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Tel Aviv–based Diskit Khartsan Ltd. sold sprays, traps, and netting to combat Blatta lateralis, the Israeli flying cockroach. The insect, slightly over one inch (2.54 cm) long and capable of flying short distances, was noisy, unsightly, and posed a risk of food contamination. Every heat wave brought more infestations, and consumers across the Mediterranean armed themselves with Diskit's HLH™ brand products.

HLH products generated nearly two-thirds of Diskit's annual revenues. During periods of low demand, local retailers resisted devoting significant shelf space to the bulky products, which meant that during periods of high demand stockouts occurred frequently and Diskit lost sales. To address this problem, the company had implemented a trust receipts program that raised prices for retailers by 3 percent but allowed them to take Diskit products onto their balance sheets without payment until the products were sold.

After analyzing and discussing the case, students should be able to: • Understand the relationship between a firm's credit policy and its product market strategy • Explain the effect of growth on firms' strategy when product market strategy is capital-intensive • Understand how exogenous change in the market's structure affects firms' product market strategy and, consequently, its inventory and credit policie

The strategic orientation of Portuguese firms in the porcelain industry is examined empirically. In the process, the effective use of traditional generic strategies as opposed to emerging strategies is compared. Special attention is devoted to the utility of classical Porter’s generic strategies in comparison to time‐based differentiation strategy. The study concludes that different variations of the classical differentiation strategy, which includes time‐based differentiation, appear to be more effective than cost leadership or mixed generic strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of electronic health records (EHRs) for competitive balance among hospitals in the USA.

To analyze the competitive balance implications of EHR networks on hospitals, the authors reviewed empirical, theoretical and practical literatures bearing on the problem.

US hospitals are increasingly facing decisions regarding whether, when and how to participate in networks of EHRs. EHRs can replace paper‐based medical records, improve the quality of patient care and decrease medical errors. EHRs also support product innovations such as e‐visits and online prescribing. Such a significant innovation will alter the competitive standing of many hospitals, some favorably and others unfavorably. Hospitals with dynamic capabilities, absorptive capacity and organizational designs that facilitate innovation will fair best.

Hospitals can also utilize several strategies to increase their odds of improving their competitive positions as the industry adopts EHR networks. Examples include strategies involving new products, early entry into an EHR network, promotion of organizational learning, and management of social impacts of workflow changes.

The findings show which hospitals are most likely to embrace EHR networks, and how hospitals can best manage the adoption of EHR networks.

Arguably the largest investment any retail distribution company can make is to open a new location. In a current situation where opening a new superstore can cost in the region of £1–£1½m, it is clearly vital to identify and examine all the factors involved in such a decision. The writer argues that, in current methods of site location, there are significant deficiencies; particularly, an over‐emphasis on achieving sales maximisation which may not necessarily yield maximum profits. The ideal approach is to ‘model’ the entire system and to establish that alternative which offers the optimum design which will maximise profits. A subsequent article will deal with the construction of this basic model.

Co‐operation is necessary for the economic survival of destinations with a fragmented offer under conditions of global competition. Customer orientation forces the SME's to co‐operate for the development and the commercialisation of tourism services.

In this chapter, we present a critical engagement with the methodology that each research team presenting a case study in this book from England, Arab Israel, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States adopted.

Education is a cultural project that consists of history, narrative and faith. The Black, Asian Minority Ethnicity (BAME) and senior leaders representing marginalised groups that we talked to in this research all stated that their faith, and religion was central to their service as an educational leader. The faiths represented in our research are Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and no faith where a humanitarian approach is taken. The chapter presents the scientific significance of what values underpin these leaders’ behaviours, and to understand how their values align with legislation, education policy and the values found in Education Governance Systems.

A constructivist comparative analysis approach was adopted to address four research questions. First, how do the senior-level leaders describe and understand how school governance systems and school commissioners empower them to develop school communities as societal innovators for equity and renewal for peace in our time? Second, how do they describe and understand the role mentors, and/or advocates play to support their navigation through the governance systems? Third, to what extent do they believe a cultural change is required to empower them in school communities to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal for peace in our time? Finally, how can the findings be theorised to generate a theory of knowledge to action through impact strategies within an international comparative analysis framework?

Each of the five international cases collected the narrative biographies of up to 15 superintendents, or chief executive officers of multi-academy trusts of colour. In the Northern Ireland case, eight religiously divided key agents of change were selected as an equivalence for the governance structures in the other five case studies. The total number of senior-level leaders participating in the five case studies was 40.

Each author read their findings through Gross’ (2014) Turbulence Theory and typology to categorise the level and the impact of the challenges the key agents of change need to navigate as they mediate between the governance systems. Gross (2014, p. 248) theory of turbulence is used as a metaphor and states that ‘turbulence can be described as “light” with little or no movement of the craft. “Moderate” with very noticeable waves. “Severe” with strong gusts that threaten control of the aircraft. “Extreme” with forces so great that control is lost and structure damage to the craft occurs’. The chapter identifies the findings were read through the theory of turbulence to reveal the state of the Education Governance Systems and their impact on empowering cosmopolitan citizens to participate fully and freely in societal interactions and cooperation between diverse groups. The authors’ chapters are subject to a comparative analysis that took place at the European Conference for Educational Research Annual Conference in two large seminars (Taysum et al., 2017) in Denmark, further developed by the editors and committed to peer-review.

One of the principal findings of the most recent enquiry into professional football was that: “Running a successful league club is now a major commercial activity”. In general terms, professional football clubs too were confronted with financial and management problems.

Chronicles that the importance of an approach to marketing through research and investigation, will vary with the nature of the market and the degree of currently, or potentially committed fixed costs. Maintains that although marketing research, often in its narrow ‘selling’ sense, has been mainly associated with consumer goods, there are characteristics of the industrial market which perhaps make it an even more fertile field for the marketer, thinking in terms of long‐term maximisation – particularly if the research covers the total activity of the selling company and an appraisal of its standing or rating vis‐à‐vis the customer or potential customer. Concludes that centralisation will increase the degree of objectivity and professionalism on the part of the branch buyer by subjecting his activities to central study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the main and interaction effects of activity-based costing (ABC), internal information systems integration (IISI), and external information systems integration (EISI) on manufacturing plant operational performance, controlling for plant characteristics.

Methodology/approach: The study uses survey data from a cross-section of 369 U.S. manufacturing plants. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression model.

Findings and implications: The results indicate partial support for the main and two-way interaction effects on plant operational performance. The three-way interaction effects are significant and positive, suggesting that deploying all three resources (i.e., ABC, IISI, and EISI) leads to the higher plant operational performance.

Originality/value: The paper significantly extends prior research and contributes to the understanding of the main and interaction effects of ABC, IISI, and EISI on manufacturing plant operational performance. The paper would also be of interest to practitioners interested in keeping up with academic literature.