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The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the important and distinctly under‐researched topic of first customer references, for which a basic descriptive framework is created. The paper also tests the framework, validating it by means of new insights obtained from a longitudinal case study.

The present work is an embedded single longitudinal case study with two levels of analysis units: the company and its customers. Pattern‐matching logic and time‐series analyses are used. The idea is to compare the observed patterns with those introduced through the basic descriptive framework. Each case is analyzed, after which a cross‐case analysis is conducted over the specified time horizon. Programming theory is used to describe the iterative nature of the phenomenon of market entry, although natural language is used instead of formal notation.

The longitudinal case study demonstrates various operational aspects of the framework in practice. The study indicates the correct business operations setup model after each customer case. The case study generally reveals, from the perspective of competence marketing, that there are no failed customer cases if experimental knowledge has been gained.

In order to evaluate capabilities of start‐up technology companies to enter the market, all customer cases should be evaluated, even the failed ones. Successful customer references may provide only a partial picture of the gained capabilities.

This paper explores the important and distinctly under‐researched topic of first customer references, for which a basic descriptive framework is created and will be of interest to companies trying to enter the very competitive business‐to‐business market for complex products.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the configuration of a job production system with reference to manufacturing decision areas. The aim is to identify the process specific decisions for job shop and the non‐process specific decisions that are influenced by other contextual factors.

A case study research approach is used in the present paper to investigate the decisions of five manufacturing companies that satisfy the characteristics of job production system. Data are collected from case company's products, order winners and choices made in manufacturing decision areas. The paper uses within case and cross‐case analysis to identify various patterns in the data, with a view to meeting the required research objectives.

The present paper identifies a number of decisions specific to job shop. Further, many non‐process specific decisions are seen to be influenced by competitive priorities (order winner), strategic orientation of manufacturing (stages in H‐W model), top management and size of the company. After the study of the case companies, it is also observed that the companies employing a job production system may have high product complexity.

The findings derived from this research would facilitate practitioners in understanding both process specific and non‐process specific decisions for the job production system. The observation that the job shops can also use progressive practices, the same as other shops, to gain competitive advantage in the market could be very useful for practicing managers.

This exploratory research contributes to the existing theory in manufacturing decision areas for job production systems.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between corporate and supply chain strategy, as well as its implementation in a multinational paper producing company. Traditionally paper producing companies have had a strong interest in developing a physical infrastructure for their customer deliveries. However, supply chain thinking is still an unstructured issue in the case company.

This research work is mainly based on the case company's strategy material and interviews with senior management, is mainly qualitative and is based on a constructive research approach aimed at trying to find a workable and forward looking solution based on the three strategies.

The core findings concern the individual business division strategies, which jointly comprise the corporate strategy. Some of the business divisions do have a certain amount of supply chain management aims in their strategies. Furthermore, there is no real corporate supply chain strategy.

The research was conducted at a company with strong presence in Northern Europe, which limits its applicability. Thus, the research results mainly reflect a Northern European business environment and cannot be generalized on a global level.

The conclusions of the research work include a recommendation for a new management model for the corporate supply chain strategy, which is based on cooperation between the business divisions and logistics organization.

The value of this paper is based on the practical analysis of the case company's business divisions' strategies and interactivity between the logistics organization and the implementation of its strategy.

Describes the methodology and findings of four industrial case studies conducted on the implementation of TQM in automotive small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Interviews were conducted to answer key issues which were felt to be crucial to this study. In addition, the case studies also explored the feasibility of the authors’ conceptual framework, and subsequently its validation. The companies were categorised as “TQM” and “lesser TQM” companies, and the analysis was performed on this basis. Results from the case studies indicated that the SMEs used in the study had approached TQM without the help of any specific framework, but they had implemented the numerous quality initiatives or programmes on a “slice by slice” approach. It was found that three common aspects were emphasised in each case when adopting TQM. Culminates with the conclusions drawn from the studies and future research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse environmental responsibility of companies from industrialized countries when they source materials and products in countries with less environmental protection.

The paper is a study of corporate environmental management in the Danish textile and clothing sector, with 13 cases based on interviews and material from reports and websites. The criteria for choosing the cases were variety of size and market segment, and a mixture of companies that take environmental initiatives and companies for which it was not known whether they take environmental initiatives.

Several different environmental practices were identified: some companies were early which got sustained initiatives, and some early and not sustained initiatives; some companies were late with sustained initiatives, and some late and not sustained initiatives; and finally, some have a practice without environmental initiatives. Dominating types of initiatives are cleaner technology, environmental management systems and cleaner products. Driving forces are governmental regulation, customer demands, market expectations and protection of corporate brands. Some companies focus on capacity building at the suppliers in developing countries, while other companies seem to focus the complex activities at domestic suppliers. Two new facilitating actors in environmental management in product chains were identified.

The focus on one sector in one country limits the number of variables in the analysis. It enables comparisons among the analysed companies, but limits the possibilities for comparison across sectors and countries.

The paper has value as a study of the development of environmental management in a number of companies within the same sector over a number of years, whereby changes in management focus and the embedding of initiatives can be analysed.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved to an important agenda for many industries and its scope has been widened from the responsible business to strategic decisions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the concept of CSR from the perspective of construction industry by questioning CSR awareness, CSR activities and CSR integration with a comparative case study between UK and Turkey.

Conducting comparative and qualitative research using a case study methodology, this study sets the context for understanding differences in these two countries as to how CSR is perceived and put into practice by selected case firms.

The results revealed that construction companies are aware of the increasing importance of the CSR; however, company scale and the characteristics of the country have great impact on CSR preferences. Despite the differences in the approaches all firms take with regard to CSR domains and CSR types, ethical domain and the social orientation have become prominent for CSR initiatives in both the UK and Turkey.

This study provides the empirical evidence for the understanding and integration of the CSR concept in the construction industry; shed light on missing knowledge about CSR integration and serves as a source for further in-depth researches on CSR.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of motives behind corporate giving and at finding out whether and when operational efficiency plays a major role in the case of surplus food donations by food supply chain companies.

A multiple case study methodology has been applied considering a sample of 16 food sector companies operating in Italy. Three cases have been analyzed in-depth to highlight the contextual factors that make cost savings possible and donations sizeable and regular.

The results show that the willingness of companies to reduce operational costs plays a relevant role in managerial decisions concerning the recovery and donation of unsold food, although to different degrees across the supply chain stages.

The paper shows that not only strategic and moral motives, but also economic efficiency concern plays an important role in the managerial decision-making process pertaining to surplus food donations.

This paper aims to explore how fund managers (FMs) deal with major problems of ignorance and uncertainty in stock selection and in asset allocation decisions.

Interviews were conducted with 40 fund managers in the period October 1997 to January 2000. A seven stage approach was adopted to sift through and process the large volumes of case data. The interview case data formed the basis for identifying common patterns and themes across the cases.

The case data revealed the nature of this private information agenda concerning intellectual capital or intangibles and the dynamic connections between these variables in the value creation process. The case data provided insight into how the book value and market value gap arose and the special role of information on intangibles and intellectual capital in valuing the company.

The fund management behaviour has important implications for regulatory policy issues on insider information, on corporate disclosure, the corporate governance role of financial institutions, and for the governance of financial institutions.

The paper focuses on issues of importance in an increasingly concentrated and global FM industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the processing of product returns at five case companies using a complex adaptive systems (CAS) logic to identify agent interactions, organization, schema, learning and the emergence of adaptations in the reverse supply chain.

Using a multiple-case study design, this research applies abductive reasoning to examine data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews and direct researcher observations collected during site visits at case companies.

Costly or high-risk returns may require agents to specialize the depth of their mental schema. Processing agents need freedom to interact, self-organize and learn from other agents to generate emergent ideas and adapt.

Limiting the depth of individual agent schema allows managers to better allocate labor to processing product returns during peak volume. To boost adaptability, managers need to craft a dynamic environment that encourages agents with diverse schema to interact, anticipate, and self-organize to brainstorm new ideas. Managers need to resist the urge to “control” the dynamic environment that ensues.

This paper builds on existing research that studies the key decision points in the analysis of product returns by exploring how processing-agent behaviors can create adaptability in the reverse supply chain. Additionally, this research follows in the tradition of Choi et al. (2001) and Surana et al. (2005) and proposes the application of CAS to a specific part of the supply chain – the processing of product returns.