Search Results (6)

We are living in an era where the demand for Open Access to knowledge is growing and the need for transparency in scientific publishing is becoming imperative. The question that arises at this stage is whether openness in knowledge constitutes the Achilles heel of the once profitable legacy publishing industry or whether it is the Trojan horse of the latter for increasing its revenues. At the same time, the question of whether Open Access publishers can ensure their sustainability through this model remains unanswered. This study implements a multi-year analysis (2019–2023) comparing the performance of Open Access and legacy publishers. Using a set of financial ratios—grouped by profitability, liquidity, efficiency, and solvency, as well as data on firm size (revenues, assets, and employee counts), we assess their financial performance. The results indicate that legacy publishers have enormous scale, stable profitability, and high leverage, but low liquidity and return on equity. On the other hand, OA publishers, although smaller, have higher returns, better liquidity, and almost zero borrowing, but with greater annual volatility. The study discusses that OA publishers, despite their small size, can be as profitable as or even more profitable than traditional publishers, thanks to flexible structures and fast cash flows, but remain vulnerable due to limited resources and the risk of acquisition. Furthermore, legacy publishers maintain their dominance by leveraging their scale, strong brands, and investment capacity while adopting or acquiring OA models, creating a competitive environment where scale and strategic differentiation are decisive. Full article

Restaurant segmentation is an effective tool for decision-making when developing business strategies. The objective of this research is to classify restaurant groups according to the level of employee training in sustainable practices and food waste, and to contrast the differences in the degree of sustainability-oriented service innovation and brand equity, as well as in the implementation of various sustainable practices. A cluster analysis was conducted with 300 restaurants in Guayaquil, Manta, and Portoviejo in Ecuador, based on face-to-face interviews with their managers, and then confirmed with discriminant analysis. Two groups were identified: (1) restaurants with less training in green practices, higher level of food waste, lower level of sustainability-oriented service innovation, and higher brand equity; (2) restaurants with more training in green practices, lower level of food waste, higher level of sustainability-oriented service innovation, and lower brand equity. The most sustainable restaurants claim to have less brand equity, which demonstrates that the Ecuadorian consumer does not particularly value sustainability. Full article

Presently, particularly in China, the market for art education is still in the growth stage of industrial development. Nevertheless, there is a huge number of art education businesses competing for a share of China’s art education industry, which is of a very modest size. Given the evolution of the economy and innovative culture, it is of the utmost necessity to comprehend both brand equity and corporate success in the present day. This study explored the relationship between brand equity and company performance under the adjustment of innovation culture using Chinese art education businesses as the baseline study. The present study examined the relationship between the five components of brand equity that are primarily comprised of brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand relevance, and brand equity with the moderating impact of innovation culture. A total of 300 respondents, including art education firm managers, teachers, and other key employees, participated in the survey and WarpPLS 8.0 was used to evaluate the proposed model. Subsequently, the statistical findings revealed a significant positive relationship between the brand equity components (i.e., perceived quality and brand relevance) and a firm’s performance, while a firm’s innovation culture was discovered to moderate the said relationship. The implications of these findings are further discussed. Full article

Brand is considered a valuable asset that a business wants to create and maintain growth throughout its business cycle. This paper examines the impact of corporate brand equity on employees’ opportunistic behavior. The paper uses quantitative research methods, through linear SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) analysis of structural model with a scale of 609 samples of employees of enterprises in Vietnam. The research results show that corporate brand equity has a negative impact on employees’ opportunistic behavior. In the relationship between these two factors, trust and emotional engagement act as intermediate factors. Additionally, the research demonstrates that trust has a positive effect on all three components of employee engagement, including emotional engagement, computational engagement, and standards-based engagement. On that basis, the research suggests a number of recommendations to minimize the opportunistic behavior of employees in the enterprise. The findings of this study have shown the importance and impact of brand equity on employee opportunistic behavior. These are meaningful contributions in both theory and practice to help businesses gain deeper insight into brand equity and the need to pay attention to building and developing durable brand equity for businesses. At the same time, it is an important basis for the next research projects. Full article

This research is carried out in the backdrop of increasing product quality and environmental degradation scandals associated with Chinese Pharmaceuticals in recent years. We examined the data of 125 Chinese Pharmaceuticals between 2010–2016 to investigate the impact of overall corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance as well as the performance on five unique aspects of CSR such as shareholders, employees, customers and suppliers, environmental practices, and the society to gauge the impact of these individual dimensions on the firm’s financial performance. The Hexun rating system is used to gauge a firm’s CSR performance on various stakeholder dimensions as it is one of the widely accepted CSR measurement criteria in China. The firm performance is measured by Tobin’s Q, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and earnings per share (EPS) ratios. The outcome of the panel-based regression models reveals that the overall CSR score has a positive and significant influence on a firm’s financial indicators. Moreover, although all the CSR dimensions relate positively to firm performance, the environmental aspect of CSR has the most profound impact on firm performance followed by customers and suppliers, and employees. However, the shareholders and social dimensions have a relatively lesser influence on firm performance. These results imply that Chinese Pharmaceuticals shall further optimize each aspect of CSR performance as it can not only create a favorable brand image for various stakeholders but also results in sustainable financial performance. Full article

The purpose of this study was to understand how employee brand equity is cultivated in services. Specifically, a conceptual model, adopted from brand equity literature, was developed and tested to analyze the internal brand building process. To achieve this, a quantitative research methodology, using structural equation modeling, was used to understand the role of brand building mechanisms, namely the internal communication, external communication, and employee experience with the brand, in building employee brand equity. As a part of the service industry, data were collected from hotel employees who have direct contact with customers. The findings evidenced the distinguished role of each mechanism to build employee brand equity. That is, while internal communication enhances brand knowledge and role clarity, external communication and employee experience with the brand positively affect the brand commitment of employees. Therefore, as being the first study adopting customer service brand equity to employee context, this research confirmed the effect of brand building mechanisms on employee brand equity. In addition, the study proposes practical implications for organizations to design a balanced branding approach both internally and externally through the means of communication. Full article