The entrepreneurial stress construct’s nomological validity is not well established as past studies have not delineated between entrepreneurial and employee stress. This study investigated several entrepreneurship-specific stressors positing their causal effect on perceived entrepreneurial stress (PES). It examined four directional hypotheses testing the causal, reverse, reciprocal relationships and moderation effects between stressors and PES. Further, it looked at the moderating impact of psychological capital. More than 300 entrepreneurs in emerging markets, namely India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, participated in this longitudinal study (Time 1 n = 325, Time 2 n = 310). The study adopted a cross-lagged competing model research design and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that entrepreneurship-specific personal, social, and occupational stressors cause PES. Further, the results also support the reverse causal effect of PES on stressors and a reciprocal relationship. The study advances resource-based theory to an entrepreneurial background, highlighting the role of intangible resource gaps in perceived entrepreneurial stress. The study concludes that entrepreneurship-specific intangible resources are useful to entrepreneurs at personal, social, and occupational levels. An actual or perceived loss of these resources may lead to perceived entrepreneurial stress. Furthermore, PES can interfere with the entrepreneurial capacity for innovation over time. Psychological capital can be an effective coping response as a moderator of perceived entrepreneurial stress’ adverse effects. This is one of the first studies that examines PES in an emerging market context, specific to entrepreneurial employment.

Purpose: Existing business model frameworks show weak conceptual unification, a paucity of measurement focus and limitations when applied in emerging economies. The study proposes a new business model framework – “Start-up Evaluation Calculus Using Research Evidence” (SECURE). The purpose of this study is to allow the measurement of the impact of business model design on start-up performance in emerging economies.Design/methodology/approach: Data collected from 713 entrepreneurs in select cities of India, Oman and the United Arab Emirates is analyzed through structural equation modeling. The study uses measurement and structural models to examine the validity of measures and additionally tests the five hypothesized relationships proposed in the study.Findings: The SECURE’s components comprising desirability, marketability, feasibility, scalability and viability showed validity and reliability. They synergistically demonstrated a statistically significant effect on a mix of financial and non-financial start-up performance outcomes. An alternative structural relationship that examined the impact of SECURE on only financial performance outcomes showed a weaker model fit. The findings indicate that a business model framework is useful when its ex ante measures show a positive causal effect on the desired performance outcomes.Practical implications: The scores obtained by the SECURE framework serve as an evaluative tool that informs entrepreneurs and start-ups on the readiness of their proposed, incubated or existing start-ups.Originality/value: Replacing subjective judgments with objective assessment criteria, SECURE is one of the first quantitative and performance-driven business model frameworks that contain measures from all functional domains of a start-up business. Start-ups can evaluate their business models against the SECURE model’s research-driven quantitative criteria and assess their impact on start-up performance.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one of the largest logistics and transportation infrastructures to date, has focused on much work in the economics and political sciences. However, little research has been done on how BRI can affect supply chain management on the whole. Since BRI is a large-scale logistics infrastructure-building project, it is clear that it will have several implications for supply chains. This study aimed to fill this gap in supply chain management literature within the context of the BRI. In particular, this paper aimed to unveil the potential challenges and threats that BRI may bring to supply chain management. Using 20 semistructured interviews with supply chain managers located on the BRI lane in South Asian countries (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc.), this study posed six distinct implications of BRI for logistics and supply chain management. This article concludes by articulating its contributions to theory and practice and, finally, limitations and future research directions.

Purpose: The study aims to develop measures for innovation effectiveness impacting organizational performance outcomes. Substantial evidence suggests that measuring innovation effectiveness (IE) continues to be challenging because of the use of different measures across innovation’s broad spectrum. The purpose of this study is to overcome it by examining multiple drivers of IE in emerging market economies (EMEs) and predicting their impact on financial and nonfinancial performance outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: Through a two-wave panel design, firms from India, Oman and the United Arab Emirates participated in the study with a time lapse of 12 months (T1n = 417, T2n = 403). Four cross-lagged competing models are tested for autoregressive, causal, reversed and reciprocal effects using structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings: The findings show that the synergistic effect of multiple innovation characteristics, such as innovation degree, cost, frequency and speed determines its endogenous effectiveness. The exogenous effectiveness of innovation is further established through its impact on financial and nonfinancial performance outcomes. Furthermore, readiness for innovation (RFI) is a critical factor that moderates the relationship between drivers and IE. Practical implications: The study’s findings could inform practitioners in emerging market economies about the appropriate measures of IE. It will guide managerial decisions on making an investment, evaluation, accountability and strategic choices related to innovation. Originality/value: It is one of the first studies that use a time-based lens to examine IE in EMEs. It posits that given the innovation’s complexity, IE needs to be measured at multiple levels. The study explains how evolutionary dynamics in different sociocultural contexts can bring a new perspective into theory of diffusion of innovation. The moderating role of RFI brings new insights into the IE process and emphasizes its importance in objective-driven and performance-focused innovation efforts.

User-generated innovation has contributed to the growth of the democratization of open-innovation models. One of the most common forms of user-generated innovation is evident on social media platforms. The purpose of this study is to investigate nonpecuniary motivations that drive innovation among user innovators on social media platforms. Furthermore, the study examines the underlying sociopsychological and biological dispositions that influence nonpecuniary motivation. The experimental and control group consisted of 204 user innovators on different social media platforms who filled out a self-reporting questionnaire in this exploratory research design. The study assessed endocrinal biomarkers through a proxy measure of 2D:4D ratio associated with behavioral, emotional, and social behavior. It developed a moderated-mediation model evaluating the indirect conditional relationships through a regression-based analysis with bootstrapped estimations. The findings support the moderated-mediation model, indicating that nonpecuniary motivation primarily explains user innovator behavior. Hedonic emotions, characterized by aesthetics, experiential enjoyment, and satisfaction-related feelings, mediate this relationship. A critical finding of the study is that endocrinal testosterone moderates this mediated relationship. This study is the first to apply a biopsychosocial lens to examine motivational drives influencing user-generated innovation using a moderated-mediation model. It contributes to understanding user innovators’ tricky motivational purposes, emphasizing the role of human agency in advancing the open-innovation agenda.