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The technological innovation of Software as a Service-Enterprise Resource Planning (SaaS-ERP) opens several relative advantages, which may be realized by choosing the proper operation mode. Thus a company looking for a new ERP system faces the question: When and under what conditions does it make sense to choose a SaaS-ERP system? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The relative advantage criterion of the diffusion of innovation theory, derived as operation mode differences, determine the conditions under which SaaS- or On-Premise-ERP is preferable: a classification of all main systemic operation mode differences between SaaS and On-Premise for the more complex ERP systems is presented. The systemic differences were identified by analytic generalization using triangulation between a literature review and a multiple case study with four ERP producers.

The most significant decision factors between ERP operation modes are flexibility, customization, cost, and operation and maintenance. General strategies have been derived by bringing the theoretical reasons together with the operation mode difference criteria. Typical criteria for selecting SaaS-ERP are a lack of IT-capacity or capabilities, as well as high need for flexibility, due to business development, seasonality, growth, collaboration and/or expansion. On-Premise-ERPs should be selected if specific or strategic resources would be outsourced or when major customization is a need.

Case research is limited in that it reveals only ERP producers’ view and omits outlying cases.

The findings implicate that ERP selecting customers should consider and expand their criteria for ERP selection by operation mode criteria.

The classification of the most essential operation mode differences allows, for the first time, ERP selecting customers to design selection strategies. ERP selecting companies should strategically favor the operation mode that best suits their respective organizational characteristics so as to obtain the best possible support from the ERP operation modes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore cargo theft risk and security for different product types at different locations along a transport chain.

This study is based on a system-theoretical approach. The research method is deductive, as the analysis is based on secondary data and results from a questionnaire. The results are analysed based on supply chain risk management (SCRM) theories.

Due to substantial interaction effects, the type of product and transport chain location must be considered to determine the correct level of security. Specifically, the product type is more significant, since the general cargo theft risk is higher. Furthermore, the transport industry has three perspectives on security responses to cargo theft, namely, demanded, needed and actual security, which differ depending on the product type and transport chain location.

This database is structured according to the global Transported Asset Protection Association organisational structure, which implies that there are three main databases: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Americas, and Asia-Pacific.

This study has both research and practical implications, as it examines security within freight transport from three perspectives, linked to general cargo theft risk and goods owners’ requirements.

This study addresses the contemporary SCRM problem of cargo theft using actual crime statistics and the industry understanding of required generic security levels.

This chapter explores the advantages of newness and positive aspects of resource constraints, critically departing from assumptions of resource constraints and liabilities of newness. The chapter is based on a multiple case study consisting of nascent entrepreneurial processes from inexperienced entrepreneurs with severely constrained access to resources. Six theoretical concepts (legitimacy, fashion, flexibility, networks, bootstrapping, and motivation) are developed in the frame of reference. Empirical data is collected on a rich variety of sources, including longitudinal data in the form of weekly logbooks, business plans, theoretical reflections, and additional collected data during the process. Based on this data, the analysis shows that while these entrepreneurs face resource constraints and liabilities of newness, they also use strategies to leverage their constraints and novelty as an advantage in advancing their venturing efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between housing markets and new firm formation in six different industries in all 284 municipalities in Sweden.

The authors have used data from Statistics Sweden and The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth to develop a model to analyze the relationship between house prices and industry-specific new firm formation, with the interaction effect of financial infrastructure.

In the data, stable high house prices have no effect on entrepreneurship. However, a market with rising house prices has a positive effect on new firm formation, in retail, construction, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but produced no effect in either mining, agriculture and fishing or in manufacturing. The interaction between rising house prices and financial infrastructure does not change the positive effect on retail, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but within the construction industry, the positive effect on new firm formation disappears. In manufacturing, the authors observe the opposite – a positive effect, instead of no effect previously.

The contribution of this study is to provide evidence of how house prices are associated with entrepreneurship in different industries, as well as analyzing how the interaction between house prices and financial infrastructure is associated with entrepreneurship. By separating observations in time, endogeneity is controlled and a causal relationship where higher house prices is postulated, which leads to an increase in entrepreneurial activity in different industries. By using a spatial Durbin model, the authors control for spatial dependency.

The purpose of this paper is to assess innovation in the hotel sector in Sweden and to investigate how structural and organizational factors influence hotel’s likelihood of producing service/product, process, organizational and marketing innovations.

This paper is based on responses from 174 hotels with membership in the Swedish hotel association. Responses were collected via a web-based survey.

This paper provides insights about the nature and extent of innovations in the hotel sector. Although traditionally considered rigid and non-innovative, around half of the responding hotels produced at least one type of innovation. Most common are service/product and marketing innovations. A hotel’s likelihood of innovating depends largely on structural independence (non-chain), having an explicit innovation strategy and investing in non-traditional R&D.

Because of the chosen design (convenience sampling), the results of this paper may lack generalizability. Therefore, future research is encouraged to test the hypotheses further.

Managers in the hospitality industry can influence the production of innovations in the hotel sector. By promoting flexibility, defining and communicating an innovation strategy, and engaging in non-traditional R&D activities, practitioners can better respond to the changing business environment.

This paper presents a systematic, and internationally recognized, method for assessing four types of innovation in the hotel sector. Its originality stems also from its approach to investigating how key structural and organizational factors, when considered in the same analysis, predict service/product, process, organizational and marketing innovations.

Many booking services in traditional people-processing service areas such as gastronomy were recently transformed into online reservation services. While advantages for platform providers (i.e. a share of the respective business) and merchants (i.e. increased operational efficiency) seem obvious, it is less known about how customers respond to these new forms of online services. This paper aims to illustrate how booking traditional people-processing services online is different from booking it via phone.

This study conceptualized a 2 × 2 experimental survey design by manipulating users’ booking channel (online vs low) and the service complexity of different, less digitized people-processing services (high: dentist vs low: restaurant). After conducting several pretests, the authors surveyed 282 respondents familiar with online booking and reservation.

The results show that the booking channel (online reservation vs phone reservation) affects associated perceived booking risk and negatively affects users’ intention to use the reservation service. Additionally, users’ attitudes toward online reservation moderate the influence of booking channel on perceived booking risk.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research that investigates adoption of online reservation in people-processing services.