings support existing evidence indicating that (semi)hybrid business forms are appropriate in unconventional contexts. The article unfolds the mechanisms that enable companies to work through conflict and identify key moderating factors that significantly affect their development perspectives. This study is the first to illuminate how companies from several sectors in a conflict-affected zone in the South Caucasus pursue different combinations of social and economic goals, maintain and develop relationships with stakeholders, and interact progressively with markets and institutions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 6","pages":"Pages 727-741"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141851302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.003
Richard Marcantonio
{"title":"Environmental violence and enterprise: The outsized role of business for environmental peacebuilding","authors":"Richard Marcantonio","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Environmental violence (EV) is the complex of direct and indirect impacts of human-produced pollution on human health and wellbeing. Today, EV is the single largest cause of human mortality and morbidity, resulting in around 8 to 9 million deaths annually and about 275 million years of poor health every year. By comparison, about 89,000 people die from warfare and terrorism each year combined—more than 100 times fewer. EV also drives mass human migration, which displaces about 24 million people annually and is cited as a growing contributory—or even causal—factor for violent conflict. To realize the promise of business for peace, the implications of EV and the systemic suffering it produces must be addressed. This article examines the role of business in producing and mitigating EV and the possibility of reversing it via regenerative practices. It then maps and measures the primary links between business and EV and outlines paths to environmental peacebuilding. Although business is shown to be a chief contributor to EV, this article ultimately argues that it is also one of the most potent tools for countering it and equitably restoring affected communities and ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 6","pages":"Pages 685-698"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141847971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-07-24DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.005
Catherine McDonald
{"title":"Bridging business and human rights and business for peace: A case study of Microsoft’s multitrack diplomacy","authors":"Catherine McDonald","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Through the practice of corporate diplomacy—a subset of track-two diplomacy—multinational enterprises (MNEs) can help address issues of polycentric governance, including those in the realms of business and human rights (BHR) and business for peace (B4P). Despite growing interest in both fields of academia and practice, there remains scope for further empirical work at their intersection. This article, therefore, contributes to the extant literature on BHR and B4P by empirically exploring the case of Microsoft, an American MNE, and its corporate diplomacy activities on digital peace in cyberspace. Specifically, the case focuses on three purposefully selected initiatives: (1) the company’s corporate diplomacy efforts on the Digital Geneva Convention, (2) the Digital Peace Now campaign, and (3) its proactive engagement in response to the war in Ukraine. These initiatives highlight how responsibility, leadership, employee empowerment, and partnerships have contributed to Microsoft’s corporate culture and decision-making processes to create an environment that prioritizes digital peace and integrates both BHR and B4P perspectives. In doing so, this article argues for the importance of addressing B4P activities in tandem with BHR in a complementary manner within practitioner initiatives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 6","pages":"Pages 815-825"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141845433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-06-22DOI: 10.1016/S0007-6813(24)00075-2
{"title":"Inside front cover - ed board","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/S0007-6813(24)00075-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0007-6813(24)00075-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 4","pages":"Page IFC"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681324000752/pdfft?md5=5c9a17158c97690e432ee35d5aba65a5&pid=1-s2.0-S0007681324000752-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141444235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-06-18DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.06.002
{"title":"Written by ChatGPT: AI, large language models, conversational chatbots, and their place in society and business","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.06.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.06.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 5","pages":"Pages 453-459"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141503612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.008
{"title":"Generative artificial intelligence in small and medium enterprises: Navigating its promises and challenges","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The latest technological developments in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) offer powerful capabilities to small and medium enterprises<span> (SMEs) as they facilitate the democratization of scalability and creativity. With little technical expertise or financial resources, SMEs can leverage this technology to streamline work processes and unleash innovation, improving their product offerings and long-term competitiveness. In this article, we discuss how SMEs can navigate both the promises and challenges of GenAI and offer a roadmap for deploying the technology. We then introduce a sailing metaphor that reveals key strategic dimensions for GenAI deployment: competency of employees, effective leadership and work values, organizational culture, collaboration and cooperation, and relationships with third parties. We conclude with practical recommendations for successfully deploying GenAI in SMEs.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 5","pages":"Pages 629-648"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141503695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business HorizonsPub Date : 2024-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.009
{"title":"Navigating software development in the ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot era","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bushor.2024.05.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies using LLMs (large language models), such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, with the ability to create code, have the potential to change the software-development landscape. Will this process be incremental, with software developers learning GenAI skills to supplement their existing skills, or will the process be more destructive, with the loss of large numbers of development jobs and a radical change in the responsibilities of the remaining developers? Given the rapid growth of AI capabilities, it is impossible to provide a crystal ball, but this article aims to give insight into the adoption of GenAI with LLMs in software development. The article gives an overview of the software-development industry and of the job functions of software developers. A literature review, combined with a content analysis of online comments from developers, gives insight into how GenAI implemented with LLMs is changing software development and how developers are responding to these changes. The article ties the academic and developer insights together into recommendations for software developers, and it describes a CMM (capability maturity model) framework for assessing and improving LLM development usage.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48347,"journal":{"name":"Business Horizons","volume":"67 5","pages":"Pages 649-661"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681324000697/pdfft?md5=5a9279376151ad1be35134828ecf3e36&pid=1-s2.0-S0007681324000697-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141503694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}