This chapter explores how the automotive aftermarket could provide potential opportunities for the challenges refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs face in the Nordic countries. As the automotive industry has a vast societal impact, including geographical, economical, and employment effects, the aim of this paper is to explore the Automotive Aftermarket (AA) as a potential gateway for disadvantaged newcomers, e.g., refugees and immigrants in the Nordics, to become entrepreneurs and reach prosperity. Through qualitative research it is shown that the automotive aftermarket industry has excellent market conditions for disadvantaged entrepreneurs through low entry barriers and increasing demand side. The industry is also characterised by strong network influences, while its institutional infrastructure might be difficult to navigate. Additionally, this paper also found that language has a central piece in overcoming refugee entrepreneurs’ challenges in social integration. In summary, the paper concludes that raising awareness of the opportunities the automotive aftermarket provides in the Nordics could be beneficial both for the industry’s social impact and newcomers who wish to contribute to the development of the entrepreneurial landscape of AA.

This chapter proposes authentic leadership as a generic competence and an integral part of doctoral education regardless of field of study. The authors explore its potential to enhance the development of doctoral candidates and academics and search for answers to the questions: Can and should authentic leadership be developed as a generic competence in doctoral education? How can it be designed and implemented in a doctoral training module? What would its learning outcomes be? The authors address these questions in the context of doctoral education. They assert that authentic leadership training should be mandatory for all doctoral candidates, and that supervisors should be actively engaged in the development of this underappreciated transferrable skill.

While brands are among the most valuable assets for companies and serve as a basis for competitive advantage, limited research exists on how manufacturers in the luxury car segment interact with their stakeholders in the value co-creation process. A review of the main theories on brand co-creation, value creation, and sensory marketing is used together with a case study of a global car manufacturer in the premium segment to explore the co-creation of multi-sensory experiences within the car’s interior. Our findings show that co-creation of these experiences is achieved by employing a brand heritage theme in designing a value proposition. Suppliers contribute with competence, knowledge, and skills in ideating the car´s interior, while consumers assist the manufacturer to identify which factors contribute to an outstanding multisensory experience. A framework for understanding the co-creation of multi-sensory brand experiences is proposed reflecting the contribution of stakeholders in this process.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has attracted increasing research attention over the last decades, yet few studies apply all five dimensions in novel contexts and through qualitative studies. As a response, this paper explores six cases of new market entry by sharecoms, both internationalised and non-internationalised, in order to enhance knowledge about EO in an international sharing economy context. The findings show that the five dimensions of EO are demonstrated and utilised in diverse ways and to varying degrees, often through combination. Innovativeness, autonomy, and proactiveness are useful for bringing novel offerings to the market and EO is seen as an accelerator for growth and stimulator of early internationalisation. Still, not all of the dimensions were evident within all of the sharecoms nor were they deemed necessary in order to be entrepreneurial, which challenges previous research. The findings are shown to contribute to theory, as well as to practitioners.

Purpose This paper aims to advance the theoretical knowledge of how manufacturers develop a multisensory value proposition. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case study with a global automotive manufacturer was conducted. Personal in-depth interviews with key informants within a manufacturer were performed to obtain in-depth knowledge and insights on how the manufacturer plans and designs a value proposition. Findings This paper reveals how a value proposition is created from a sensory marketing perspective, which includes orchestrating the sensory experience, harmonising sensory cues to ensure they provide a consistent experience, thereby providing a memorable experience. Practical implications Understanding how to offer value might assist managers in tailoring a unique experiential value proposition to position the brand. Originality/value This paper proposes a theoretical framework, enriching the understanding of the underlying mechanisms used to create an experiential value proposition. The framework illustrates that harmonising sensory cues based on brand-related stimuli fosters a memorable experience, which enables consumers to (sub)consciously infer value.

Globalization has led to increased competition and risk of business failure for firms venturing abroad over the last decades. A particularly challenging situation is seen for SMEs from developed economies entering emerging markets. We theorize and empirically show that prior market experience with domestic and developed countries helps to reduce the hazard of exit from emerging markets. We further develop competing hypotheses from complementary and compensatory perspectives about the moderating influence of firm-specific resources (re-flected by size, productivity and innovation). Using data from all Canadian SMEs having exported to emerging markets between 1993 and 2008, we find that SMEs can compensate for less accumulated experience through being larger, more productive and more innovative. SMEs that lack prior market experience are – with a suf-ficient set of compensatory resources – thereby able to be resilient in dissimilar export markets.

The global world of today is characterized by movement, both voluntarily and forced. Despite the current situation, few studies have focused on refugees and their entrepreneurial activities. The research question is: how do immigrant entrepreneurs with a refugee background start and run transnational business in their country of residence? The purposes of the paper are (1) to identify the characteristics of the refugee entrepreneur and (2) to examine how the social network is utilized for starting up and running the business. Through this, the scarce understanding of refugee entrepreneurial activities will be enhanced and particular traits of refugee entrepreneurship can be determined. Four cases of immigrant entrepreneurs with a refugee background who conduct business with transnational characteristics have been studied. Consequently, contributions of both theoretical development, integrating refugee entrepreneurship into the field of international business, as well as novel empirical contributions through a less-studied angle on refugee entrepreneurship, are made.

The increased internationalisation of higher education creates opportunities and challenges when planning education for a cross-cultural classroom environment. Students from different nationalities and cultures are brought together for both individual and collaborative learning processes. The pedagogical topic and issues to be discussed are related to the usage of peer assessment of contributions into group projects as a tool for group monitoring and individual learning in a cross-cultural classroom environment. Students at an international master programme in international business strategy in Sweden have reported on their perceptions on both their own and the other group members’ contributions into the group work. The potential contribution and usefulness of such a tool, as well as the usage of group reports in courses with individual grading, will be further problematized and discussed for a cross-cultural learning environment.