University of Virginia's College at Wise

Purpose This paper aims to address the research question: How did the State transform sanitation behavior in India within five years? It examines the Swachh Bharat Mission, India’s national sanitation campaign (2014–2019), as a case of systemic behavioral transformation. The analysis adopts an interdisciplinary lens spanning institutional theory, institutional entrepreneurship, public policy and management history to explain how the state orchestrated and sustained large-scale behavioral change within a tightly bounded timeframe. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a critical realist orientation, integrating abductive and retroductive modes of reasoning and interpretation. A case study design is used, drawing on 104 documents (67 peer-reviewed articles and 37 primary sources). A theory-informed thematic dictionary was developed across five domains – entrepreneurship, logic, isomorphism, community engagement and governance – and applied to the source materials to unearth the interrelated processes underlying a nation’s sanitation behavioral transformation. Findings The study identifies five interrelated processes of institutional entrepreneurship, institutional logic, institutional isomorphism, community engagement and institutional governance that provide insights into the behavioral transformation of a nation impacting 550 million people and led to the construction of nearly 110 million toilets within five years. Research limitations/implications This study draws on primary and secondary sources from a single country and a bounded time period. Future research can extend this work through direct observation and longitudinal tracking, comparing state-led reforms across diverse historical, geographical, political and cultural contexts. Multimethod designs – particularly valuable in resource-constrained environments – can advance understanding into how institutional entrepreneurship unfolds and how behavioral change becomes embedded over time. Practical implications The findings offer actionable lessons for policymakers: empower leaders to act as institutional entrepreneurs; craft compelling change narratives; allocate resources strategically; build operational programs that translate vision into practice; align incentives with systemic goals; integrate top-down leadership with grassroots mobilization; and embed accountability cultures and governance mechanisms that dismantle entrenched practices and institutionalize new norms to drive behavioral change at scale. Social implications This study demonstrates how government-led initiatives can evolve into nationwide social movements, reshaping public norms, transforming behaviors and improving health, dignity and civic engagement within a tightly bounded timeframe. Originality/value This paper contributes to management history by demonstrating how temporal reasoning, sequencing and historical causation shape state-led institutional entrepreneurship. It advances institutional theory, including institutional entrepreneurship, beyond firm-level contexts to large-scale, state-driven public-policy initiatives and reforms that reconcile stability with disruption within a bounded timeframe. The five interrelated processes identified in this study offer a granular understanding of how government can act as an institutional entrepreneur to achieve systemic change.

This research puts forward an agroforestry plan to re-introduce white-tailed deer, elk and mountain bison game animals, along with silviculture-raised cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens, as sustainable meat sources for Climate Change Haven Communities in the Virginia Highlands. The model should be applicable throughout Appalachia and other temperate mountainous regions in North America, Europe and Asia.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between inbound tourism and national economic development in Brazil, focusing on the intermediary role of the hospitality industry. Using a 25-year time series dataset (1998–2023), the research examines how international tourist arrivals influence key hotel performance indicators such as Average Daily Rate (ADR), Occupancy Rate, and Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR), and whether these operational metrics contribute to macroeconomic outcomes such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita. A robust econometric approach combining stationarity testing, Granger causality, two-stage least squares (2SLS), and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to identify both direct and indirect effects. Results indicate that while international arrivals positively affect hotel performance metrics, these improvements do not consistently translate into national economic gains. In some cases, hotel revenue was negatively associated with GDP, underscoring the complexity of tourism’s developmental impact. These findings challenge the universal applicability of the Tourism-Led Growth Hypothesis (TLGH) and highlight the need for more nuanced, sector-specific analyses when evaluating tourism’s role in national development, particularly in emerging economies.

ABSTRACT Climate havens are climate-resilient regions providing a unique set of opportunities for entrepreneurial activities. The article introduces climate haven entrepreneurship as a new subfield of entrepreneurship through the application of a novel four-step evaluation process leveraging entrepreneurship theory and practice by (a) assessing its potential through the development and application of a subfield assessment framework; (b) situating it within an entrepreneur typology classification informed by past precedence in entrepreneurship research; (c) conducting a comparative analysis that differentiates climate haven entrepreneurship from adjacent subfields such as sustainability, climate, and green entrepreneurship; and (d) introducing research questions and propositions to expand the scholarly foundation of this emerging subfield. Climate haven entrepreneurship is positioned at the intersection of climate change, migration, economic development, public policy, small business, and entrepreneurship. As a distinct subfield of entrepreneurship, climate haven entrepreneurship combines environmental stability and economic growth while enabling inclusive community development and sustainable growth and innovation within climate havens.

This paper presents RotaWise, an intelligent platform for urban maintenance that integrates cameras and an edge device within a vehicle for real-time video processing and urban issue identification. The system leverages computer vision and AI technologies to monitor roads and sidewalks for problems such as potholes, trash, and debris. The experimental results demonstrated RotaWise’s ability to process up to three cameras simultaneously, offering realtime event detection and metadata transmission.

This study investigates the complex relationships between high-performance work systems, entrepreneurial orientation, and firm performance under varying levels of environmental hostility. Using empirical data from a representative sample of 263 US firms, the paper explores these dynamics through the lens of the resource-based view and configurational theory. The study is the first one to analyze how high-performance work systems and environmental hostility interact to influence the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. The findings challenge the traditional notion of high-performance work systems as universally beneficial, revealing their potential to constrain firm performance, possibly due to structural rigidity inherent in centralized systems and standardization procedures and the contextual misalignment between human resource practices and employee work and business environments. While high-performance work systems seem to stifle the display of entrepreneurial behaviors, environmental hostility enhances firm performance by activating entrepreneurial orientation in hostile conditions. In benign environments, entrepreneurial orientation’s impact on performance is less pronounced. The study also uncovers the complex dynamics of the three-way interaction, showing that in highly hostile environments, entrepreneurial orientation can thrive even without well-developed high-performance work systems, making the case for flexibility and adaptability for activating entrepreneurial behavior in firms. These insights contribute to a nuanced theoretical understanding of how internal and external factors interact to influence firm performance. We provide actionable insights for managers on how to strategize about high-performance work systems to support entrepreneurial orientation effectively, especially in challenging and hostile environments, and offer specific guidance on the optimum configurations of high-performance work systems and entrepreneurial orientation for firm performance in benign and hostile environments. Finally, we present the study’s limitations and outline the future research agenda for scholars, calling on them to incorporate longitudinal and configurational approaches to understand the complex relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance.

The study explores whether vicarious animosity and altruism account for consumers’ willingness to buy products made in Ukraine (perceived victim) and reluctance to buy products made in Russia (perceived aggressor). The proposed Research Model comprises six constructs (susceptibility to normative influence, altruism, animosity beliefs, vicarious animosity, willingness to buy Russian products, and willingness to buy Ukrainian products). Data for the current investigation was collected from a convenience sample of American and German consumers (282 and 199, respectively) between March 15th and June 15th, 2022, via an online survey using self-reported questionnaires. Findings show that altruism correlates more strongly with reluctance to buy Russian-made products than willingness to buy products made in Ukraine. Altruism mediates the relationship between subjective normative influence and willingness to buy Russian products. Animosity beliefs mediate the relationship between subjective normative influence and vicarious animosity. Finally, vicarious animosity mediates the relationship between animosity beliefs and willingness to buy Russian products. Previous consumer behavior research has largely neglected how intergroup conflict may impact the attitudes and responses of uninvolved parties. By focusing on altruism, our study extends the literature on consumer animosity. Furthermore, we identify the differential role of altruism on consumer behavior concerning the parties involved in a conflict.