Terence Tse

Business strategies for small firms in the new economy

The development of the new economy through the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web has created many threats and opportunities for firms in general and small businesses in particular. There appears to be an inextricable linkage among the new economy, new enterprise, and the new technology, which may have a potential effect on the way small businesses formulate their business strategies. This paper provides a theoretical approach that looks at the advantages of the digitisation of the economy and strategy formulation of small businesses taking three specific themes into account – virtualisation, molecularisation, and disintermediation. The strengths and weaknesses of various e‐commerce strategies in the context of these dimensions are discussed. Some strategies that are suitable for small companies are recommended and four principles are stated in order to assist these firms to formulate strategy in the new economy.

Introducing a circular economy: new thinking with new managerial and policy implications

Since the industrial revolution, we have been living in a linear economy. Our consumer and “single use” lifestyles have made the planet a “take, make, dispose” world. This refers to a unidirectional model of production: natural resources provide our factory inputs, which are then used to create mass-produced goods to be purchased and, typically, disposed after a single use. This linear economy model of mass production and mass consumption is testing the physical limits of the globe. It is, therefore, unsustainable and a shift toward a circular economy is becoming inevitable.

Achieving strategic innovation through dilemma reconciliation

The past several decades have witnessed the growth of a stream of research that emphasises the importance of strategic innovation. Such literature reviews the generation of effective and novel strategies as the key to create and sustain business success. Strategic innovation can be defined as the formulation of a strategy that breaks industry conventions and alters competition rules. This paper focuses on employing dilemma reconciliation as a means of achieving strategic innovation, a concept that is still in its formative stage. It surveys the existing literature on both strategic innovation and dilemma theory. Subsequently, it presents how two UK companies have put such concept into use in practice.

The social cluster of gender, agency and entrepreneurship

Scholars have been concerned with studying gender variations and their implications on various measures of entrepreneurial performance (Gupta et al., 2009). As gender effects cannot always provide substantial meaning of a particular phenomenon (Ahl, 2006) this paper studies entrepreneurship from a social cognitive perspective and inductively explores differences and commonalities across gender. Entrepreneurship is a driver of economic growth however scarce are the articles tackling the Middle East region (Naguib and Jamali, 2015). In-depth interviews are conducted with 30 Lebanese entrepreneurs to understand the social factors which influence entrepreneurial aspirations in this particular context. Results reveal that entrepreneurship is bound to self-efficacy beliefs, which are the produce of stereotyping effects and social expectations of men and women, of educational practices, of occupational systems and socialisation experiences. The authors propose learning models, which advance knowledge and bring practical contributions to education and training fields to create more conducive environments for entrepreneurship.

Are we falling asleep at the switch, again? Some propositions for executive compensation

During the financial crisis in 2008, executive compensation became focal to one of the key constituents of the systemic risk that led to the financial meltdown. This conceptual paper aims at providing ground for discussion on the viability of executive compensation within the larger stake of the financial institutions and whether its reform may be necessary. Developed over five possible propositions that empower the dialogue towards a resolute perspective and supported by five scholars who derive from diverse academic disciplines, this paper wants to provide a critical perspective on a sensitive and controversial topic.

Notes on Islamic economics and finance

Academic and practitioners research interest in studying Islamic economics and finance seems to have been growing over the past few years especially after the financial crisis that hit the global banking and financial system, which resulted in one of the severest economic slowdown that we have had for many years. This paper aims to introduce some of the key concepts relating to Islamic economics and finance, the increased interest in this field of study and then to identify the main differences to the modern economic and financial system. All the sections of this paper will be based on reviewing some of the literature that studied this growing stream of an economic and financial discipline.

Resilience of a business: the case of Yellow Pages Directories

This paper aims to study the strength and the resilience of a seemingly out-of-date business - the Yellow Pages Directories (YPD). Its main assertion is that having absolute technological advantage does not always enable a firm to succeed; human factors also play an important role in sustaining a companys competitive advantage. The first contribution of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of the under-researched YPD business. The second is to examine the factors that enhance the resilience of a declining business facing the threat of new technologies.