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Based on fifteen years of data on the annual Academy of International Business (AIB) best dissertation Farmer Award finalists, we find that these dissertations were done at a range of North American universities. Interestingly, dissertation topics differed from the topics covered in the three top IB journals with five‐sixths of the topics in management, organization, economics, or finance and two‐thirds set in a single country or region (U.S., Japan, North America, and Western Europe). Survey research is the most common methodology but analysis of secondary data is growing. As expected, the finalists are on average an extraordinarily prolific group.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and unbundle the complex processes underpinning development of alliance capabilities, particularly in the context of emerging country multinational enterprises. More specifically, this paper focuses on how firms internalize and translate knowledge generated from experiences gained by participating in international collaborations.

The authors adopt an exploratory case study approach to undertake in-depth processual analysis of alliance capability development in an Indian biopharmaceutical company. The authors focused their analysis on the initial four international alliances the company formed and identified key elements pertaining to alliance capabilities that the company internalized and those that it could not, as this was key in understanding alliance capability.

The research shows that based on experiences from previous alliances, the Indian organization was able to overhaul its negotiation and governance designing processes and practices as well as made robust changes to its internal communication and coordination practices. Interestingly, the company organization, however, did not make any significant changes to its processes and practices regarding partner selection.

The results from our study can be used by managers to develop processes and practices when it comes to developing alliance capabilities.

The paper is novel, as it addresses two specific gaps in the nascent alliance capability literature. First, it provides insights on how different constituent elements/aspects of alliance capability actually develop and integrate within the organizational system over time, and in the process, the paper identifies that some aspects are better internalized as compared to other aspects. Second, by focusing the attention on an Indian biopharmaceutical company, the authors attempt to address a gap in alliance capability development research, which has been neglected in emerging country multinational entities.

The purpose of this paper is to address how wine businesses build sustainability – the ability to survive and be successful over the long-term – in a complex market environment.

To understand how managers in a wine supply chain (i.e. from grower to consumer) are trying to sustain business within a hyper-competitive industry, the authors used a standard grounded theory, constant comparative research method using formal depth interviews along with additional data sources from wine businesses in nine global wine regions in the USA, Australia, Italy and New Zealand.

A framework emerged from the data to improve business sustainability and counteract the complexity in the wine market by developing resilience through innovating and experimenting, obtaining resources/developing capabilities and relying on supply chain connections.

This conceptual framework contributes to the existing theory on institutional transitions and resilience in business, and extends and broadens it by proposing that resilience is needed to combat entropy in the wine industry for businesses in this industry to survive and thrive.

Managers can learn from and apply the examples mentioned in this study and follow the framework presented to implement the strategies to build resilience to increase their chances of sustainability.

This study is one of the first empirical studies to the authors’ knowledge that identifies the impact of entropy in the wine industry and examines resilience as a means to combat an entropic market and obtain business sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate new entry as a process of organizational change against the background of the digital revolution in the music industry.

The study analyzes questionnaire data gathered from 131 companies active in the Dutch music industry that collectively engaged in 215 new entries in the wake of the introduction of new information and communication technologies.

The most salient finding concerns a strong positive relationship between financial performance and having access to the dominant set of institutional gatekeepers, i.e. radio DJs.

This investigation prompts rethinking the concept of new entry, highlighting the importance of the institutional context in which it takes place. Beyond entry modes and new entry motivations, special consideration is given to specific resources that grant new entrants access to institutional gatekeepers because they are key predictors of performance upon new entry.

This paper aims to propose a new microfluidic portable experimental platform for quick detection of heavy metal ions (HMIs) in picomolar range. The experimental setup uses a microfabricated piezoresistive sensor (MPS) array of eight cantilevers with ion-selective self-assembled monolayer's (SAM).

Most of the components used in this experimental setup are battery operated and, hence, portable to perform the on-field experiments. HMIs (antigen) and thiol-based SAM (antibody) interaction start bending the microcantilever. This results in a change of resistance, which is directly proportional to the surface stress produced due to the mass of targeted HMIs. The authors have used Cysteamine and 4-Mercaptobenzoic acid as a thiol for creating SAM to test the sensitivity and identify the suitable thiol. Some of the cantilevers are blocked using acetyl chloride to use as a reference for error detection.

The portable experimental platform achieves very small detection time of 10-25 min with a lower limit of detection (LOD) 0.762 ng (6.05 pM) for SAM of Cysteamine and 4-Mercaptobenzoic acid to detect Mn2+ ions. This technique has excellent potential and capability to selectively detect Hg2+ ions as low as 2.43 pM/mL using SAM of Homocysteine (Hcys)-Pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDCA).

As microcantilever is very thin and fragile, it is challenging to apply a surface coating to have selective detection using Nanadispenser. Some of the cantilevers get broken during this process.

The excessive use and commercialization of NPs are quickly expanding their toxic impact on health and the environment. Also, LOD is limited to nanomolar range. The proposed method used the combination of thin-film, NPs, and MEMS-based technology to overcome the limitation of NPs-based technique and have picomolar range of HMIs detection.

This study aims to examine what types of interfirm linkages a firm enters in relation to its manufacturing strategy. The authors further aim to determine whether heterogeneous resources have different moderating effects on the relationship between a firm’s manufacturing strategy and interfirm linkages.

The sample consists of survey and archival data on 80 publicly listed electronics firms from the semiconductor and optoelectronics industries in Taiwan. Because the dependent variable, interfirm linkage, is a binary term, the authors apply logistic regression in our study.

This paper provides empirical insight into how a firm’s manufacturing strategy affects its probability to engage in specific types of interfirm linkages. The authors find that when a firm pursues an efficiency (flexibility) strategy, it will tend to engage in marketing (technical) interfirm linkages. In addition, absorbed slack strengthens the fit between manufacturing strategy and interfirm linkage type more than unabsorbed slack does.

Because the sample is drawn from the Taiwanese semiconductor and optoelectronic industries, the authors encourage scholars to examine the generalizability of the findings. Future studies can furthermore adopt in-depth interviews to facilitate a better understanding of decision-makers’ considerations when entering interfirm linkages.

This study extends resource dependence theory across a firm’s boundary and applies the resource-based view to resource heterogeneity. The findings advance the understanding of the relationships between strategic orientation, slack resources and interfirm linkage choices. The authors show that it is important that firms consider strategic fit when they create linkages outside their existing boundaries.

The purpose of this research is to highlight issues related to the management of indigenous and scientific knowledge, and the approach towards transferring these from one community to another, to therefore reduce risk in communities living with multiple hazards and disasters in cyclone, flood, earthquake and drought prone regions of India.

A case study based approach and secondary research have been used to understand the disaster‐related problems and the mitigation strategy. Lessons are drawn from Indian scenarios such as Orissa super cyclone, Bhuj earthquake, etc.

The study highlights a few important points for practising managers/officers. Rural telecentres need to evolve for relief and rehabilitation work. Indigenous knowledge is more in tacit form; therefore, a carefully designed strategy would be needed to manage this.

The study focuses on many practical issues related to disaster management in India. These issues are derived from past experiences.

The research provides insight to researchers and practising officers/managers. Newer insights have been presented on tacit‐knowledge management and use of scientific understanding on the management of natural disasters.

A literature review revealed that in recent times, many companies have attempted organization‐wide change management through the philosophy and principles of Lean Thinking (LT). Although some organizations have transformed and reaped significant benefits in this endeavour, many organizations have failed in this attempt. One of the reasons can be attributed to the fact that not many organizations are attempting to “assess the organizational readiness” before implementing/adapting LT. This paper aims to address this issue.

Hence in this paper, an attempt has made to address this problem by presenting a hypothetical case study of an Indian organization to comprehensively assess organizational readiness of the case organisation using a graph theoretic approach (GTA), which has the ability to integrate and model multiple inter‐related factors.

From the obtained results, it was found that the case organization is not fully ready to embrace LT. It needs to work on different factors under the categories of suppliers, customers, etc. in addition to employees, organisation and top management for smooth and successful adaptation.

According to the authors' knowledge, no paper exists either in the literature of organizational analysis or in the field of LT literature that demonstrates the application of GTA, specifically for assessing the readiness of an organization in adapting LT. Furthermore, various factors which need to be considered were identified apart from modelling them by incorporating the relationship/dependency that exists between these factors, which is unique.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the influence of business group membership by exploring how actions by a member firm influence other firms in the business group. Specifically, the authors ask two questions in this study: when a member firm forms strategic alliances with partners outside of the business group, how does the alliance influence other members in the business group? Moreover, which types of member firms are more affected than others?

The authors employ standard event-study methodology to examine the stock price responses for the focal and member firms on the announcement of an alliance. Moreover, the authors employ the cross-sectional regression analyses to test hypotheses concerning the impact of alliance, group, and firm characteristics on the cumulative abnormal returns of non-announcing members. All regressions are estimated using ordinary least squares.

The results show that, on average, alliance-announcing member firms experience significantly positive share price responses to announcements of strategic alliances. Moreover, the impact of alliance formation spillover to other non-announcing members in the business group. The authors also find that the influences on the non-announcing members are dissimilar. The non-announcing members are more strongly affected when they are in different industries from the non-member partner, and when the ownership of the business group is more concentrated.

This study is to extend the resource complementarities perspective, which may help firms to more effectively configure their network portfolios in order to develop synergies among related network resources. The study thus extends the alliance portfolio literature to the literature on business groups. Since the inter-firm networks within business groups are more complex than those in alliance portfolios, the authors are able to study how the structure of a business, such as ownership concentration, can influence the intra-network effect.