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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CROSS-DISCIPLINARY
BUSINESS RESEARCH, IN ASSOCIATION
WITH EUROMED ACADEMY OF BUSINESS
The Synergy of
Business Theory and
Practice
Advancing the Practical Application
of Scholarly Research
Edited by Alkis Thrassou · Demetris Vrontis
Yaakov Weber · S. M. Riad Shams · Evangelos Tsoukatos
Palgrave Studies in Cross-disciplinary Business
Research, In Association with EuroMed Academy
of Business
Series Editors
Demetris Vrontis
Department of Marketing
University of Nicosia
Nicosia, Cyprus
Yaakov Weber
School of Business Administration
College of Management
Rishon Lezion, Israel
Alkis Thrassou
Department of Marketing
University of Nicosia
Nicosia, Cyprus
S. M. Riad Shams
Newcastle Business School
Northumbria University
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Evangelos Tsoukatos
Department of Accounting and Finance
Hellenic Mediterranean University
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Reflecting the growing appetite for cross-disciplinary business research,
this series aims to explore the prospects of bringing different business
disciplines together in order to guide the exploitation of commercial
opportunities and the minimization of business risks. Each book in the
series will examine a current and pressing theme and consist of a range of
perspectives such as HRM, entrepreneurship, strategy and marketing in
order to enhance and move our thinking forward on a particular topic.
Contextually the series reflects the increasing need for businesses to move
past silo thinking and implement cross-functional and cross-disciplinary
strategies. It acts to highlight the emergence of cross-disciplinary business
knowledge and its strategic implications.
Published in conjunction with the EuroMed Academy of Business,
books will be published annually and based on the best papers from their
conferences. Over the last decade EuroMed have developed a cross-
disciplinary academic community which comprises more than 30,000
students and scholars from all over the world.
The Synergy of
Business Theory and
Practice
Advancing the Practical Application
of Scholarly Research
Editors
Alkis Thrassou Demetris Vrontis
Department of Marketing Department of Marketing
University of Nicosia University of Nicosia
Nicosia, Cyprus Nicosia, Cyprus
Evangelos Tsoukatos
Department of Accounting and Finance
Hellenic Mediterranean University
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
v
vi Contents
Index311
Notes on Contributors
and books, and he retains strong ties with the industry to help in building
their competitiveness.
xxi
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Quantitative definitions for SMEs in Germany and the EU 14
Table 2.2 Overview empirical studies about shared service centre 19
Table 3.1 Main challenges 50
Table 3.2 Recommended policies 52
Table 4.1 Pearson correlation coefficients for the bivariate associations
among the five variables of interest 77
Table 4.2 Results of the linear regression model of the employee
retention on the four independent variables and the
demographic characteristics of the participants 79
Table 7.1 Study selection and related key words 136
Table 7.2 Case sample description 142
Table 8.1 Z-score classification zones 187
Table 8.2 Z-score classification zones (reformed) 188
Table 8.3 Bankruptcy probabilities 188
Table 8.4 Z’-scores 192
Table 8.5 Bankruptcy probabilities 192
Table 10.1 The Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact 221
Table 10.2 Time of joining to UNGC and codes of institutions 226
Table 10.3 Results according to the following criteria: used languages;
description of the main aspects of organisations; attention to
the UNGC focus areas 228
Table 13.1 Key characteristics of transactional and transformational
leaders297
xxiii
1
Editorial Introduction: The Requisite
Bridge from Theory to Practice
Alkis Thrassou, Demetris Vrontis, Yaakov Weber,
S. M. Riad Shams, and Evangelos Tsoukatos
The yacht had arrived at the loch at the foot of Wilderness mountain
just as the dusk was falling. Craven Black had immediately gone
ashore in the mist and gloom, climbed the rugged steep, and
hastened to his temporary home. The windows were all uncurtained,
and a broad stream of watery light penetrated for a little distance into
the darkness. There was no sound of barking of dogs, and the
silence struck upon Craven Black’s ears strangely. The front door
stood wide open, but no one was in the hall.
He entered the house and looked into the drawing-room. Mrs.
Artress was there, pale and perturbed, a restless spark in her ashen
eyes, and disorder in her attire. She uttered an exclamation as she
beheld Mr. Black, and sprang toward him, exclaiming:
“I am so glad you are come, Craven. Have you got the medicines for
Octavia?”
“Yes. How is she?”
“I don’t know. I am very anxious about her. She looks like death, and
her breathing is very strange. She won’t lie down, but just wanders
about the house like some restless ghost. I think that her lungs are
congested, and that she is in serious danger. I really think you ought
to take her to Inverness and put her in a physician’s care. What if
she should die in this remote Wilderness?”
“She won’t die while she is able to ‘wander about the house,’”
responded Craven Black lightly. “When people are seriously ill they
take to their beds. Why are the dogs shut up?”
“Octavia ordered it. She could not bear their noise; it drove her wild,
she said.”
“Humph. Nervous. She will be better of her cold in a day or two. How
is Miss Wynde?”
“She is still obstinate, Craven, and never says a word against her
starvation diet. I am afraid we’ve made a serious mistake in our
estimate of her. She is what you sometimes call ‘game all through.’
She’ll die, but she won’t give in. I wish we had left her alone, and
allowed her to marry whom she pleased. That escapade of hers on
the mountain may cost Octavia her life. And if Octavia dies, her four
thousand a year dies too, and I shall have to become a companion
to some lady, and lead a horrible life of dependence and fear, and
you will have to go back to your precarious existence.”
“You are a pleasant comforter,” said Craven Black impatiently. “All
these horrors exist only in your imagination. Octavia will outlive us
all. Where is she?”
“In her own room.”
Black ran up the stairs to his wife’s room. He found Octavia standing
before the fire, clad in a loose wrapper, whose bright hue made her
pallid face look hideous. Her eyes were strangely large, and they
were thrown into relief by heavy black circles under them. Her long
black hair hung loosely down her back. She looked thin and old and
spectral, all the brightness and beauty gone from her. Her features
were hard in their expression, and the wicked soul declared itself
plainly in her unlovely countenance.
Craven Black recoiled at sight of her. How two or three days had
changed her! He felt a sudden repugnance to her. He had a horror of
weakness and illness, and a fear came over him that his cousin’s
terrors might not be without foundation.
“Oh, it’s you, Craven?” cried Octavia, in a thin, querulous voice.
“How long you have stayed. Did you get my medicine?”
“Yes, here it is,” and Black produced a bottle from his pocket. “It’s a
cough mixture.”
“I feel such a tightness here,” and Octavia put her hand upon her
chest. “Such a horrible restriction. I dare say, though it will be all right
in the morning. I remember, Craven, you hate sick people. Your
dinner is waiting. Let us go down.”
“You had better go to bed,” said Craven abruptly.
“I cannot lie down. My chest pains me when I attempt it. Had you
good luck at Inverness?”
Craven Black assented.
“Did you see any one you knew?”
“No; how should I? None of my acquaintances come to the
Highlands in November. I was as unrecognized at Inverness as I
should be in Patagonia. I will change my clothes and take you down
to dinner.”
He went into his dressing-room and changed his garments. Octavia
paced the room restlessly during his absence. He returned in the
course of some minutes and escorted his wife down to the dining-
room, where Mrs. Artress joined them.
He noticed that Octavia ate nothing at the meal. She complained of a
lack of appetite, and moved restlessly in her chair, starting at every
sound.
“I have read of the ancients placing a death’s head at their feasts,”
said Black grimly, “and I seem to have followed their customs.
Octavia, do try to look like something better than a galvanized
corpse.”
Octavia arose and went to the window, a spasm of pain convulsing
her hard features. The heartless mockery of her confederate in guilt
smote upon her in that hour of suffering like an avenging sword. How
she had loved him, and had sinned for him! And this was her reward!
Craven Black finished his dinner quietly, and drank his wine. Then he
arose with an air of gayety, and said:
“I have everything you sent for, Octavia, and some things you
neglected to send for. We can stand a siege in this old house all
winter, if need be. The boys are already bringing up the hampers.
Will you have a look at them?”
Octavia assented with a heavy sigh, and passed out into the front
hall with Craven Black and Mrs. Artress.
The three seamen stood in the hall, one with a lantern in his hand,
the other two in the act of depositing their hampers upon the floor.
And over the edge of the plateau at that very moment and not a
score of rods distant, four men were coming silently and slowly, with
stern faces and cautious mien, toward the house.
“That is right,” said Craven Black, examining the hampers. “Bring up
the wine baskets next.”
The three men went out. The four pursuers stood in the shadow of
the trees as they passed, and then resumed their approach to the
dwelling.
“I’d like to see how the girl stands her imprisonment,” said Craven
Black. “I’ll let her know that we are prepared to spend the winter
here. By the way, Octavia, I posted that second letter to Brussels to-
day, addressed under cover of a letter to Celeste’s sister, to Lord
Towyn. We have nicely hood-winked the earl, and I should like the
girl to know of our successful manœuvres. Where is Celeste?”
“In Neva’s ante-room.”
“Come then. We will visit our prisoner.”
He went upstairs, Octavia following slowly, assisted by Mrs. Artress.
Celeste sat at work in the ante-room of Neva’s chamber, and
admitted the visitors into Neva’s presence, entering with them.
And outside the house, upon the lawn, the four shadows came
nearer and yet nearer. They flitted up the steps of the porch, and in
at the open door. They paused a moment in the deserted lower hall,
and then, hearing voices above, came silently and darkly up the
stairs, and paused at the door of the ante-room.
That room was deserted. The light streamed from the inner room,
where Neva and her enemies were grouped. The sound of voices
came out to the intruders. Softly, with sternly eager faces, the four
crept across the floor of the ante-room, and two—Sir Harold Wynde
and Lord Towyn—looked in upon the Blacks and their young victim.
The earl breathed hard, and would have leaped in like a lion to the
rescue of his betrothed and to the confusion of his enemies, but Sir
Harold Wynde held him back with a grasp of iron. The baronet meant
to learn the falseness and perfidy of the wife he had so idolized and
trusted, from her own lips.
And with what unconscious frankness she bared her guilty soul to his
scrutiny. How completely she revealed her wickedness to him.
At the moment the intruders looked in with burning eyes upon them,
Octavia was speaking. Neva stood up near the fire, very pale and
slender and fragile of figure, as her father and lover saw with
swelling hearts, but her red-brown eyes glowed with the light of an
undying courage, her head was poised haughtily upon her slender
throat, and her lips were curled in a smile of dauntless defiance.
“You see, Craven,” Octavia was saying querulously. “We have
starved the girl; we have fed her for weeks on bread and water, until
her bodily strength must be nearly gone, and yet she stands there
and defies us. What are we to do with her?”
“Miss Wynde does not sufficiently realize her own helplessness and
our power,” said Craven Black. “Your friends think you traveling with
us upon the Continent, Miss Neva. I have posted to-day a letter
apparently in your handwriting, under cover to a friend in Brussels,
who will post it back to England. That letter is addressed to Lord
Towyn. How he will kiss and caress it, and wear it in his bosom,
never doubting that you wrote it. I shall send him another letter next
week, in your name, breaking your engagement with him.”
The young earl made a slight movement but Sir Harold held him still
in a grip of iron.
Neva’s pure, proud face flushed with scorn for her enemies.
“You may send as many letters as you please to Lord Towyn,” she
said haughtily, “but you will not deceive him so readily as you did me
with that letter purporting to come from papa. Oh, Octavia, I am glad
papa never lived to know you as you are, base, treacherous, and full
of double-dealing! It is well for him that he did not live, for you would
have broken his noble heart. He loved and trusted you, and you
have repaid him by oppressing his daughter whom he loved.”
The hard, haggard features of Octavia distorted themselves in a
sneer.
The baronet wondered with a sudden horror if this was the woman
he had loved. She looked a very Medusa to him now.
“Your father! Your ‘poor papa!’” mocked Octavia, with her hand upon
her chest. “You have flung Sir Harold’s name and memory at me
ever since we came to this place. And what was Sir Harold? A mere
Moneybags to me, that’s all. If you hope to move me to pity you, you
couldn’t use a worse name to give effect to your appeal than the
name of your father. I never loved Sir Harold Wynde, but I married
him because he was rich. You needn’t look so horrified. People
marry for such reasons every day, but they have not my frankness to
avow it. There stands the man whom I have loved for years,” and
she pointed at Craven Black. “It is his son whom I intend you shall
marry—”
“To enrich you, madam!” cried Neva.
“Yes, to enrich me, since you say so?” exclaimed Octavia. “You have
seventy thousand pounds a year; I have four thousand. I intend to
equalize matters before you and I separate. Craven has just returned
from Inverness with household stores sufficient to last us through the
winter, and we will stay here till spring, if necessary to compel you to
accede to our wishes. Your fare, every day through this winter, until
you yield to us, shall be bread and water. I warn you not to carry your
resistance too far for I may be moved to deprive you of a fire.”
Neva’s lovely face continued to glow with her haughty scorn.
“You seem to think that I am deserted by God and man, and
completely given over to you,” she cried. “You are mistaken. God has
not deserted me. And I can assure you, Craven and Octavia Black,
that before many weeks—before many days perhaps—Lord Towyn
will trace me to this place and rescue me from your hands.”
“Let him come!” sneered Craven Black. “Let him come!”
“Yes,” mocked Octavia, “let him come!”
Lord Towyn broke from the grasp Sir Harold still held upon him, and
stalked into the chamber.
With a shriek of delight, loud and piercing, Neva flew to his arms.
He held her clasped to his breast and backed toward the door,
coming to a halt, looking at Neva’s enemies with stern, accusing
eyes.
Craven Black, Octavia, Mrs. Artress and Celeste stared at him
appalled. Not one could speak, but Octavia’s hand clutched at her
chest with sudden frenzy.
“Lord Towyn!” gasped Mrs. Artress at last, faintly.
Craven Black broke forth into curses. His hand flew to his breast
pocket, but fell again, as the door pushed open and Mr. Atkins and
Ryan, the detective, entered the room.
“By Heaven, the game is up!” he cried.
“Yes,” said our young hero, “the game is up. You have played a
daring game, Craven Black, and you have lost it.”
Octavia gasped for breath. The bitterness of defeat was almost more
than she could bear. The sight of Neva in the arms of her lover
nearly goaded her to madness.
“Yes, the game is up,” she said hollowly, “I suppose that you traced
Craven here from Inverness; but how did you get upon our trail?
How did you happen at Inverness? No matter. I do not care to know
just yet. You cannot prosecute us, Lord Towyn, if you care to
preserve your bride’s family name from scandal. I was Sir Harold
Wynde’s wife, and that fact must shield me and my friends. You
cannot take from me my jointure of four thousand a year, and with
that Craven and I need not suffer, especially as we have the Wynde
Heights estate. The game is up, Lord Towyn, as you say, but we are
not discomforted nor overthrown. You will keep silence for the sake
of the family. Besides, you know I am Neva’s personal guardian, and
had a right to take her where I please.”
“That remains to be seen,” said the young earl sternly. “Neva,
darling, look up. I have news for you.”
Neva slowly lifted her pale, joyous face from her lover’s bosom, and
stood a little way from him, eager, expectant, and wondering.
“My poor little girl!” said the young earl, with an infinite yearning.
“How you have suffered! I have brought you very startling news, and
you will need all your bravery to bear it. Give me your hands—so!
Neva, I have news from India.”
Something in his tone startled the girl. Her face grew paler on the
instant.
“Yes, Arthur,” she said softly. “You have heard more about his death
—poor papa!”
“A gentleman has come from India,” said the earl telling the story
much as Atkins had told it to him. “He says—can you bear to hear it,
darling—he says that Sir Harold did not die out there at all: that he
was attacked by a tiger, but was rescued by his Hindoo servant, who
sent him away into the mountains in the care of other Hindoos, who
kept Sir Harold a captive. And he says that Sir Harold is alive and
well to-day.”
“Oh, Arthur, Arthur! Can it be?” cried Neva, trembling. “My poor
father! I dreamed that he still lived, and my dream has come true.
We will start for India at once, and rescue papa. Oh, Arthur, do you
think it is true!”
“Yes, my darling, I believe it.”
“Well, I don’t!” sneered Craven Black, turning pale nevertheless.
“Such trumpery tales are common enough. Look at Livingstone. He’s
been said to be dead these several years, but every little while the
newspapers resurrect him. I know Sir Harold is dead!”
“And I know it,” scoffed Octavia. “Alive, after an absence of so long
duration! Bah! I wonder you haven’t more sense, Lord Towyn. Sir
Harold Wynde alive! I should like to see him!”
The door swung slowly on its hinges, and Sir Harold Wynde walked
into the room. He paused near the door, and surveyed his false wife
with stern and awful eyes.
Octavia gave utterance to a frightful scream—whose horror was
indescribable—and bounded forward, her hand upon her breast, and
fell to the floor upon her face.
Sir Harold’s awful gaze turned upon Craven Black, and seemed to
turn that individual to stone. It rested upon Artress, and she cowered
before it in terror. It passed over the French woman, and fixed itself
upon Neva, softening and melting to almost more than human
tenderness and love, and then, with a great joy shining in his keen
blue eyes, he opened wide his arms. Neva sprang forward, and was
clasped close to his great heart.
The sacred joy of that reunion need not be dwelt upon.
Presently, as Sir Harold was about to lead his daughter from the
room, his glance rested upon the still prostrate figure of Octavia.
“Look to your wife, Mr. Black,” he said; his irony arousing Black from
his stupor. “She has fainted!”
Craven Black obeyed the voice of command, essaying to lift the
prostrate figure of Octavia, but with a cry of horror he let it fall again,
shouting hoarsely:
“She’s dead! Octavia is dead!”
It was true. The engorged lungs had ceased their work. The heart
had stopped its beating.
That night, the yacht and the sloop started upon their return to
Inverness. In the former were Craven Black, dispirited and
despairing; Mrs. Artress, full of bewailings for the poverty into which
she was now plunged; the French maid; the dead body of the false
Octavia; and the three sailors in Black’s employ.
In the sloop were Neva and her friends.
The two vessels arrived safely at Inverness, and the remains of Lady
Wynde were consigned to the grave. Craven Black did not wait to
see the last rites performed for her who had served his wicked
purposes so faithfully and so well, but, abandoning his cousin, put to
sea in his yacht with three sailors, not caring whither he went.
A week later, the wreck of the yacht was found upon the north
German coast, and four bodies were washed ashore, two still living,
two dead. And of the dead, one was identified, from the papers on
his person, as Craven Black.
Sir Harold with his daughter and his friends returned to Hawkhurst.
The story of Sir Harold’s return to England had preceded them, and
from the moment that the party alighted at the Canterbury station
until after their arrival at their own home, Sir Harold received one
continual ovation. The tenantry of Hawkhurst turned out in a body to
welcome home their beloved landlord. The joy bells were rung in the
little village of Wyndham, and guns were fired. It was a day long to
be remembered throughout that part of Kent.
The shadow that had fallen on Sir Harold’s life when he first learned
the baseness of his second wife, was dispelled by the tender love
and attentions of Neva and her young lover. The smiles came back
to his lips and the joy to his heart, and he learned the lesson that
many must learn, that life need not be all dark and desolate because
one friend of the many has proved false.
A few months later the joy bells rang again, and again the tenantry of
Sir Harold made merry. The occasion was the marriage of the
heiress of Hawkhurst to the young Lord Towyn. It was a joyous
bridal. Sir John Freise and wife, and their seven daughters were
there. Mr. Atkins’ plain face beamed from the midst of the throng.
Rufus Black and his gipsy-faced young wife, both happy and loving,
had come down from Mount street to grace the wedding, and no
congratulations to the young bridal pair were more sincere than
those uttered by Rufus.
At the wedding breakfast, while Neva, fair and proud, and radiant as
a star, sat beside her equally radiant young bridegroom, Rufus Black
found opportunity to speak a word privately to the bride.
“It has all ended as it ought to, Miss Neva—my lady, I mean,” he
whispered joyously. “Your father has got over his disappointment and
grief, and looks like a king, as he stands yonder. I am getting to be a
man—an honest, upright, strong-souled man, with genuine
backbone and downright vim. Lally believes in me, you see, and
upholds me, God bless her. And you and the earl are as happy as
angels, Miss Ne—my lady, and you deserve to be. Mrs. Artress is a
governess—where do you think—oh, divine justice—in the house of
the Blights at Canterbury! What worse could we wish her? Our
enemies—they were mine as well as yours, Lady Towyn—played a
daring game, and they lost it!”
THE END.
No. 233 of the Select Library, is the first volume of “The Three
Musketeers,” by Alexandre Dumas.
A Big Step
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