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To attain green economic efficiency, small, micro and medium-sized firms must follow environmental paradigms. This research aims to discover the relationship between green intellectual capital, green entrepreneurial orientation, green marketing, green organizational culture and competitive advantage strategies to attain sustainable manufacturing business success.

Today, many companies have accepted their responsibilities, that their operations should not harm the environment. This paper aims to discover the relationship between green factors and competitive advantage strategies to succeed in sustainable manufacturing. The employees of the large manufacturing firms in China are the sample population of the present investigation. Through simple random sampling, surveys were distributed via email. The present study was a quantitative analysis. The analytical tool utilized here was structural equation modeling and SmartPLS program applications.

The empirical outcomes find that green intellectual capital positively influences competitive advantages and sustainable success in business. In addition, the impact of green entrepreneurial orientation on competitive advantages and sustainable success is positive and significant. The findings illustrated that green marketing is an essential factor in competitive advantage and sustainable success in business. Another point is that green organizational culture positively affects competitive advantages and sustainable success. Finally, competitive advantages have significantly affected sustainable success in business.

The outcomes help specialists enhance their practices to reflect sustainable business efficiency and competitive advantages.

This is the first study that examined businesses' sustainable success and green factors in a comprehensive model and using a specific sample of manufacturing companies based on green technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and design a paradigm model for universities' information acquisition behavior in competitive intelligence process.

The sampling has been conducted in two stages. First, purposive sampling has been done among Iranian universities of medical sciences. Second, 20 university staff members were selected using the snowball method. The research was conducted through semi-structured interviews.

The purpose of acquiring information in competitive intelligence process is to meet organizational and individual information needs in active and passive ways. The characteristics of information acquisition and how to acquire it are varied. Enablers include the information sources, individual, organizational characteristics and environmental pressures. Barriers are individual, organizational, environmental factors. The consequences of information acquisition are success, failure and partial success. Accordingly, a paradigm model of information behavior has been designed.

This is the first study to identify information behavior of universities in competitive intelligence process. In addition to why and how to acquire information, this study also looks at facilitators and barriers factors.

The idea of competitive advantage is not new. What is new is the growing acceptance of this planning concept as a general philosophy of management. In all likelihood, the notion of competitive advantage will provide the guiding philosophy for the predominant management practice of the 1980s: strategic management. As experience at Clark Equipment Company shows, the answers to eight key questions can spell out a winning strategy.

This study examines the critical impact of human resource factors on the competitive advantage of supply chain management (SCM) practices. The human resource management (HRM) literature suggests that there are effects of HRM factors on SCM success, but neglects the relative importance among various factors regarding organizational performance. Survey responses from executives in 358 of the largest US manufacturing and service corporations are analyzed to test the relationships among selected HRM factors and SCM practice success. The results suggest an interactive role of managerial and employee support to enhance the effectiveness of employee training and to mitigate the adverse effect of implementation barriers on the success of SCM practices. The corresponding implications for managerial practice are also discussed in terms of the use of HRM program implementation to create a sustainable competitive advantage even when competitors adopt similar SCM “best practices”.

Organizations operate in all areas through people and it is their contribution which determines success and it is their skills and knowledge which need to be cultivated and then leveraged to create competitive advantage. Sustainability of this competitive advantage comes from the development of tightly coordinated and complementary activities and directed towards producing a strategy of differentiation and making a unique offering to customers. A consistency in strategic direction is essential and this will necessitate the exercise of choice to develop a unique strategy. The development of sustainable competitive advantage is a vital management function and an important requirement is the nurturing of a knowledge creating environment to enable the organization to exploit and develop resources better than rivals and create sufficient knowledge to address the industry’s future success factors.

The current study attempts to bridge the existing gap related to the role of knowledge acquisition from international alliance partners to improve competitiveness by examining the distinct processes of knowledge acquisition and the challenges confronted in this learning process in order to enhance local and international market performance.

Following case-study approach based on systematic combining, the study presents a case of knowledge acquisition and learning in the context of an international consultancy alliance between leading Pakistani and Chinese engineering firms using six in-depth interviews of key engineers to explore the dynamic mechanisms for knowledge acquisition and learning from the Chinese firm. Grounded analysis drawn upon the Straussian version of grounded theory (GT) {{Strauss, 1990 #136} Strauss, 1998 #139} is used for data analysis in this research.

It was found that the processes of explicit and implicit knowledge acquisition from Chinese firms are integrated consultancy working, social and technical adaptability and seeking confirmation about the work done and knowledge/theories and models used in work. However, these processes are quite complex, posing serious challenges for National Engineering Services, Pakistan to acquire the required knowledge, which can be addressed through partners' motivation to share and acquire knowledge, cultural intelligence and friendship and informal association. The study also found that the knowledge acquired from technologically advanced international organizations by the host partner in the international strategic alliance not only provides a competitive edge to the local host in its local market but also builds its capacity to undertake similar projects in other parts of the world, substantially enhancing its market success.

Adding up to the current literature that focuses on knowledge acquisition in a parent-subsidiary relationship, the current research proposes a framework for knowledge acquisition in the unique context of international strategic alliances. The research provides managerial guidelines to manage knowledge acquisition for gaining a competitive edge that would be helpful for the managers in the era of growing interdependence among the organizations across the borders.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a extraction procedure of competitive advantage factors that a company needs to have organizational capabilities, and leads the company to make a sustainable business success. By using the proposed method, a company can conduct a self‐assessment based on the factors, and re‐design its own quality management system, then realize the competitive advantage in a target business area.

By collecting and analyzing the strategy data of six business areas in company A and conducting the interview to the project team in each business area for six months, the decision‐making mechanism and its pattern of the competitive advantage factors are examined, then the self‐assessment method of quality management system is proposed.

The decision‐making mechanism for competitive advantage factors is clarified. The customer value that is one of elements in the mechanism is categorized. And the analyzing method for specifying the core customer value and the organizational capability that leads customers directly to select a company's own product is established.

The originality of this paper is in establishing a self‐assessment method that follows the concept of “evaluation design.” This means not using pre‐established evaluation criteria for all companies in all types of business, as is done in conventional research, but rather, designing criteria based on the competitive advantage factors in a target business area and then reflecting those factors into its own quality management system.

Evaluates the use of competitive alliances as an alternative to competitive advantage. Draws examples from Australian retail banking during the 1980s. Differentiates between coalition, consortium and servicer. Concludes that whereas all three show examples of apparent success, none guarantees it.

In this paper we examine some fundamental epistemological issues in building theory for applied management science, by which we mean theory that can be usefully applied in a scientific approach to management research and practice. We first define and distinguish “grand theory” from “mid-range theory” in the social and management sciences. We then elaborate and contrast epistemologies for (i) building “grand theory” intended to be applicable to all cases and contexts, and (ii) building “mid-range theory” intended to apply to specific kinds of contexts. We illustrate the epistemological challenges in building grand theory in management science by considering important differences in the abilities of two “grand theories” in strategic management – industry structure theory and firm resources theory – to support development of conceptually consistent models and propositions for empirical testing, theoretical refinement, and application in management practice. We then suggest how a mid-range theory building approach can help to achieve integration of the two grand strategic management theories and improve their ability to support empirical testing, theory refinement, and application of theory in practice. Finally, we suggest how the competence-based management (CBM) perspective provides the foundational concepts needed to build both mid-range theory and (potentially) grand theory in strategic management that can be usefully applied in management science.

A new grouping of the eight schools of thought on business management is introduced. Their advancement is initially assessed with the help of a frame of reference, which is based on the principles inherent in Beer’s viable system model. It is proposed that a high degree of systemic advancement is one of the necessary attributes of any business-management concept that will be proven to be highly applicable to managing a firm’s dynamic business in practice. The first assessment reveals that the systemic advancement of the representative concepts varies a lot as follows. Porter’s chained frameworks (representing 1st Porterian school), Barney’s VRIO framework (2nd resource-based school), Sanchez and Heene’s concepts (3rd competence-based school), von Krogh et al.’s concept (4th knowledge-based school), and Hedlund’s heterarchy (5th organization-based school) are fairly systemic, respectively. Martin’s cascade (6th process-based school) is less systemic. Instead, Hamel’s revolutionary concept (7th dynamism-based school) and Brown and Eisenhardt’s competing on edge strategy (8th evolutionary school) are highly systemic. Thus, some promising ways to advance, in particular, the competence-based school of thought on business management are suggested.