Browsing by Author "Theoharakis, Vasilis"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Achieving the paradox of concurrent internationalization speed: Internationalizing rapidly in both breadth and depth
    (Springer, 2021-09-10) Batsakis, Georgios; Theoharakis, Vasilis
    In this paper, we draw on the notions of breadth and depth of internationalization speed in an attempt to examine the performance implications for multinational enterprises (MNEs) that rapidly and concurrently internationalize in new and existing foreign markets. Specifically, we examine the organizational paradox which suggests that firms which grow internationally by concurrently expanding rapidly in both new foreign markets (breadth) and in foreign markets they currently operate (depth), are better off than firms which do not adopt such an approach. Since past research has not examined the interaction between the breadth and depth of MNE internationalization speed on firm performance, we contribute to the temporal dimension of the internationalization process by developing a novel, yet paradoxical approach. Our analysis is based on a longitudinal sample of the world’s largest retail MNEs covering the period 2003 – 2012, which includes the 2008 financial crisis that had a significant effect on the global economy. We find that concurrent internationalization speed positively relates to firm performance during periods of stability. Further, we draw from the upper-echelons theory and find that the aforementioned relationship can be strengthened by the level of CEO international experience and CEO education.
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    Analysing the macrostructure of spoken strategic communication: an application of argumentation analysis on high-technology newly-public firms’ earnings conference calls
    (Wiley, 2022-11-07) Papadopoulou, Tina; Theoharakis, Vasilis; Jones, Marian V.; Bhaumik, Sumon K.
    A firm's ability to fulfil their strategic goals largely depends on how they communicate their strategies with stakeholders. Argumentation plays a prominent role in the process of communicating with stakeholders, with the intention of persuading them and achieving goals of strategic significance. In this respect, analysing argument structure is of particular importance, since determining the components that comprise an argument is a prerequisite for evaluating its acceptability and, consequently, its ability to persuade. Therefore, employing a framework that is specifically developed for the analysis of argument structure can help address questions that are not otherwise tractable. The relatively few available empirical studies in strategic communication employ frameworks that are not optimized for spoken communication. As such, there is scope to adapt/refine existing frameworks to facilitate meaningful analysis of spoken strategic communication. In this paper, therefore, we draw on existing frameworks and posit an adaptation that enables us to analyse the macrostructure of spoken arguments. We demonstrate the application of this adapted framework by analysing earnings conference calls involving three high-technology firms and financial analysts. By doing so, our study contributes to management practice and the literatures on strategic communication, as well as financial communications and investor relations.
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    The anatomy of account-based marketing - a conceptualisation of strategic dimensions
    (American Marketing Association, 2022-06-11) Mullen, Adam; Marcos Cuevas, Javier; Theoharakis, Vasilis
    Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise an emerging B2B strategy known as account-based marketing (ABM). ABM is a mid-to-long-term strategy deployed by enterprise organisations to target, engage, and grow high-potential accounts. Design/Methodology/Approach — A mixture of academic and practitioner literature has been synthesised to create a tentative conceptual model of ABM. Findings — In ABM, digital technologies can be used to scale the engagement process, allowing selling teams to switch from targeting one account to many using pooled intelligence, smart resources, and automation. Originality/Value — This paper presents a conceptual model of ABM, whilst providing a foundation for future research.
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    Digital sales channels and the relationship between product and international diversification: Evidence from going digital retail MNEs
    (Wiley, 2022-10-12) Batsakis, Georgios; Konara, Palitha; Theoharakis, Vasilis
    We argue that in the era of e-commerce, retail firms can simultaneously grow their product and international portfolio by adopting a multichannel strategy, that is, using digital and physical channels. Drawing on the resource bundling perspective, we argue that the previously advocated negative relationship between product and international diversification is mitigated by the retail firm's digital sales intensity. By separately examining product and international diversification across digital and physical channels, we find that while increased product diversification in physical channels relates negatively with international diversification in both physical and digital channels, increased product diversification in digital channels relates positively with international diversification in both channels. Our hypotheses are tested against a sample of 122 born physical - going digital retail MNEs over the period 2006–2016.
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    Dynamic strategic marketing planning: the paradox of concurrently reconfiguring and implementing strategic marketing planning
    (Elsevier, 2024-02-01) Theoharakis, Vasilis; Zheng, Yuyan; Zhang, Long
    Traditional marketing planning may not be as effective in today’s challenging environments for achieving the dual imperative of meeting objectives and continuously improving market fit. Therefore, we introduce the concept of dynamic strategic marketing planning (DSMP) as a higher-order capability that requires the concurrent orchestration of marketing planning, senior management-led strategic implementation, and change as operationalized through the reconfiguration of processes and resources. With responses from 313 CEOs, we demonstrate that DSMP does overcome the innovativeness rigidities found in ordinary marketing planning capabilities. While DSMP is associated with higher levels of innovativeness, it also achieves higher levels of financial performance over ordinary marketing planning capabilities. Our findings seek to transform marketing planning practice by requiring that its implementation receives the attention of senior managers and combines reconfiguration processes that promote the renewal of plans and capabilities.
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    Going down the slippery slope of legitimacy lies in early‑stage ventures: the role of moral disengagement
    (Springer, 2020-04-20) Theoharakis, Vasilis; Voliotis, Seraphim; Pollack, Jeffrey M.
    It would seem, on the surface, logical that entrepreneurs would treat stakeholders with honesty and respect. However, this is not always the case—at times, entrepreneurs lie to stakeholders in order to take a step closer to achieving legitimacy. It is these legitimacy lies that are the focus of the current work. Overall, while we know that legitimacy lies are told, we know very little about the psychological processes at work that may make it more likely for someone to tell a legitimacy lie. Thus, we theorize about the pressure to pursue legitimacy, the situational and individual factors that affect this pursuit, as well as how this context can lead to moral disengagement and the telling of legitimacy lies. Our theorizing advances the existing literature and provides a dynamic framework by which future research can delve more deeply into the nuanced context that breeds the escalation of legitimacy lies.
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    Internationalization and digitalization: their differing role on grocer and non-grocer retailer performance
    (Elsevier, 2023-08-10) Batsakis, Georgios; Theoharakis, Vasilis; Li, Chengguang; Konara, Palitha
    This study investigates the interplay between two critical phenomena in retailing, i.e., internationalization and digitalization, while accounting for retail sector differences. On one hand, internationalization allows retailers to access a wider range of markets, and on the other, digital channel expansion enhances customer reach and convenience within international markets. More specifically, we examine the relationship between retailer internationalization and performance (I-P relationship), and how this relationship is contingent upon the idiosyncrasies of retail sectors (i.e., grocery vs. non-grocery), digitalization, and their combined effects. Building on the liability of foreignness perspective, we first argue that the I-P relationship is U-shaped, because internationalizing retailers initially incur greater costs in their international expansion owing to their unfamiliarity with foreign markets, but as their foreign presence increases, they benefit from greater market power, experience, and scale economies. Then, we contend that as grocers suffer from higher levels of liability of foreignness due to increased requirements for host country embeddedness, non-grocers benefit more from internationalization with any gains and losses further amplified by digitalization. Hypotheses are tested against a panel of the 234 largest international retailers in the world over a 21-year period (1997-2017) and findings support the conjectures.
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    Motivations and passions in m-Facebook use
    (Elsevier, 2019-10-22) Mylonopoulos, Nikolaos; Theoharakis, Vasilis
    Introduction. It is estimated that more than 2.5 billion people globally use social networks (Statista, 2018c), among which Facebook remains by far the largest with nearly 2.3 billion active users (Statista, 2018b), despite the dominance of other social networks in large countries such as China (e.g. WeChat, QQ) and Russia (e.g. Vkontakte). Following a long tradition of technology use models (Davis, 1989; Van der Heijden, 2004), extant literature on social networks focuses on enjoyment (hedonic motivation) and usefulness (utilitarian motivation) as the main perceived benefits motivating people to use social networks such as Facebook (Chang, Hung, Cheng, & Wu, 2015; Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2011; Lin & Lu, 2011) Meanwhile, an emergent strand of research draws on the theory of passions (Lemay, Doleck, & Bazelais, 2017; Orosz, Vallerand, Bőthe, Tóth-Király, & Paskuj, 2016; Wakefield & Wakefield, 2016) which posits that user engagement is the result of a psychological process that makes social network use an integral part of the user’s own identity (Vallerand et al., 2003; Vallerand et al., 2007).
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    Passion for an activity and its role on affect: does personality and the type of activity matter?
    (Frontiers, 2023-01-04) Mylonopoulos, Nikolaos; Theoharakis, Vasilis
    While personality traits play a crucial role in a person’s general affect, passion for an activity has been shown to partially mediate this relationship, with harmonious passion generally related to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. However, activities are not all the same with some characterized as having “positive” consequences while others as having “negative” consequences. This study examines how passions manifest for two popular activities: physical exercise, an activity with in general “positive” consequences, and social media, an activity with potentially both “positive” and “negative” consequences. We replicate and extend earlier studies which have relied on baskets of heterogenous self-reported activities without distinguishing between activities. We find that, when fully controlling for personality, obsessive passion for physical exercise is positively associated with positive affect while obsessive passion for social media is positively associated with negative affect. However, harmonious passion for either activity has no significant association with any affect. Further, we find that passions for physical exercise relate with conscientiousness while passions for social media with neuroticism.
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    Re-examining dynamic capabilities in the context of digital transformation.
    (Cranfield University, 2023-10) Gao, Yanjun; Theoharakis, Vasilis; Maklan, Stan
    While digital transformation is often a necessity to allow incumbent firms to remain competitive in a fast-changing world, it suffers from high failure rates in practice. The dynamic capability perspective was developed to address rapidly changing environments, so it can be utilised as a theoretical foundation to improve our understanding of digital transformation. With dynamic capabilities often disaggregated into three capability clusters: sensing, seizing, and transforming, these clusters are mostly presented in a static sequence and evolve independently, which is a practice challenged by this thesis. To explore the possible reasons hindering digital transformation, a longitudinal case study is conducted, exploring the evolution of dynamic capability clusters over time. It is observed that sensing, seizing, and transforming, rather than being sequential, coexist and coevolve during digital transformation. When they evolve at different speeds, mismatches can occur, which can act as bottlenecks slowing down the transformation but at the same time can act as catalysts improving underdeveloped capabilities. This finding contributes to the theory by demonstrating how mismatches arise during the coevolution of dynamic capability clusters and discussing their consequences for digital transformation. This finding also contributes to practice by arguing that the way in which firms orchestrate the coevolution of these dynamic capabilities over time holds a key to successful digital transformation, providing a more dynamic approach for emergent strategy development. It is therefore suggested that managers embrace the tensions caused by these mismatches and adopt a mindset that allows them to concurrently improve different dynamic capability clusters supporting digital transformation. While dynamic capabilities were introduced to address the static nature of the resource-based view (RBV), as previously described, the sensing, seizing, and transforming clusters are often applied in a sequential fashion, ignoring their possible interdependencies and evolutionary paths, and thus failing to capture the essential dynamism of the underlying phenomenon, which is particularly important in a high-velocity digital context. Therefore, this study further developed the conceptualisation of dynamic capability from an evolutionary perspective, better serving the current digital environment, which is changing faster than ever. As regards future research, firstly, since this thesis advances the conceptualisation of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities from an evolutionary perspective, it needs to be validated by more empirical studies. Secondly, the context is a limitation of this thesis. While this thesis provides deep insights through a single longitudinal case study in the retail sector, more studies are called for in diverse industries and national contexts to examine the coevolution of dynamic capabilities over time. Thirdly, while this thesis observes the mismatches during the coevolution of dynamic capabilities, further research is needed to explore the fundamental reasons behind this observation. The potential reasoning assumptions proposed by this thesis in attempting to explain the fundamental mechanism of dynamic capability mismatches require further examination via empirical research. Fourthly, an evolutionary underpinning indicates the methodological implications, calling for a longitudinal research design that moves away from a serial view in order to further advance and validate the framework of sensing, seizing, and transforming.
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    Work engagement and the impact of a social identity crafting approach to leadership: a case from Africa’s air transport industry
    (Emerald, 2024-02-05) Theoharakis, Vasilis; Wapshott, Robert; Cham, Lamin
    Purpose Managers of public organizations in liberalized sectors face the dual imperative of retaining skilled employees who might be poached by commercial competitors and improving service performance levels without a free hand to invest resources. While employee work engagement (EWE) has been previously suggested as a solution to such management challenges, limitations in its ability to retain employees have been identified. We therefore examine how a social identity crafting (SIC) approach to public leadership that confers a sense of group identity among team members can enhance and extend beyond EWE in addressing this dual imperative. Design/methodology/approach We report findings from a survey of employees (n = 199) at “ATCO,” a state-owned national airline that is facing challenges from commercial rivals within a new, competitive environment. Findings We confirm previously identified limitations of EWE and, further, demonstrate that a social identity approach to leadership offers a promising avenue for public managers, not only by enhancing employee engagement but, more importantly, by enhancing retention and service performance. Originality/value We contribute to studies of leadership, particularly for managers operating in the public sector and resource-constrained environments, demonstrating how SIC, which does not require costly investment to attain, can deliver improved service performance and reduced employee turnover intention, operating beyond EWE, which reaches a plateau in respect of the latter.