Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical account of how firms make choices between dynamic capability-based and ad hoc problem-solving approaches toward strategic change.

A model has been developed to answer the questions of how and under what conditions firms develop appropriate approaches to handle strategic change.

Drawing upon structural inertia theory (SIT) and the resource-based view (RBV), the model predicts that firms, regardless of their age and size, are more likely to adopt an ad hoc problem-solving approach to handle change in both highly dynamic and low-dynamic environments. However, in moderately dynamic environments, a dynamic capability-based approach may be more appropriate, depending on which theoretical logic (SIT or RBV) the decision is made.

The paper builds on the useful distinction made by Winter (2003) in terms of the ways to handle organizational change and extends the recent research on temporary vs sustainable competitive advantages to investigate how firms tackle strategic change within the contexts of both environmental dynamism and organizational attributes.

The paper aims to examine the relationship between creating capabilities and political liberalism. It argues that the reality of climate change calls for the capabilities approach to be more rooted in a relational anthropology which the Aristotelian ethical tradition is more akin to.

It discusses how traces of this ethical tradition can be found in Nussbaum's capabilities approach itself: affiliation as an architectonic capability leads to the common good being the end of political action, and practical reason as an architectonic capability leads to reasoning being structured by concerns for the common good.

The paper suggests some practical implications of an Aristotelian version of the capabilities approach.

The paper seeks to build an account of social justice based on the capabilities approach with Aristotelian roots.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of the “capability approach” as an alternative framework for understanding and conceptualising the role of Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs) and other providers for groups conventionally considered “hard to reach”.

A study of the education services of RCOs, drawing primarily on semi-structured interviews with 71 users, is put forward as a case study for how the capability approach can be operationalised.

The capability approach is found to offer various valuable insights, relating to its appreciation of the multi-dimensional nature of human wellbeing, the significance of individual diversity, and the importance of human agency.

The case study is based on a relatively small purposive sample, and may have limited external validity. As the research design proved strong for exploring how RCOs develop their users’ capabilities but weak for exploring if and how they may also constrict them, further research in this area is required.

A number of valuable attributes of the capability approach are highlighted for broadening the understanding, the role of RCOs and other service providers.

The paper outlines the potential of the capability approach to contribute to policymaking related to RCOs and other providers, and to debates relating to social exclusion, cohesion and integration.

The paper draws attention to the value of the capability approach within the field of migration research.

The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of ensuring that the capabilities are in place to identify when a project can no longer deliver value and to take appropriate action to terminate the project.

Focus groups with project management practitioners were used to collect in-depth qualitative data. This was then supplemented with a questionnaire, which included both closed questions and the opportunity for free text answers.

The problem of getting better at stopping projects is both common and difficult to solve. It has many facets, which include complex people and cultural issues, processes and procedures as well as financial reporting and project governance. In order to improve, therefore, it is useful to address these different facets in a coordinated way using a capability approach with a focus on business value.

The data from practitioners are retrospective, as their actions were not actually observed by the researchers as they were happening. This means that faulty recollection may influence the results but, it also allows for insights from reflection to be incorporated.

An organizational capability approach focusing on all three aspects of capability; people, processes and technology, can help organizations get better at stopping projects. Specific recommendations are provided and analyzed in terms of their respective capability focus.

If performance in terminating projects is improved, it has the potential for significant benefits and cost saving for society in terms of improved government services and the ability to halt projects around new policy initiatives when emerging evidence shows they will not work.

It provides detailed practitioner input on the problem of stopping projects and suggests recommendations for improvement in the context of a structured organizational capability approach with reference to a particular framework, IT-CMF.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of technology in customer relationship management (CRM) support capabilities by using an environmental contingency perspective. By examining the moderating effects of micro- and macro-environmental characteristics in which CRM support capabilities are used, the authors seek to extend the literature on CRM technology effectiveness in both customer commitment and overall firm performance. The authors also seek to advance managerial knowledge about CRM support capability technology utilization strategies in various market offering and dynamic market settings.

The authors utilized a questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 276 small business CRM managers across a wide range of industries. Measures were adapted from the existing literature, and these were largely multiple-item measures of latent variables. The hypotheses were tested using a combination of Ridge regression and a bootstrapping test of mediation. In addition, residual centering was used to reduce multi-collinearity in the interaction analysis.

The contingency/fit analysis performed in this research highlights the complex nature of the use of technology in CRM support capabilities. The benefits of a man vs a machine CRM support capability depend on the support function (whether marketing, sales, service, data access or data analysis), as well as upon the characteristics of the operating environment. Machine-based marketing support is positively related with customer commitment in turbulent markets, and machine-based service support is preferred in technologically turbulent markets. Sales support, on the other hand, is positively related to customer commitment in technologically turbulent markets when performed by man rather than machine.

CRM support capabilities differ across firms and markets, thus a “one size fits all” approach is not appropriate. This research shows under what conditions a machine-based approach to CRM can be effective for small businesses.

This research is the first to consider market offering and turbulence variables as moderators of the relationship between technology use in CRM support capabilities and customer commitment. Taking this contingency approach, the authors find that resource-based competitive advantage is obtainable based on the fit of the resources (e.g. CRM capabilities) to the environmental characteristics of the firm. Through this perspective that is unique to CRM research, the authors are able to provide both general and specific recommendations to managers and researchers.

The growth, diversity and applications of research into dynamic capabilities (DCs) have resulted in the whole literature on DCs becoming a complex and disconnected body of knowledge. This has led to criticisms of the subject of DCs as being vague, tautological and without practical value. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to synthesize the diverse scholarly literature about DCs and develop a more integrated understanding to minimize the reported apparent vagueness.

In this paper, the authors review various relevant themes on DCs using a selection of 133 articles published in 22 recognized, top-tier management journals during the period between 1990 and 2016, with an aim to build a structured and integrated theory. For this, morphological analysis (MA), a systems-thinking technique, is applied.

MA is applied to develop a multi-dimensional conceptual framework comprising five dimensions and 26 variants that enable a structured representation of the conceptual foundations of DCs. Further, the authors identify 81 individual DCs noted by various scholars; elucidate assumptions and antecedents relevant to the DCs approach; structure the key characteristics; and expound the input factors, impacting factors, desired outcomes and assessment yardsticks.

This would be a useful resource for researchers working in the area of DCs to explore opportunities for future research.

The MA framework helps managers to look at DCs more holistically, and hence would help them in developing, managing and retaining DCs in organizations.

This study is the original work contributed by the authors and has no specific organizational reference. This research implies new directions to look beyond individual DCs in firms toward a more integrated theory building.

Central to Martha Nussbaum's development of the capability approach into a theory of social and global justice is her addition of the notion of a capability threshold below which no dignified human life can be lived. This capability threshold identifies a standard for distributive justice that any decent political order must secure for all citizens. It is this threshold that is the intended focus of this paper.

Examining her most recent statement of the capability approach, Nussbaum's arguments that the threshold should be locally set by each nation in accordance with their history and traditions, and that all nations currently fail to satisfy the threshold condition, are assessed.

This paper shows that if Nussbaum's arguments are accepted, then the central function of a threshold as a tool of discrimination is undermined. If all nations fail to meet their locally set threshold, then there is no clear basis for the global redistribution that Nussbaum regards as necessary. Indeed, what basis there is could even justify counter‐intuitive redistribution from poorer to richer nations.

This paper concludes that if the capability approach is to be developed into a theory of social justice, then, rather than being set locally at different levels, the capability threshold may need to be a genuinely global one. Only then can the threshold discriminate between unjust political orders and those that are at least minimally just.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the service infusion literature explains competitive advantage through services. The four strategic management theories – competitive forces, the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, and relational view – are applied in the analysis.

A systematic literature review analyzes the links between the service infusion and strategy literature.

The review reveals that although discussion of service infusion applies strategic management concepts, the stream lacks rigor with respect to construct definition and justification. Additionally, contextual variables are often missing. The result is an over-emphasis of contextually bound measures, such as technology, and focal actors.

The growing trends toward social networks, co-specialization, actor dependency and shared resources encourage service infusion scholars to focus on network-related and relational capabilities, co-opetition, open business models, and relational rent extraction. Furthermore, service infusion research would benefit from considering strategy-based theoretical discussions, constructs, and constraints that would improve the scientific rigor, impact and contribution.

This paper represents a systematic attempt to link the service infusion literature with strategic management theories and thoroughly analyzes the knowledge gaps and possible misconceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to use the capability approach to analyse the wellbeing of rural households in Nigeria and determine the factors that influence the wellbeing status reported.

The paper analyses multidimensional wellbeing of the households in the capability space using data in seven dimensions obtained from the Nigeria Core Welfare Indices Survey of 2006. The wellbeing status of households was derived using the fuzzy set approach, while a logistic regression was used to isolate the factors that determine wellbeing.

The results of the fuzzy set analysis showed that overall rural households in Nigeria have a low mean wellbeing status at 0.27. Capability to attain a desired state of wellbeing is highest with respect to asset ownership and lowest with respect to security. The logistic analysis shows that the predicted probability of attaining the mean capability wellbeing increases for male headed households, increasing educational level and age of the head, household size, and public service occupation.

The paper showed that the capability to attain desired levels of wellbeing increases for dimensions which are key variables in making policies for human capital development, with direct implications for improving wellbeing.

This paper attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical literature of wellbeing studies and specifically in the use of the capability approach and its application in the Nigerian wellbeing context.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological approach aimed at identifying technical and organizational capabilities firms should have before the ERP implementation process starts, in order to select the more appropriate implementation strategy and the change management interventions to support the selected strategy.

Capabilities to implement ERP system are selected on the basis of a literature review and through focus group session in collaboration with the company partner of the project. Then, a methodological approach is proposed on the basis of such capabilities. Scales of the capabilities are built, and an algorithm to analyze and evaluate firms' capabilities is proposed.

The methodological approach has been tested through a validation experiment with the company partner of the research project. Results reveal the usefulness of the methodology in estimating the capabilities that firms should have in order to select the more appropriate implementation strategy.

Further research is under development in order to validate the methodological approach through a case study.

Starting from the methodological approach a useful tool could be developed to analyze technical and organizational capabilities of the firm, and to select the more appropriate ERP implementation strategy.

The methodological approach is the result of a research project based on tight collaboration between academic researchers and IT managers involved in ERP implementation processes. Thanks to such collaboration, tacit knowledge and expertise accumulated by IT managers during ERP implementation processes was explicated and evaluated in the proposed methodology. The result is a model that goes beyond descriptive analysis and offers prescriptive advice on how to address the potential challenges prior to and during the implementation processes.