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The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for depicting organizational processes: the episodic spiral model (ESM).

On the basis of a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the authors demonstrate the need for the ESM by discussing the shortcomings of two specific spiral types in the organizational literature – the knowledge creation spiral and the efficacy spiral.

A review of each spiral type through the lens of nonlinear assumptions reveals the treatment to date of organizational spirals as uni-directional and insufficient for understanding organizations. The authors propose that managers must undertake a paradigm shift in order to gain a greater awareness of both the environment in which they operate, as well as their process actions. To facilitate this shift, the ESM depicts choice points, chosen and rejected trajectories, and upward and downward environmental drafts, as well as a multi-dimensional environment, as a way of re-conceptualizing approaches to space, time, and change in organization studies.

The authors propose that the model provides a way for scholars to enhance the study of organizations by understanding that organizations exist in a more dynamic environment than previously studied; recognizing that the organization has a wider range of choices available, and acknowledging the long-lasting ramifications of both choices made and choices discarded; and obtaining a more comprehensive look at the way the organization moves through space and time at any given moment. Taken together, the authors hope that these contributions allow organizational scholars a new approach to theorizing, exploring, and writing about the organizations they study.

Until recently there were very few publications dealing with comparison of different CDROM information retrieval software packages (Richards & Robinson 1993). The few exceptions (e.g. Harry & Oppenheim 1993; Jacsó 1991; McFaul 1992; Tian‐Zhu 1991; Zink 1991) mostly deal only with the principles of such comparisons, not with actual comparisons, and mostly only with user interfaces, not with the software as a whole. They usually give collections of rules — how to rank the CDROM publications, how to give ‘award marks’ to them — but this usually characterises CDROM publications and databases, not the software itself. Moreover, the performance factors, the properties most important for professional searchers, are usually completely missing from these collections of rules.

This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such as elicitation of residents' attitudes toward recreation or biodiversity conservation of forests.

We review the literature, and attribute the possible biases in choice experiments to theoretical and empirical aspects. Particularly, we introduce regret minimization as an alternative to random utility theory and sheds light on incentive compatibility, status quo, attributes non-attendance, cognitive load, experimental design, survey methods, estimation strategies and other issues.

The practitioners should pay attention to many issues when carrying out choice experiments in order to avoid possible biases. Many alternatives in theoretical foundations, experimental designs, estimation strategies and even explanations should be taken into account in practice in order to obtain robust results.

The paper summarizes the recent developments in methodological and empirical issues of choice experiments and points out the pitfalls and future directions both theoretically and empirically.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an interpolation-based projection framework for model reduction of quadratic-bilinear systems. The approach constructs projection matrices from the bilinear part of the original quadratic-bilinear descriptor system and uses these matrices to project the original system.

The projection matrices are constructed by viewing the bilinear system as a linear parametric system, where the input associated with the bilinear part is treated as a parameter. The advantage of this approach is that the projection matrices can be constructed reliably by using an a posteriori error bound for linear parametric systems. The use of the error bound allows us to select a good choice of interpolation points and parameter samples for the construction of the projection matrices by using a greedy-type framework.

The results are compared with the standard quadratic-bilinear projection methods and it is observed that the approximations through the proposed method are comparable to the standard method but at a lower computational cost (offline time).

In addition to the proposed model order reduction framework, the authors extend the one-sided moment matching parametric model order reduction (PMOR) method to a two-sided method that doubles the number of moments matched in the PMOR method.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among choice of industry diversification, capabilities and business group performance, as well as to point out the potential concern about endogenous role of industry diversification.

Using data from the top 100 business groups in Taiwan from TEJ database. This study uses Heckman’s two-step estimation procedure and contingency model to achieve unbiased results and examine our hypotheses.

The results of this study find that if business groups’ marketing or operational capabilities are strong they should adopt a high level of diversification strategy and if business groups’ R&D capability is strong they should adopt a low level one. The results of this study also show that the endogenous problem of industry diversification exists, and needs to be considered. Moreover, our finding confirms the importance of capability–strategy fit, which, in turn, can achieve better performance.

On average, high industry diversification groups perform better than low industry diversification groups after controlling for endogeneity issues. Business groups can achieve better performance if their strategy choices match the capabilities they encounter. Managers should pay attention to strategy-capability fit issues. Specifically, they should review their organizational capabilities as well as check their strategies within firms.

This study is one of the first that attempts to explore the endogenous role of diversification strategy choices, and empirical examine strategy-capability fit on business group performance.

The current innovation environment is characterized by complexity, networking and internationalization and calls for managerial approaches that not only foster value‐capture activities, but acknowledge value creation as equally important. The purpose of this study is to clarify and define in more useful conceptual detail the nature of value creation, an area within the Knowledge Management field that has not received as much research scrutiny as it warrants. The authors' main contribution in unpacking a logic of problem finding is to expand understanding of how organizations choose valuable problems on which to work.

The research findings are based on a literature review. In particular, the paper aims to increase understanding of value creation in innovation by critically examining and augmenting the problem‐finding/problem‐solving (PF/PS) perspective.

Based on the PF/PS approach, the paper proposes a managerial cognitive frame that shows the challenges faced by managers in the value creation process and also the associated decision points. The paper argues that three distinct discriminating alignment choices – process selection, problem‐selection, and governance choice – are essential parts of value creation, and can in time lead to efficient value‐capture and improved innovation outcomes. Also, concentrating on the early stages of innovation, the paper identifies relevant processes and the various management biases that impede successful problem‐finding.

As the paper is conceptual, the findings await empirical confirmation. However, the paper presents a framework that will provide a useful basis for further work.

The discussion of problem‐finding and the different processes that can be used to overcome various biases can be utilized by managers to improve processes within their organizations. Using the proposed framework as a tool, organizations can reduce resources wasted trying to solve inappropriately defined problems.

The contribution of the paper lies in presenting a new approach to value creation and capture, with a focus on the neglected area of problem‐finding. A new legalistic bias is specified in some detail, and the importance of awareness of bias by teams to diminish its impact on problem‐finding efficiency is discussed. Closer examination of value creation increases the potential for improved competitive advantage and value‐capture. Limitations of this and prior work are also discussed and directions for future work suggested.

Various consumer-facing artificial intelligence (AI) applications are used to interact with consumers at all purchase stages, and related research has sharply increased. This study aims to synthesize the literature related to consumer–AI interaction using the customer journey framework, identify the factors affecting AI's effectiveness in interactive marketing and offer an agenda for future research.

This study undertakes a framework-based systematic review of 239 articles on AI in marketing from the consumer perspective published in peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2021.

This review identifies the roles of AI touch points and factors affecting the acceptance and effectiveness of consumer–AI interaction in each stage of the customer journey.

This study is the first to review the existing literature using a customer journey framework to identify the factors that influence customer interactions with AI touch points at each purchase stage and pave the way for future research.

To test the feasibility of the use of supermarket sales data in evaluating a local point of purchase intervention and to assess the impact of the intervention six and 12 months later. Staged point of purchase intervention pilot study followed by a longitudinal observational study. The study was carried out in one supermarket in Mikkeli, Finland. Foods were classified as healthier or reference products based on their labelled content of salt and saturated fat. The sales of packaged foods containing reduced amounts of salt and/or saturated fat were promoted with a stepwise increasing intervention culminating in a “heart week”. In addition all unplanned promotional activities during the intervention were surveyed. Information on the sales of both the promoted products and reference products was collected daily from the supermarket’s computer system. Direct and proportional sales of both single products and whole food groups were analysed during the intervention and at follow‐up. In addition the supermarket environment and the supermarket’s advertising in the local newspaper were checked. Short‐term variations in the sales could be seen related to the promotion activities. During the heart week the sales of actively promoted healthier products increased by 37‐49 per cent. Variations in the sales of reference products could also be seen; the proportional sales of some healthier products declined significantly when the reference products were actively promoted. The supermarket environment was still affected by the intervention at both follow‐ups. The mean percentage salt content of the weekly sales had declined in all food groups and the mean percentage fat content had either declined or remained unchanged. Computerised sales data provide a useful and rapid means of evaluating supermarket based interventions. The intervention had an impact on the supermarket environment which was visible at follow‐up.

It has been suggested in the literature that the sex of an educational administrator may affect decision‐making. In this study two hundred and ninety‐two respondents in forty‐one New South Wales secondary schools completed the Decision Point Analysis instrument on two independent occasions, three years apart. The results did not justify affirmation of the hypothesis that schools with only male administrators would have higher agreement in perception of decision points than would schools with both male and female administrators.

This paper aims to examine the determinants of capital structure of unlisted firms and how family governance-related factors impact on them.

The authors analyze the relation between a set of capital structure determinants and leverage in a unique dataset of 3,006 family and non-family Italian medium-large firms (26,210 obs.), and a control sample of 2,730 small firms (14,780 obs.), using cross-section and panel procedures during 2001-2010.

Capital structure choices of medium-large family firms are linked to balance-sheet variables not used in previous studies, i.e. net working capital and capital turnover, and are significantly affected by the need to maintain control and influence, a relevant dimension of family socioemotional wealth. Family firms are more levered than non-family firms, but the difference is economically and statistically significant only for medium-large companies. The presence of the family in active management increases leverage, as the family endowment in the firm is higher.

This research could be developed through an international comparison to check the influence of country-related regulatory issues and of national cultural aspects on family control and influence.

The results can give public authorities important insights in order to facilitate firms funding specially in the current critical economic scenario and provide managers useful suggestions to support financial decisions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the financial choices of a large dataset of medium-large private firms in a bank-based economy.