Startups often fail not because of weak technology, but because they overlook what truly drives customer decisions: perceived benefits and values. This study introduces a new tool that combines the Value Proposition Canvas and the Jobs-to-be-Done Concept with Bain & Company's Elements of Value Pyramid, creating a structured Value Integration Guide. The outcome is the Value Integration Map, which helps startups move beyond technical features to uncover customer values and translate them into compelling value propositions. Tested in workshops with two B2B technology startups, the tool proved effective in fostering customer orientation while also revealing areas requiring additional guidance. By making hidden customer values explicit, the Value Integration Map bridges product development and marketing. For engineers, it highlights opportunities for improvement; for marketers, it provides a strong foundation for positioning, messaging, and communication strategies. Ultimately, it enables startups to define not just what their product does-but why it matters.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether and to what extent competitiveness influences the overall outcome of a firm. With in this context resource based view and Porter's diamond model were revisited and examined more closely. Based on a review of the longstanding research on competitiveness, the results highlight that there are several internal and external factors that have an impact on the competitiveness of a firm. While the overall aim was to provide a review of the existing literature on the topic from the historical perspective, the study proposes a conceptual framework including the key determinants for achieving greater international competitiveness for the firms. This study emphasizes the transformative potential of firm's competitiveness, not only for success but also for competing in international markets. In addition, this study aims to stimulate further research into the new and emerging trends that can impact firms' competitiveness.

The development of “ABCD” technology (Artificial intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud computing, and Big data) has promoted the design and development of new and innovative technologies, which fundamentally revolutionized the ways organizations manage themselves. However, digital transformations have also brought in new challenges. Against the backdrop of growing internationalization, cross-border collaborations, and increasing global trade, it is of utmost importance to explore how technology renovates the intercultural dialogues, negotiations, trainings, and the subsequent knowledge transfer processes. Researchers have suggested that technology will play a vital role in facilitating the need to work with people from all around the world. And from the perspective of intercultural exchanges, and cross-border/cross-cultural collaborations,it is necessary to know how to navigate the intercultural challenges effectively. The emergence of social robots like the Furhat allows to design rich human-robot interactions including verbal- and non-verbal communication elements, which is promising to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) -based intercultural training capabilities. This research project has two objectives: first, this research will bring in the AI factor in human landscape to explore the actions and interactions of AI and intercultural environment in transition; second, this study aims to provide orientations and recommendations for implementing interactions with social robots to enable AI-based intercultural trainings. Therefore, design criteria for implementing effective verbal and nonverbal interactions are outlined for achieving high standards of intercultural interactions to provide better understanding and interpretations of the contexts in which certain intercultural actions are practiced.