Search results

The healthcare sector faces severe problems due to increasing costs, decreasing workforce and an increasing share of elderly people. Innovation is proposed as the main cure. However, there are several barriers that prevent new ideas from becoming innovations. In this chapter we focus on the biomedical engineering sector and the barriers to commercialisation that are present for applied research projects within this sector. We describe and categorise the barriers and discuss their implications and how they could be overcome. This study has a longitudinal approach and is based on data collected annually through half-structured interviews for approximately 40 research and development projects at four universities, two hospitals and one municipality healthcare centre, across eastern and central Sweden. Our results found a broad range of barriers to commercialisation, which have been categorised as follows: (1) Barriers coupled to the healthcare sector per se, for example security regulations, procedures for governmental procurement and the industry structure. (2) Barriers related to the market structure, for example public procurement matters and the fact that hospitals commonly look for holistic solutions rather than pieces and gadgets that solve isolated parts of problems. (3) Barriers related to entrepreneurship attitudes among researchers. The findings contribute to research on the ability to create innovation in a highly prioritised sector.

This chapter complements the one that appeared as “History of the AIB Fellows: 1975–2008” in Volume 14 of this series (International Business Scholarship: AIB Fellows on the First 50 Years and Beyond, Jean J. Boddewyn, Editor). It traces what happened under the deanship of Alan Rugman (2011–2014) who took many initiatives reported here while his death in July 2014 generated trenchant, funny, and loving comments from more than half of the AIB Fellows. The lives and contributions of many other major international business scholars who passed away from 2008 to 2014 are also evoked here: Endel Kolde, Lee Nehrt, Howard Perlmutter, Stefan Robock, John Ryans, Vern Terpstra, and Daniel Van Den Bulcke.

This chapter analyzes the concept of the Center of Government (CoG) and its relevance for the public administration agenda in Latin America. It identifies five key functions of the CoG: strategic management, policy coordination, performance monitoring and improvement, political management, and communications and accountability, and it assesses the region's performance for each of them, citing concrete experiences. The CoG is still an emerging topic for scholars and practitioners in Latin America. Despite the fact that CoGs in Latin America formally recognize most if not all of its five key functions, the region shows a relatively weak performance in practice. Nonetheless, recent innovative experiences show an increased interest in governments to strengthen the CoG and suggest paths that may lead to improved performance.

The CoG may be a relatively new topic in public administration research, but it is not a new phenomenon. It refers to functions that have been performed, and to structures that have existed, for several decades in many countries, including Latin American ones. However, a number of factors have led to an increased relevance of CoG institutions in recent years. The first section of this chapter will attempt to define the concept of “Center of Government”; to enumerate the CoG's main political and technical functions; to describe the typical structures that perform these functions; and to indicate why these institutions play a critical role in current times. Then, Section 2 will discuss how CoG institutions in Latin American countries have been performing their core functions, identifying regional trends and country-level configurations. The political economy of CoG strengthening will also be covered. Section 3 concludes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially affected China’s tourism industry. Tourism small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with limited crisis response ability, might be difficult to recover after the pandemic. Regarding the impacts of the pandemic on rural tourism, income for rural attraction sites was almost zero; sightseeing, agri-tourism activities were ceased; and large amount of rural bed-and-breakfasts (B&Bs) faced business closure. However, through three cases, our study found that through either content innovation or process innovation, some B&Bs are able to recover speedily from the pandemic and develop sustainably. These innovations are important for their business strategy adjustment. Innovation creates more value for tourists and stakeholders by developing new service products or adjusting existing products. This chapter discusses the linkages between innovation and leadership. Through the investigation and analysis of three cases, the researchers found that the advantages of transformational leadership were reflected in the post-crisis management in different ways and effectively improved the innovation ability and sustainable development of post-crisis organizations. This study has enriched the literature on transformational leadership and post-crisis recovery of small tourism enterprises and has practical reference value for managers of small rural tourism companies.

Decisions about strategies to be implemented and organization design are important in having competitive advantage for companies. Although this statement widely takes place in management literature, very little research has been done on this subject in Turkey. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of competitive strategies in the impact of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage in order to extend about empirical literature of the structure-strategy-competitive advantage paradigm based on the resource-based view (RBV). In this context, the data were collected from the top 500 industrial enterprises in Turkey. The data were tested via structural equation model. The findings of our research show that the direct effect of organizational flexibility on competitive superiority was marginally significant and when three different competitive strategies were included between these two variables in the model, the marginally significant effect of organizational flexibility on the competitive advantage disappeared. In other words, the full mediating role of applied competition strategies in the effect of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage has been identified. Our findings are similar to the findings of other studies that consider organizational structure as a valuable resource and examine the relationship between the structure and the strategy according to the RBV.

This chapter offers a template for examining the rigor and validity ideals in international business survey research. It provides (1) observations on how research-quality checks are currently used, and (2) recommendations about prerequisites for their use. These recommendations are based on the idea that the ideal of rigor and validity is not absolute and cannot be achieved by ad-hoc checks. We argue that there must be certain linkages and progression in attempting higher quality in survey research. We propose a hierarchy of stipulations to strive for highest validity and rigor goal, which we entitle commensurability. As such, this framework outlines the different steps which need to be examined progressively to approach commensurability.

Knowledge theories have developed over the past 30 years (Polanyi, 1966). However, it is only recently that knowledge has become regarded valuable asset in corporate boardrooms. Knowledge acquisition has become a critical resource for creating and sustaining competitive advantage as the competitive environment continues to intensify (Hitt, Ireland, & Lee, 2000). As with other corporate assets, the processes surrounding the creation and transfer of knowledge must be managed with significant insight to derive the most value from knowledge investments (Bhagat, Kedia, Harveston, & Triandis, 2002; Conner & Prahalad, 1996; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Edvinsson & Malone, 1997; Stewart, 1997). The purpose of this chapter is to examine the significance of managing knowledge both within firm (internal knowledge) and across the value chain (external knowledge) for small and large firms. First, we review the literature on knowledge management systems and propose some hypotheses for internal and external knowledge management. Next, we present the data and follow this with the results. Discussion of the results follows, and the chapter closes with a number of managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.