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While the Internet promises to radically change businesses in all industries, European companies have not yet embraced electronic trading with the enthusiasm of their North American counterparts. Only a few pioneers have successfully established Web services that are fully integrated into the enterprise’s business processes and hence create business value. One of these pioneers is transtec, a German medium‐sized manufacturer and direct distributor of computer systems, storage solutions and computer accessories. The transtec case is an example of a successful Web‐portfolio based electronic commerce application. It illustrates how essential it is to create transparency by integrating the entire system architecture with internal and external communication and business processes. Having started with a general corporate information system and a comprehensive electronic product catalogue, transtec’s Web presence evolved to become one of the best performing online order‐systems in Germany.

Electronic commerce has been recognised as a source of fundamental change to the conduct of business. Exploitation by business of this innovative approach to payments will necessitate wide‐scale adoption of new processes and technologies and may require new thinking on how organizations adopt innovations. Primarily, these innovations will be interactive and inter‐organizational, i.e. a successful cash substitute will require the concurrent participation of many different organizations, as well as consumers. Current theoretical models of adoption may not cater for this type of innovation. This paper compares four diverse pilot implementations of smart‐card payment systems with Rogers’ (1995) attributes of innovations, adoption processes and adoption decision approaches for organizations. In general, Rogers’ models do not reflect the levels of complexity and diversity found in practice. Extensions of the models are proposed.

Innovative initiatives focusing on social and environmental impact often need help to secure traditional financial resources for their launch. Equity crowdfunding platforms (ECF) provide a potential funding source for these initiatives, particularly for technological inventors. This research paper aims to theorize how ECF campaigns attract investors to invest in technological initiatives with social and environmental value proposition impacts.

Using an inductive qualitative approach, the authors have gained insights, from 35 sustainable technological projects sponsored by a Chilean equity-crowdfunding platform, regarding the business model's transformation to achieve sustainable social and environmental impacts.

Findings show that disruptive technologies and sustainable aims are pivotal factors in successfully attracting investors to support sustainable technological initiatives through ECF platforms or campaigns. These factors led investors to actively engage with these projects and contribute to the value-creation process by transforming business models with social and environmental impacts and utilizing sustainable technology to enhance efficiency and optimize available resources.

Due to the nature of this research, researchers must test the proposed conceptual framework using longitudinal quantitative data from multiple ECF platforms, technological solutions and investors worldwide in future research to enhance the comprehension of this phenomenon.

The findings highlight the significant contribution of ECF platforms and technological portfolios toward creating sustainable impacts. It is a good signal for investors interested in investing in technological initiatives and addressing social and environmental challenges.

The contribution of disruptive technological projects from ECF platforms and ECF investors to tackle social and environmental challenges.

This research theorizes how ECF platforms tackle social challenges by encouraging investors to invest and participate with entrepreneurs in the co-creation process of sustainable technological solutions.

This paper aims to unpack how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can operationalise coopetition in talent management, addressing ongoing talent shortages in the hospitality industry which were intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This conceptual paper draws from literature on coopetition and talent management in SMEs. Specifically, the authors take an interorganisational talent pool lens and develop a framework following the principles of open-systems theory.

The authors find that the traditional use of talent pools is often impractical for SMEs because of a lack of resources and capabilities. Instead, interorganisational talent pools, through coopetition in talent management, can aid these firms to address talent shortages. The authors identify potential for SME coopetition at various stages, including attraction, development and retention of talent.

Coopetition in talent management can aid industries in establishing market-thickening pipelines. Through co-attracting, co-developing and co-retaining talent, SMEs can create interorganisational talent pools. To develop talent management coopetition, a set of prerequisites, catalysts and potential inhibitors must be analysed and managed.

This paper moves the talent management debate beyond competition for talent, introducing coopetition as a viable alternative. Taking an open-systems perspective, the authors develop an integrative framework for coopetition in talent management in SMEs encompassing input, process and output components. The authors reveal the dynamic and complex nature of this coopetition process, highlighting the essential role of coopetition context and illustrating open-system principles.