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Despite the positive effects of customer capital (CC), questions remain over how managers enable CC growth by applying their skills and capabilities through managerial actions and strategies, such as developing information technology (IT) capability, fostering relationship learning (RL) activities and developing green innovation performance (GIP) with clients. These questions are especially pertinent in small and medium-sized enterprises and automotive industry companies that operate through supply chains, where knowledge about customers is likely to result from personal contact between customers and organisational members. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which these managerial actions were more likely to lead to the successful creation of CC.

Using the partial least squares technique, this paper studies how these three managerial actions impact on CC. To do so, data from 140 companies in the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector have been used.

The findings support the influence of RL on both GIP and CC. RL is a key managerial action in exploiting customer information and knowledge advantages, enabling firms to structure and reconfigure resources to produce new ways to compete and to satisfy stakeholders. In addition, results show that GIP is a determinant of CC because of its contribution to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, with GIP performing a mediating role in the relationship between RL and CC. A second contribution shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP, which enhance IT’s influence on CC.

The authors were unable to explore the subtleties of the processes over time. Future research should include a longitudinal study.

This study considers RL an essential factor in achieving both GIP and CC. Consequently, managers should seek to build strong RL cultures. In addition, this study shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP.

No study has ever examined these three antecedent variables (IT, RL and GIP) together, with the aim to examine their effects on CC.

This paper aims to explore in depth how internal and external knowledge-based drivers actually affect the firms’ green innovation performance. Subsequently, this study analyzes the relationships between absorptive capacity (internal knowledge-based driver), relationship learning (external knowledge-based driver) and green innovation performance.

This study relies on a sample of 112 firms belonging to the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector (ACMS) and uses partial least squares path modeling to test the hypotheses proposed.

The empirical results show that both absorptive capacity and relationship learning exert a significant positive effect on the dependent variable and that relationship learning moderates the link between absorptive capacity and green innovation performance.

This paper presents some limitations with respect to the particular sector (i.e. the ACMS) and geographical context (Spain). For this reason, researchers must be thoughtful while generalizing these results to distinct scenarios.

Managers should devote more time and resources to reinforce their absorptive capacity as an important strategic tool to generate new knowledge and hence foster green innovation performance in manufacturing industries.

The paper shows the importance of encouraging decision-makers to cultivate and rely on relationship learning mechanisms with their main stakeholders and to acquire the necessary information and knowledge that might be valuable in the maturity of green innovations.

This study proposes that relationship learning plays a moderating role in the relationship between absorptive capacity and green innovation performance.

This research has three main objectives. First, it examines influence of gamification on the behavioral intention to use an e-commerce platform. Second, it analyzes the role of the flow state given its importance in terms of behavior in online environments. Finally, the study aims to detect and analyze differences between Millennials and Generation X.

The theoretical basis for this study stems from technology acceptance model. The extended model incorporates gamification and the optimal state of intrinsic motivation, flow state, as additional constructs. An online consumer panel was used to collect data from 253 Spanish Amazon users. A structural equation modeling, partial least squares, is proposed and multi-group moderation was studied.

Gamification in Millennials has positive and significant indirect effects on behavioral intention through the flow state. In the case of the Generation X, it has been detected that flow interferes in its perception of ease of use. The behavioral intention of using the Web page is directly correlated with the purchase intention. Companies should offer a fun interface to Millennials and an environment easier to use to the Generation X, for gamification to be successful.

This study expands the research scope in gamification by focusing on e-commerce sector, a field where scientific research is still scarcely developed. It emphasizes the importance of flow as mediator. Age differences confirm the need for segmentation when applying gamification and marketing strategies in e-commerce.

Prior studies by Salaheldin (2009) and Talib et al. (2011) have assessed the relationships between TQM critical success factors (CSF) and business results. The purpose of this paper is to build upon this research by considering the relationships between these CSFs and their sequencing during the implementation of TQM. Furthermore, the influence exerted by the maturity of TQM implementation on the link between instrumental drivers and performance is explored.

The TQM drivers are clustered by means of three constructs: strategic enablers, tactical drivers and instrumental drivers and a model employed in which the strategic and tactical factors are treated as antecedents of the instrumental drivers. The direct effect of each cluster on business results and the indirect relationship of strategic and tactical factors via the mediating role of the instrumental drivers are assessed. These assessments use the partial least squares (PLS) approach which is a variance-based structural equation modeling technique using a sample of 113 Spanish organizations with experience of implementing a TQM program.

The findings confirm the existing relationships among the CSFs and business performance identified by studies Salaheldin (2009) and Talib et al. (2011). However, the results reveal that instrumental drivers possess the highest variance explanation power over business performance outcomes and it is possible to identify a CSF implementation sequence that generates the greatest impact on business performance. Furthermore, the study was inconclusive with regard to the influence exerted by the number of years of TQM implementation on the link between the instrumental drivers and performance.

The first is related to organizational bias. It seems likely that those firms which are not satisfied with their TQM system performance would be less likely to be motivated to contribute to the development of this study. Therefore, the authors have included in the sample a higher proportion of “good” systems than is the case in the population at large. Second, although the authors provide evidence of causality, causality itself has not been proven. Third, this research relies mainly on perceptions and the authors only used a single method to elicit these perceptions. Finally, this research was carried out in a specific geographical setting (Spanish companies) and the authors must be cautious about generalizing these results in other contexts.

This study offers a substantial number of practical implications. First firms’ managers should emphasize that continuous improvement, benchmarking and zero-defects mentality is a never-ending process. Especially, they should understand that reliable product/service design is critical to exceed the customers’ expectations, leading to improved business success. The results of this study should also lead managers to seeing a “return on investment” in their efforts to implement a TQM program by first, paying more attention on how to implement the instrumental factors, and second, avoiding the belief that the passage of time and experience-based learning will bring business performance enhancement and success on their own.

Although, the literature agrees that strategic factors are valuable assets and have a crucial role in the deployment of TQM systems, the study empirically validates this assertion. However, at the same time it shows that this impact on performance is stronger and much more significant by reconfiguring instrumental factors. This implies that strategic and tactical factors do have an effect on business success, but they do so indirectly, by reconfiguring and reinforcing instrumental factors that better fit the stakeholders’ needs and expectations.

The results suggest the need to consider whether all the CSFs are equally relevant on the basis of their contribution to business success. For example, strategic enablers are generally considered to be of primary importance with tactical and instrumental drivers assuming a secondary position. The study challenges this view and highlights the role of instrumental drivers over strategic and tactical factors with the clear implication that managers should focus strongly on daily implementation tasks such as benchmarking, zero-defects mentality and continuous improvement processes in order to achieve good business performance outcomes.

There is no empirical evidence, particularly in relation to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), to support the concept of cultural barriers and how they relate to open‐mindedness (OM). Some of these cultural barriers can be linked to outdated knowledge, which can impede the adoption of new configurations. The purpose of this paper therefore is to test the role of cultural barriers in the relationship between OM and organizational innovation.

These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 133 SMEs.

The results show that the relationship between OM and organizational innovation is likely to suffer if a firm does not overcome previously its cultural barriers. An explanation for this could be thatoutdated knowledge can impede the adoption of new configurations. Therefore, it is important for organizations to provide an appropriate environment for overcoming cultural barriers. Otherwise new knowledge will not be acted on or incorporated into new products and services.

The authors point out the importance for organizations of taking this perspective into account when they are seeking to respond proactively to the challenges thrown up by the external environment.

The purpose of this exploratory case study is to determine how an enterprise can identify and measure a key resource capability (critical knowledge area) to enhance competitive advantage, in the context of the emerging field of knowledge management. On the basis of the literature on resource capabilities and strategic management, the term critical knowledge area has been formulated as a label for a key resource capability.

To analyse the implicit relationships among enabler agents of the European excellence model to serve as a framework for the management and improvement of the quality in higher education institutions.

The hypotheses set out are based on the structure and meaning of the EFQM model and a review of the TQM literature. The empirical study was developed in 111 Spanish public university centres, and used the partial least squares (PLS) technique to test these hypotheses.

The results achieved support the relationships hypothesized and indicate the role of enabler agents as a basis for establishing a management model that leads universities towards excellence.

The main limitation is related to the notion of causality. Our study has considered a soft modelling approach directed more towards prediction than causality.

The role of senior management stands out among the key activities. The top management leads the excellence development of key processes in the university through appropriate leadership, strategy formulation, establishment of partnerships, resource allocation, and human resources management.

The current work is one of the first studies dealing with the testing of implicit relationships set out by the EFQM model among enablers. The comprehension of these relationships provides a guide to implement, develop, assess and improve higher education institutions.

Today, in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), entrepreneurs must take a more strategic perspective that is evidenced by the need to scan the enterprise to discover how they might improve customer relations as well as promote improved entrepreneurial actions. The paper aims to focus on this issue.

This study examines the impact of the existence of an “open‐minded context” in an organisation at time (T) on actions that concern the challenging of entrepreneurial actions at time (T+1). It also examines the relationship between explorative and exploitation processes and customer relations. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of data obtained from 107 SMEs from the Spanish telecommunications industry, using partial least squares (PLS).

The results indicate that the effects of an “open‐minded context” at time (T) on customer relations at time (T+1) are mediated through the existence of explorative and exploitation knowledge processes at time (T+1).

Practices which may be based on explicit knowledge or on tacit knowledge in the form of processes and routines need to be challenged prior to the adoption of new knowledge by the organisation. In such situations, it will be necessary to modify or even delete some knowledge in order to ensure that employees have access to the up‐to‐date explorative and exploitative knowledge processes necessary to maintain or enhance customer relations.

In situations where organisations and their members face rapidly changing environments it is necessary to challenge the entrepreneurial actions which have been derived from the founding entrepreneurs.

The paper examines how the nature and existence of an open‐mindedness context is linked to the nature and existence of knowledge exploration and exploitation processes enacted by the workforce of an organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of an organization's unlearning context and information systems (IS) capabilities on the organization's ability to challenge basic beliefs and to implement processes that are explicitly or tacitly helpful in the reception of new ideas (absorptive capacity). The authors also seek to examine the relationship between absorptive capacity and the existence and enhancement of innovativeness.

These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 54 doctors and 62 nurses belonging to 44 hospital‐in‐the‐home units (HHU) in Spain.

The results show that absorptive capacity is an important dynamic determinant for developing a HHU's innovativeness. Moreover, this relationship is best explained with two related constructs. Firstly, the HHU's unlearning context plays a key role in managing the tension between potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity. Secondly, the results also shed light on a tangible means for health managers to enhance their units' innovativeness (quality of service) through IS capabilities.

The cross‐sectional design does not allow observation of the short‐ and long‐term impact of absorptive capacity on the unlearning context, information systems capability and HHU's innovativeness. Although the model presented here proposes sequenced relationships between absorptive capacities (PACAP and RACAP), the unlearning context and IS capability, the authors measure all these constructs at one point in time.

This sequential model presented in this paper provides practical steps for managers interested in organizational structures that support organizational innovativeness.

The contribution of unlearning context is related to its ability to prepare the ground for innovation processes.

The Spanish hospitality industry is facing environmental challenges which require organisations and individuals to learn new skills and practices and create new environmental knowledge. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationships between an unlearning context and environmental knowledge.

This paper analyses the relationships between an unlearning context and environmental knowledge and tries to identify whether environmental knowledge impacts on business outcomes through an empirical study of 127 Spanish hospitality companies.

The results support the hypothesis that, in order to create environmental knowledge and hence foster the application of new environmental knowledge, companies need to provide and support an unlearning context.

It is important that managers provide an appropriate unlearning context to support the openness of individuals to new ideas and environmental awareness.

This study provides hotel managers with a better understanding of the relationship between environmental knowledge and organisational outcomes and highlights that managers need to provide and support an unlearning context, which is customised and based on three frameworks: the framework for examining the lens through which individuals view situations; the framework for changing individual habits and the framework for consolidating emergent understandings.