Eurasian Business Perspectives

This chapter intends to explore the learning and development needs of Generation Y (Gen Y) as adult learners at the workplace. Gen Y is the current and dominant cohort of workforce. Managing Gen Y effectively and efficiently has puzzled many organizations. Gen Y workforce poses great challenges as their characteristics are extremely distinct than the other two cohorts of workforce, namely Gen X and Baby Boomers. Due to their unique characteristics, hypothetically, managing Gen Y talents should not be the same as managing the other two cohorts. As adult learners at the workplace, it is hypothesized that the adult learning approach or andragogy is applicable and more suitable to be employed. Nonetheless, literature review indicates that organizations employ the traditional approach or pedagogy in determining Gen Y learning and development needs.

Managing infrastructure projects remains challenging, and especially large infrastructure projects are often criticised for cost overruns and time delays. With the help of controlling, a peculiarity of German-speaking countries, project management and thus project performance can be improved since controlling ensures transparency within the project and supports coordination and anticipation. Furthermore, controlling can improve the quality of decision-making, the ability to respond and adapt to internal and external changes. However, research on controlling within German-speaking countries has been almost isolated from international research. Consequently, conducting a literature review is faced with linguistic challenges and requires some preparatory work. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to fulfil three ambitions: First, based on an introduction to public infrastructure projects, this chapter suggests requirement categories for the controlling of public infrastructure projects. Second, by specifying the understanding of controlling, a controlling system framework is proposed. Third, based on the categories suggested and the framework developed, this chapter presents a literature review on controlling of (public) infrastructure projects. Thereby, this chapter provides a common basis for developing an integrated controlling system. Furthermore, by structuring the selected articles based on the controlling system framework, initial experiences in applying the framework were gathered and requirements for adjustments were identified.

For a growing number of employers, understanding the needs and expectations of employees, especially those of Millennial generation, is crucial. The purpose of this research is to determine the gap between expectations and reality in the Latvian job market with a major focus on generational differences and Millennials. The quantitative study is based on empirical data gathered by an online survey (n = 2010). A structured questionnaire measures the differences between expectations and reality in respect to five aspects of the work environment (work–life balance, job meaningfulness, salary and transparency of remuneration system, career and growth possibilities, and relationship with colleagues and management). The results highlight significant differences between workplace expectations and reality. In relationship to all examined aspects gaps between expectations and reality for Millennial generation, employees, however, are much smaller than for other generations leading to the conclusion that Millennials more often get what they want. The managerial implications for employers are related to ensuring transparency of HR systems—remuneration, career growth, and improving work–life balance.

This chapter presents a systematic review of the literature about gamification studies in organizational behavior and human resources management that have been done so far. Although gamification became popular in the last decade, it is questionable whether it meets business goals or not. It is believed that better designs can be originated from more scientific research. The aim of this review is to gain a better understanding of gamification studies regarding organizational behavior and human resources management. A systematic review of the literature was done and 28 studies were included in this chapter. This chapter indicates that gamification is studied in several fields including personnel selection, training, and performance management. It is also used as a trigger for employee well-being. Despite the variety of business fields, the number of studies is low, which indicates a promising avenue for additional research in the future.

Professional burnout has been a growing problem not only for employees but also for their organizations, affecting the organizational costs as well as employee health and well-being. This chapter is based on the job demands-resources model of burnout which consists of two dimensions: exhaustion, i.e., general tiredness, bad mood, and fear in reaction to organizational stress, and disengagement, i.e., withdrawal from one’s work owing to the difficulty in meeting professional requirements. The purpose of the study was to examine the level of burnout among Polish academics. The sector of higher education in Poland is currently experiencing significant changes which leads to subsequent major transformations. This evokes the need to continuously adapt to external demands so as to meet the expectations of the academic supervisors as well as of numerous external stakeholders. Thus, the dynamic environment that requires constant adaptation creates demanding working conditions at universities. Data were collected from 199 female and 141 male respondents working as academic staff in private and state universities in Poland. To measure the level of occupational burnout, a Polish adaptation of the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) was used. The analysis of the study resulted in the conclusion that the level of exhaustion is higher among the academics than the level of their disengagement. Sociodemographic characteristics and job characteristics served as differentiating variables.

Literature studies confirm that family-owned enterprises do pay attention to their stakeholders. This chapter explores the phenomenon of project risk culture in micro- and small businesses, which are owned by families. Special attention has been directed to the relationship between project risk culture and business characteristics. Project risk culture has been viewed from the perspective of these firms’ approach toward their external stakeholders. Binary logistic regression was used to study this phenomenon. The results of this study indicate that family involvement is an important factor influencing project risk culture in the studied entities. The findings of the research emphasize the role of family members’ involvement in business in building project risk culture. They also support the current discussion on family involvement in shaping economic and social behaviors of the studied businesses.

The chapter aims to define and analyze the preconditions for attending to the global business social networks (BSNs) and to discover attitudes of business managers for participation in open-source business social networks (BSNs). The data for analysis are found by deep interview techniques within Bulgarian business managers. The analysis is based on descriptive analysis of the levels of the business social networking’s acceptance and statistical analysis of its dependence by some business demographic characteristics, e.g., size of business, type of city, and levels of management structure. The chapter adopts the BSN model which is the key for business success in the next Web 5.0 Society not just for the developed countries but also for the developing ones. In this context, the results of the empirical analysis help to understand the business attitude of managers to attend social business networking, particularly in Bulgaria. Three main pillars of social networking inclusion, trust, community, and information, are discussed. Furthermore, the smaller business is less ready to share business information because of less trust of the other businesses as well as marginalizing their role in the community. Not surprisingly, the findings explain the low participation in business networks of Bulgarian businesses and gives the main point of further development of the business models for developing countries—particularly in Bulgaria.

The dynamic capabilities approach is nowadays one of most influential schools in management theory, and this approach calls for systematic reorganizing of company resources and processes due to changing competitive environment. In this chapter, we contribute to emerging knowledge on dynamic capabilities (DCV) in marketing in several ways. Firstly, we identify the gaps in the literature with regard to these capabilities emphasizing some controversies and inconsistencies with regard to definitions of main constructs and their measurement. Secondly, we review prior conceptualizations in this area and propose our own definition of so-called dynamic marketing capabilities (DMC) which is aligned with DCV in strategy research as well as with prior typologies of marketing resources and capabilities. Thirdly, we present results of own qualitative research (case studies), which allows us to identify how real existing companies develop and use DMC in their activities on export markets. Thus, our study enabled exploration of some building blocks of DMC on international markets.

The aim of the study is to assess the role of English-language capabilities in leveraging career of a scholar whose first language is other than English and who faces challenges connected with contemporary expectations towards European scholars concerning publishing in top-tier English-language journals. The chapter discusses how scholars from Poland, as an example of a post-Soviet country, perceive the role of English language as a tool allowing them to meet the criteria of academic success understood now as productivity, membership in international teams and mobility. The study is qualitative and the informants are academic teachers working at public universities in Poland. They are all non-native speakers of English, mainly from the fields of humanities and social sciences, representing different positions (from research assistant to full professor) with IF publications extremes from 0 to 13 and age extremes from 27 to 70. Main study results concern good English speaking, writing and reading comprehension skills as factors positively contributing to non-native English scholar’s success.

The aim of this chapter is to present the outline of a model approach for project management in the healthcare sector on the example of clinical trial projects. Special attention was given to non-commercial projects. The authors try to fill the identified gap concerning model approaches and methodologies for managing complex and unique projects in the field of healthcare (particularly R&D projects). The subject of the research is the problem of improving clinical trial project management in the healthcare sector. The undertaken studies include the following objects: research units (including medical schools), pharmaceutical companies, and contract research organizations operating in Poland in the field of R&D. Data used in the research were collected in the form of the results of focused interviews with project managers or persons responsible for their implementation (experts, management staff, researchers), using a questionnaire survey that was prepared for the analysis of applied methods, methodologies, and project management tools for healthcare project management. The results of the presented study are identification of key elements of the model approach to managing healthcare projects, creation of a basis for deepening scientific inquiries regarding the issues of improving the efficiency of their management, formulation of a proposition of clinical trial project management model, and building of foundations for the development of research on critical success factors of healthcare projects.

The aim of this chapter is to reveal the compatibility of the most important strategic approaches. Moreover, through a critical discussion of the key literature relating to the issue and a business case analysis, the author will suggest a preferred flow of strategic analysis in a business case, based on the compatibility of strategic approaches. The epistemological stance of the author is critical realism. The two most important strategic approaches in strategic management are the outside-in and inside-out. The author argues that there is enough evidence as theoretical findings and practical implications that the outside-in and inside-out approach in strategy could be compatible. Among the evidence, the central point is dedicated to the business case of HIP Petrohemija, as a fine example of why the approaches are compatible, as well as the proper flow of strategic analysis. The chapter suggests that the flow of strategic analysis in strategic marketing should start with the outside-in environmental analysis, in order to understand the opportunities and boundaries of the market and discover a fit on market, and then it should continue with the inside-out internal audit, in order to find out the inner capabilities and the core competence.

This chapter examines the assimilation and risk of online social media (OSM) in Saudi Arabia. It seeks to identify the nomological set of antecedents that can explain the variation in the assimilation of OSM and the impact of OSM on the Saudi community. Using the diffusion of innovation theory, the institutional theory, and qualitative data of six case studies (experts of social, media, and regulatory institutions), this chapter proposes a theoretical framework that can be used to explain the factors that could influence the assimilation of OSM and its impact on the Saudi community. A series of theoretical propositions are proposed. The results indicate that several individual, technological, and institutional factors were identified as antecedents for the successful assimilation of OSM. They include personal innovativeness, risk appetite, relative advantages, compatibility, complexity, perceived uncertainty, normative pressure, coercive pressure, and mimetic pressure. The results also show that the assimilation of OSM is likely to be associated with risks, including impact on personality attributes, depression level, productivity level, social values, family structure, public transparency, and religious information.

The development of aviation has had a strong impact on tourism. This study focuses on exploring the development of air transport which affects the self-planned travel intention of office workers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Using a qualitative and quantitative research methodology, the research shows very important factors caused by the development of the aviation industry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which impact on the self-planned travel of office workers including (1) the price of the aviation service, (2) the safety of the aviation service, (3) the quality of the service, (4) the convenience of the aviation service, (5) time and psychology, and (6) the information available about the aviation service. The results of the research suggest policies for airlines in general and Vietnam Airlines in particular and suggest key recommendations for developing passengers’ self-planned tourism travel by air.

This chapter aims to propose educational games development to facilitate learning and maximizing joy during the learning process. The joy of learning through games has been tested in many subjects of teaching. Most of them show an improvement in the effectiveness of the learning process. However, developing a proper education game requires adequate analysis and methodology. The methodology in developing an education game combines expertise in specific knowledge areas regarding the learning objectives and content of the game, including rules, rewards, challenges, difficulty, and environment. Despite the growing research related to leadership, the application of experiential learning for leadership education to corporate participants is currently limited. This chapter presents the methodology of development and implementation of an educational game “Chaotic Company” to a corporate participant who has learning objectives of execution focus, concern for order, adaptability, and organization awareness. The developing process starts with analyzing the knowledge area and determining the learning objectives and delivery strategies. These analyses relate to the concept of the game environment, elements of game used, and the levels of the game. The result revealed that the game’s case, “Chaotic Company (CC),” has direct relevance in increasing understanding and analysis of the learning objectives.

The purpose of this research is to reveal why, after introducing a new research methodology of radio ratings, the audience for a lot of stations has even doubled and the number of total radio listeners in Latvia has significantly increased. To conduct the research, regular listeners’ research empirical data were compared and analyzed, as well as a number of major industry experts were questioned. The research results indicate the reasons why “Day-After-Recall” radio research method provides much better results for radio as media than previous “Diary” method. These findings may and probably will fundamentally affect advertisers’ media strategy decisions in the Latvian market. With much more precise and objective radio rating research tools, it is proven that radio as media has been undervalued for years. This misperception of radio potential has been based on wrong assumptions that radio is not able to generate enough audience in order to sustain its important role in reaching general audience nowadays.

Customer citizenship behavior (CCB) is an important trend observed in the contemporary market. It may be described as an extra-role, voluntary behavior performed in favor of other customers or companies. One of the CCB dimensions is helping other customers. Our knowledge about factors determining this behavior is relatively week. Trying to fill the gap, this chapter discusses inclination to help other customers among the young population in China, both on the basis of literature review and explorative research conducted in 2018 on a sample of 114 Chinese respondents. The study proposes a 3-item measure of a latent variable explaining the intention to engage in helping behavior of the young Chinese population, and it illustrates empirically that this measure is distinct to some other measures of consumer behavior, namely consumer innovativeness and consumer needs fulfillment. The cultural background of the study is discussed, conclusions are drawn, and possible limitations and future research areas are indicated.

While the literature contains many slightly different definitions for the image of a company, they all put great emphasis on its importance. Many of the messages posted on social media networks nowadays contain strong sentiment and emotion indications regarding almost any topic, therefore turning them into a rich and almost real-time data source for analyzing the public’s opinion on various subjects, including many of the factors that can influence the image of companies. Thus, in this chapter we propose a natural language processing (NLP) approach for monitoring and evaluating the companies’ image by extracting information from social media messages posted on Twitter. The messages are analyzed using a bag-of-words sentiment analysis approach. The results of the analysis are stored as semantically structured data, thus making it possible to fully exploit the possibilities offered by semantic web technologies, such as inference and accessing the vast amount of knowledge in Linked Open Data, for further analysis.

This chapter focuses on forms of control used by small businesses in contracts with different advisors that supply business advice. The use of legal agreement and personal trust are compared in the chapter. The analysis is carried out using the results of a study of 400 small companies operating in Poland, which used the external business advice in the last 3 years before the survey. The results indicate that trust and legal contract are most commonly overlapping. A significant role of trust in the implementation of advisory activities is recognized. However, a high proportion of formal relationships has been identified, which is not typical of research results obtained in other EU countries. There are differences between types of advice supplier as well as between forms of previous interactions between contract parties, which suggests that the type of established trust may influence small enterprises’ behavior.

Since the middle of the twentieth century, phenomena suggesting the entry of civilization into the post-industrial era have been observed in all areas of economic, social, and technical life. The methods of production, communication, trade, education, or employment are being transformed. This chapter considers the issues of how the implementation of information technology (IT) software in the cloud computing model affects business models of manufacturing enterprises in the SME sector. The applied methodology covered a literature review, desk research, and quantitative survey methods. The chapter reviews the literature on business model design and shows the role of cloud computing solutions in new ecosystems and smart services platforms. The main part of the chapter is devoted to the analysis of the data gathered with the use of the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technique in the course of the research conducted among 277 small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in Poland in the first quarter of 2018. The analysis of the obtained research results shows that nearly 30% of the surveyed enterprises claimed to have noted some changes in their organizations’ business model or operational activity after the introduction of IT applications available in the cloud computing model.

Taking into account the most flattering studies, only 40% of new companies surpass the critical seven years of existence and just a 3% of startups go on to scale up. Nonetheless, 45.8% of all founders have failed at least once in the past, and therefore, they can be classified as serial entrepreneurs. The intriguing question arises why some persons pursue founding a company and, even further, why after a negative trial they challenge fate again? The answer is neither simple nor unidimensional. One of the many reasons why nascent entrepreneurs confront the high probability of failure and if failing face venture enterprise again lies in an inherent ability to manage adversity and to recover from setbacks: this is what we call the capability of resilience. We analyze the most relevant literature on entrepreneurial resilience, both from the perspective of individual psychology and from cognitive and behavioral approaches, in order to offer a comprehensive understanding of the human ability to cope with and overcome entrepreneurial failure. A meta-analysis of the different theories on resilience is conducted in order to identify the main academic discourses on entrepreneurial resilience. Additionally the different tests on resilience are categorized under the identified academic discourses; due to the understudied status of the topic, scholars illustrate a theory focused on resilience, but they use surveys designed to underpin other theoretical perspectives; consequently, the methodological tool applied does not always result in congruity with the postulated theories. Therefore, the main objective of this chapter is to establish an alignment between the diverse theoretical conceptions and the methodological approaches when enlightening the entrepreneurial resilience phenomenon.

Small businesses, aware of the development trends prevailing in the market and the competition, have begun to use increasingly often the Web and its tools as a place of their business activity and to extend the scope of their activity through virtual reality. The small business sector can benefit a great deal by creating a modern work environment and communicating with the external environment. A higher level of effectiveness achieved with the use of technological tools and innovations is a key factor which, according to managers of companies from the SME sector, will determine who will succeed. The chapter is an attempt to analyze the type of IT tools used by small businesses and the level of their use. The analysis has been carried out based on the results of the survey (CATI) of 400 small businesses operating in Poland. The results indicate that the level of the use of IT tools in the surveyed companies depends to a large extent on the entrepreneurial attitude and skills of their managers. The range of tools used is wide and appreciated by managers of small businesses, but it still is not sufficient. The respondents see the need for using these tools as well as for the continuous development in this area. The problem is the cost of implementing these solutions and access to qualified advisory staff specializing in new technologies.

The aim of this chapter is to answer the question whether enterprises use the support of business environment institutions and how they assess the level of services provided by these entities. The objective will be verified on the basis of surveys conducted as part of the research project entitled “Determinants of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Small Businesses,” implemented by employees of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Industrial Policy of the Faculty of Management at the University of Lodz in the fourth quarter of 2017. The analysis of questionnaire surveys allowed us to formulate preliminary proposals of how diagnosed relationships of enterprises with business environment institutions can be strengthened. The most significant are (a) increasing knowledge about improving formal procedures in the area of establishing and continuing the cooperation of companies with business environment institutions; (b) disseminating good practices in the field of business environment institutions’ cooperation with businesses through networking activities, as well as the organization of meetings and online campaigns; and (c) enabling wide access to information on the benefits and effects of cooperation between companies and business environment institutions through various instruments, including Internet portals, consultation points, articles, and broadcasts.

Looking for new ways to access new technologies, trying to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emission, or simply searching a new place on the changing market, SMEs access energy efficiency clusters to be more environmentally friendly and to find new business opportunities. The main aim of this chapter is to identify the existing SMEs ability toward cooperation and relation with networks/clusters/associations. The chapter presents main motivators perceived on energy efficiency initiatives and joining energy clusters by Polish SMEs based on the results of the survey conducted in Poland in December 2017 and January 2018. The result of investigating 246 SMEs (micro, small, and medium) located in Poland is presented in the chapter. The study shows that the awareness of Polish SMEs according to collaboration and creating new business models is quite good, while the perception of platforms as a facilitator is still rather weak. The importance of energy efficiency platforms as a source of knowledge was highlighted by surveyed entities.