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Identifies and discusses a number of methodological issues which can arise in the design and administration of instruments for the purpose of large‐scale survey research in manufacturing strategy and practice. Describes two such surveys. Both were undertaken by researchers at IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland. The first was a study of manufacturing strategies in western Europe, while the second was a study of manufacturing practice and performance in Switzerland. A comparison of the approaches taken in the design and administration of the two instruments allows for the identification of a number of methodological issues which are discussed in greater detail. These include sample (sector) selection, respondent preparation, quality assurance for data input, the elimination of bias and gathering of complementary data.

On the face of it, there may not seem much in common with a World Bank project to increase the productivity of Nicaraguan farmers, and British financial institutions’ need to bring profitable new products and services on stream quickly. Or with a US office‐product company’s determination to significantly increase revenues, or a Danish underwater acoustics company’s aim to reduce product development times from three years to three months.

The virtual organization is upon us, or so we are led to believe. No longer will we have to worry about finding enough space for so many workstations, as people will be sitting in cyberspace waiting either to send or receive their next communication. It will not matter where in the universe someone is, provided that they can communicate. People will be working in physical isolation, but this does not matter as they can, yes you’ve guessed it, communicate! There is no doubting that communicating is good and absolutely necessary, but it is quality of communication which is needed, not just any old garbled message. Are standards of communication deteriorating? The media by which we are sending messages are improving, of that there is little doubt, but it is the content and usefulness of this content which must be brought to question.

In December 2011 the Lego Group (TLG) announced the launch of Lego Friends, the company’s sixth attempt to market a product to girls. Lego Friends, which was supported by a $40 million global marketing campaign, was designed to introduce the fun of building with Lego bricks to girls, who represented less than 10 percent of Lego’s audience.

The company’s poorly executed brand extensions and move from free-form building sets to story-driven kits had nearly cost it its independence in 2004, so the launch of Lego Friends was strategically important. However, within hours of the product’s appearance it was heavily criticized for reinforcing gender stereotypes and damaging the valuable Lego brand.

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO since 2004, had saved TLG and ushered in an era of sales growth with a series of successful strategic initiatives. Would Lego Friends be another addition to TLG’s graveyard of failed products for girls, or would it prove popular and finally enable the company to double its sales and profits by reaching this segment?

After analyzing the case, students should be able to:

• Understand the connection between a firm’s assets and its activities

• Identify new resources and capabilities required for a change in strategic focus

• Recognize the consequences of poorly matched assets and market opportunities

Understand the connection between a firm’s assets and its activities

Identify new resources and capabilities required for a change in strategic focus

Recognize the consequences of poorly matched assets and market opportunities

The traditional models of real estate market have several sources of imprecision, such as transitions between submarkets, generating difficulties in property valuation. The purpose of this paper is to examine an alternative to improve mass appraisal models, using fuzzy rules.

Fuzzy rule‐based systems (FRBS) are able to generate flexible systems and may be useful in considering vagueness or imprecision presents in real estate market. An application to the housing market of Porto Alegre (Brazil), with more than 30,000 apartments, transacted in 1998‐2001, illustrates the fuzzy system, comparing with traditional hedonic regression model.

The results have indicated the potential of fuzzy rules to use in mass appraisal.

This paper presents a procedure to develop mass appraisal models using FRBS.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the importance of accounting in the management of Spanish military hospitals by the St John’s Order (SJO) of the Roman Catholic Church in the eighteenth century, a time of crisis between the Church and the State. The sacred mission of the Order required that they had a significant role outside the Roman Catholic Church in the care and treatment of the sick and infirm which required them to establish hospitals throughout Spain and across the lands that it had conquered. The study establishes that accounting played a key role in ensuring the success of the unconventional commercial relationship between the SJO and the government and the military.

Niebuhr’s typology is used to help understand how accounting practices were consistent, indeed essential, expectations of the sacred mission of the SJO and not something which represented a denial of the Order’s religious beliefs. The paper relies primarily on documents and other material located in Spanish archives.

The SJO accepted that secular accounting and accountability processes were relevant to their search for God’s love and to showing this love to others. The need for the Order to be accountable to the State was not regarded as profane and antithetical to their religious beliefs. Adopting Niebuhr’s typology of religion and society, this study concludes that the Order was an extraordinary example of Christ the transformer of the culture.

This study recognises the need to deepen the understanding of the way in which accounting practices have often played a critical role in the activities of religious organisations by examining an extraordinary example of one organisation which was engaged in an unusual, ongoing, highly complex commercial relationship with the Spanish State.

This paper aims to generate insights about the transformative potential of integrated reporting by exploring organisational adoption of non-financial reporting design archetypes available in the field.

Drawing on the concept of design archetype, this study conducts an exploratory interpretative based on qualitative semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. The study is based on the Spanish integrated reporting field.

This study reveals that IIRC framework lacks the transformative potential to become an environmental disturbance for corporate reporting practice. It explains how organisations, in their attempt to seek coherence with underlying interpretative schemes, change their structural arrangements (structure, processes and systems) to adopt sustainability and integrated reporting design archetypes available in the field. Though organisational differences are portrayed, the transition from a sustainability-reporting archetype to an integrated-reporting archetype does not seem to be easily achieved.

Due to its exploratory nature, further investigation of the transformative potential of integrated reporting is needed to address intra-organisational factors such as internal stakeholder interests, organisational values, individual or collective agency to embed interpretative schemes into structural arrangements, and technical and managerial capabilities enabling action.

Findings inform practitioners and policymakers about the hindrances to integrated reporting implementation to be considered for prospective regulation and standardisation.

The study reflects on the difficulties for both mainstreaming sustainability to influence decision-making and developing reporting archetypes coherent with integrated thinking.

By focusing on archetype design, the paper provides insights to assess the transformative potential of integrated reporting.