Search results

This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.

We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.

Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

This research proposes a novel risk assessment model to elucidate the risk propagation process of industrial safety accidents triggered by natural disasters (Natech), identifies key factors influencing urban carrying capacity and mitigates uncertainties and subjectivity due to data scarcity in Natech risk assessment.

Utilizing disaster chain theory and Bayesian network (BN), we describe the cascading effects of Natechs, identifying critical nodes of urban system failure. Then we propose an urban carrying capacity assessment method using the coefficient of variation and cloud BN, constructing an indicator system for infrastructure, population and environmental carrying capacity. The model determines interval values of assessment indicators and weights missing data nodes using the coefficient of variation and the cloud model. A case study using data from the Pearl River Delta region validates the model.

(1) Urban development in the Pearl River Delta relies heavily on population carrying capacity. (2) The region’s social development model struggles to cope with rapid industrial growth. (3) There is a significant disparity in carrying capacity among cities, with some trends contrary to urban development. (4) The Cloud BN outperforms the classical Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) gate fuzzy method in describing real-world fuzzy and random situations.

The present research proposes a novel framework for evaluating the urban carrying capacity of industrial areas in the face of Natechs. By developing a BN risk assessment model that integrates cloud models, the research addresses the issue of scarce objective data and reduces the subjectivity inherent in previous studies that heavily relied on expert opinions. The results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the classical fuzzy BNs.

Due to the recent increase in unexpected events that negatively affect projects, the concept of resilience has grasped the attention of researchers, as risk management alone fails to address unpredicted events. This study aims to identify resilience dimensions and their designated factors and then construct a comprehensive definition for resilience in construction projects.

This paper adopted a qualitative research design through content analysis of semi-structured interviews with project engineers on behalf of their construction project; 26 interviews were analyzed via ATLAS.ti.

The results demonstrate that resilience in construction projects consists of four main dimensions: preparation, absorption, recovery and adaptation; each dimension comprises separate factors. The evidence from this study demonstrates that the resilience of the organization, project team and project manager supports the construction project when facing unpredicted or abnormal conditions.

The results of this paper will help construction project managers to enhance the resilience of their projects by providing different resilience factors.

The resilience concept in projects is novel and has limited knowledge available, especially in construction projects therefore, it requires additional comprehensive discussion and validation. The findings of this paper will serve as a cornerstone for the development of the resilience field and enrich the indigent literature on resilience in the construction industry.

The aim of this study was to explore and understand the leadership experiences of medical consultants prior to a major hospital move. Health and care is becoming increasingly complex and there is no greater challenge than the move to a new hospital. Effective leadership has been identified as being essential for successful transition. However, there is very little evidence of how medical consultants experience effective leadership.

A qualitative methodology was utilized with one-to-one semi-structured interviews conducted with ten medical consultants. These were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. The research complied with the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ).

Four themes were found to influence medical consultants’ experience of leadership: collaboration, patient centredness, governance and knowledge mobilization. Various factors were identified that negatively influenced their leadership effectiveness. The findings suggest that there are a number of factors that influence complexity leadership effectiveness. Addressing these areas may enhance leadership effectiveness and the experience of leadership in medical consultants.

This study provides a rich exploration of medical consultants’ experience of collective leadership prior to a transition to a new hospital and provides new understandings of the way collective leadership is experienced in the lead up to a major transition and makes recommendations for future leadership research and practice.

The findings suggest that there are a number of factors that influence complexity leadership effectiveness. Addressing these areas may enhance leadership effectiveness and the experience of leadership in medical consultants.

Clinical leadership is associated with better outcomes for patients therefore any interventions that enhance leadership capability will improve outcomes for patients and therefore benefit society.

This is the first research to explore medical consultants’ experience of collective leadership prior to a transition to a new hospital.

The challenges to healthcare caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced hospital librarians to develop their abilities to cope with change and crises, both on a social level and an organisational level. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about how hospital librarians developed library services during the pandemic and how these changes contributed to building information resilience in the healthcare organisation. This paper also seeks to explore how resilience theory, and specifically the concept information resilience, can be used within library and information science (in LIS) to investigate resilience in the library sector.

Nine semi-structured interviews with librarians were conducted at four different hospital libraries in four different regions in Sweden between March and May 2022. The empirical material was analysed through an interaction between the tzheoretical perspective and the empirical material through a thematic analysis. In each theme, specific resilience resources are identified and analysed as components of the information resilience developed by hospital librarians.

The results show that hospital librarians contribute to several different information resilience resources, which support information resilience in the healthcare organisation. Three aspects characterize the qualities of resilience resources: access, flexibility, and collaboration. The findings suggest that the framework for analysing information resilience used in this study is well suited for studying the resilience of libraries from both organisational and informational aspects.

The analysis of information resilience on an organisational level presents a novel way to study resilience in the library sector.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the resilience literature to integrate the fragmented views and provide a more comprehensive understanding. This study aims to fill the gaps in the literature by discussing scientific contributions and highlighting the main issues in previous research findings regarding the definitions, dimensions and concepts that make up organizational resilience. This research highlights organizational resilience from a capabilities perspective.

This paper uses the systematic literature review method by searching all previous studies studying organizational resilience from 2014 to 2023. In total, there are 28 articles reviewed from the Scopus database.

This study found that resilience is a complex concept and has many definitions and dimensions. This study also conceptualizes organizational capability with a pyramid, which illustrates the basic framework of the six stages of the resilience process and hierarchically forms organizational resilience.

First, the keyword search strings on the repository database are currently limited to a few keywords. Need to broaden the range of keywords so as to produce a more comprehensive review. Second, the exclusion of books, book chapters and conference papers limits research findings and results. These sources are likely to enrich resilience development from various perspectives. Even though Scopus is the largest repository database, the research findings are not yet fully generalizable. Future researchers can add data from WoS, Ebsco or other databases. Literature obtained from various databases that can provide broader results.

The practical implications of this study are to provide a basis for managers in making decisions for organizational sustainability. Managers can consider each stage in the resilience capability pyramid as a reference for making strategic plans and relational orientation toward organizational members.

This research provides a hierarchical perspective on organizational resilience capabilities. For academics and practitioners, this study provides a critical and comprehensive systematization of the limited academic literature on resilience. This study also offers opportunities for further research to overcome the limitations of empirical testing of resilience capability construction using various theories and methodologies.

There is a renowned interest in adaptability as an important principle for achieving circularity in the built environment. Circular building adaptability (CBA) could enable long-term building utilisation and flexible use of space with limited material flows. This paper identifies and analyses design strategies facilitating CBA to propose a framework for enhancing the implementation of the concept.

Interviews were conducted with professionals experienced in circular building design to explore the questions “How do currently applied design strategies enable CBA?” and “How can CBA be implemented through a conceptual design framework?”. The interviews encircled multi-residential building examples to identify currently applied circular design strategies. The interviews were analysed through qualitative content analysis using CBA determinants as a coding framework.

The results show that all ten CBA determinants are supported by design strategies applied in current circular building design. However, some determinants are more supported than others, and design strategies are often employed without explicitly considering adaptability. The design strategies that enable adaptability offer long-term solutions requiring large-scale modifications rather than facilitating low-impact adaptation by dwelling occupants. The proposed conceptual design framework could aid architects in resolving these issues and implementing CBA in their circular building design.

This paper’s contribution to CBA is threefold. It demonstrates design strategies facilitating CBA, proposes a conceptual design framework to apply the concept and identifies the need for a more comprehensive application of available adaptability strategies.

To fill the gap, this article examines the inter-governmental collaboration mechanisms behind the platform curtain.

Behind the curtain is to look at what makes things happen backstage. For collaborative e-governance platforms, scholars have assumed that technological factors and user characteristics are the determinants for platform success. Little attention has been paid to the issue of how multiple governments, acting as platform co-builders and co-operators, interact and collaborate backstage to provide integrated e-services.

Based on data from survey questionnaires sent to government employees, the results show that governments’ information processing capacities cannot directly affect collaboration; however, these capacities can impact collaboration via the mediating variable of horizontal relations. In addition, we found that higher-ranking authorities are better suited to intervene once horizontal relations have been established and that more adaptable organizations are better at forming horizontal relations with peers. For governments participating in collaborative e-governance platforms, our findings are practically applicable.

The research question reads as: How do various government departments acting as platform co-builders and co-operators judge their collaboration performance, and what collaboration mechanisms contribute to it? We study this research question by constructing a conceptual model based on the Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT) and the Collaborative Governance Theory (CGT), both suggesting information processing capacities, organizational flexibility, horizontal relations and vertical intervention as indispensable factors influencing collaboration performance in ICT-supported groupwork. We propose and test four hypotheses on the relationships among these four factors to reveal the inter-governmental collaboration mechanisms for cross-government platformisation projects.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of strategic leadership (SL) on business operational resilience (OR) in the hotel industry in Egypt, namely, during and after the pandemic. This investigation also aimed to explore the mediating function of crisis response strategies (CRSs) and organisational e-readiness (Oe-R) in this relationship.

The researchers conducted a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire as the primary data collection method. Using partial least squares structural equation simulation (PLS-SEM), the study used a comprehensive sample that targets the general managers of all five-star hotels in Egypt.

Results indicated that SL has a positive impact on CRSs and Oe-R. Furthermore, the results reveal a positive influence of Oe-R on both CRSs and hotel OR. On the other hand, CRSs do not influence hotel OR. The findings showed that CRSs fully mediate the link between SL and OR. However, CRSs do not serve as a mediator between Oe-R and OR. Furthermore, the findings showed that Oe-R partially mediates the link between SL and both OR and CRSs.

The study yields unique and valuable theoretical and practical insights to guide hotel leaders and managers towards adaptive recovery and resilience in turbulent and crisis-ridden environments by demonstrating that the combined mediating function of CRS and Oe-R is more effective in strengthening the relationship between SL and OR.

This study represents a pioneering investigation that establishes a correlation between SL and OR, either through direct or indirect means. The research examines the involvement of CRSs and Oe-R as collaborative mediators in this relationship. Previous studies undertaken in the hotel industry and service sector have not investigated this specific element.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the innovation capacity and performance of manufacturing firms in the Ecuadorian pharmaceutical and chemical sectors using strategic foresight analysis.

From an extensive literature review, the fundamental variables related to manufacturing firms’ innovation for better performance were identified. Six hypotheses and actions were proposed related to financing, economic resources, capacities and research and development. Several scenarios were tested through foresight methodology to determine the more appropriate to be implemented by manufacturing firms over the next five years.

Scenario 01, where all the hypotheses resulted positive, has a 15.3% probability of occurrence. The results offer a relevant understanding of the behavior of the variables proposed as strategic actions for the sector.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, foresight methodology is applied for the first time to analyze the manufacturing sector in Ecuador. The authors propose a plan of action from the strategic scenario identified in this study, supporting the development of the industrial sectors under study.