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This paper aims to identify key marketing and supply chain management-related (supply chain management – SCM) capabilities and explore the nature of the linkages between these specific capabilities as shaped by the integrative mechanisms adopted by firms.

Based on the findings from dyadic interviews with 26 marketing and SCM executives from business-to-business firms, the authors develop an empirically grounded conceptual framework.

The authors identify innovativeness and market learning capability as key marketing capabilities and supply chain agility and relational capability as key SCM capabilities. The authors find that relationships between these strategic marketing and SCM capabilities follow a specific pattern. The authors also find that the application of unique integrative mechanisms can cultivate the potential tandem between marketing and SCM capabilities.

The study informs theory with regard to two key areas: relationships among key marketing and SCM capabilities and integrative mechanisms that shape the underlying mechanisms of capability relationships.

Application of organizational dynamics to key marketing and SCM provides a more nuanced understanding of the linkages among such capabilities. A better understanding and application of integrative mechanisms may help managers to develop better tools and means to bundle their key marketing and SCM capabilities effectively.

The qualitative and exploratory nature of the paper will be of significant interest to managers who would like to achieve greater synergy between marketing and SCM capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of Cross-Functional Awareness (CFA) and to question how firm size influences the impact of ERP implementation strategies on CFA. Specifically, the paper questions whether size moderates the capability of the firm to achieve CFA.

The authors developed and empirically tested a conceptual framework using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach. This study gathered data from a sample of 45 French SMEs and 55 French large firms.

The results show that ERP implementation strategies (flexibility, organizational vision, Business Process Re-Engineering, speed of implementation, and focus on core modules) have a direct positive relationship and, in large firms, an indirect relationship (via data quality improvement) with the emergence of CFA. The study also suggests that firm size moderates the resulting emergence of ERP-enabled CFA. The findings will help researchers understand the factors associated with ERP implementation and use that promote or inhibit successful use of ERP systems.

Similar to many published ERP surveys, the sample size is small. In addition, the authors examined CFA in the survey from the perspective of a single respondent per firm. Finally, there may be a cultural limitation linked to the respondents all being French firms.

The findings will promote a better understanding of the concept of CFA and its benefits amongst managers, leading to increased productivity and efficiency with ERP. In particular, they will help practitioners identify and manage the right factors during ERP implementations.

In the expanding world of Enterprise System research, this paper is significant in that it studies the effect of ERP implementation on CFA rather than investigating the factors affecting ERP implementation or the outcomes of ERP implementations. To the best of the knowledge, this is one of the few papers that theoretically articulates and empirically explores the concept of CFA, and tests the relationship between implementation strategy factors and CFA, including the moderating role of size in the context of ERP. The contribution shows that the firm size effect should be examined at the level of SMEs and larger firms separately, rather than at an overall level.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate different types of innovations and their effects on eco-innovation practices by firms practicing green technology in Malaysia.

This paper collected data via postal and online surveys. The population frame for this study was obtained from the External Trade Development Corporation directory 2010 and the MyHijau Directory published in 2013. Surveys were distributed to the top management of green technology companies.

Based on the reflections from the managers who participated in the survey, this study found that environmental compliance has become a critical issue and lack of enforcement can no longer be ignored. Despite that fact that eco-innovation inspection activities to comply with environmental regulations are carried out periodically by the studied firms, the challenges in deploying the latest green technologies and their potential benefits have remain evident. Often, a shortage of resources has restricted firms in setting up in-house research and development units.

The findings of this study lead to the suggestion that firms practicing green technology should engage in an information-sharing culture with key suppliers regarding the latest know-how and technological developments. Among the recommendations are that firms should engage employees, customers, suppliers and competitors through co-production. This engagement will help improve product marketability, lean production processes and the design of desired green products.

This study investigated the level of eco-innovation practices for each dimension of its construct and compared that level to the different stages of firm innovation. The results will fill in the gaps in the literature because previous studies only focused on theory testing and modelling of eco-innovation from a multidisciplinary approach.

The purpose of this paper is to consider theory development related to returns management within supply chain strategy. The marketing/logistics relationship relative to the returns management process is investigated.

Grounded theory qualitative methodology. Managers in five Italian firms, across marketing and logistics roles, at strategic and operational levels were interviewed.

Four key findings emerged: strong evidence exists that strategic goals and policies are being implemented; cross‐functional integration within the firms is broader than was expected; the more integrated firms deal better with external factors influencing the returns management process; and supply chain orientation – including forward and reverse supply chain flows – is linked to effective returns management.

Firms were pre‐selected for participation, due to researcher's time constraints. Additionally, given the pan‐European approach to many supply chains, this Italian research needs to be replicated in other (western and eastern) European settings to determine the robustness of the factors posited to be important to the returns management process. Finally, other functional areas beyond marketing and logistics are involved in returns management, and will be more formally incorporated into future research.

Returns management – increasingly being recognized as affecting competitive positioning – provides an important link between marketing and logistics. The broad nature of its cross‐functional impact suggests that firms would benefit by improving internal integration efforts. In particular, a firm's ability to react to and plan for the influence of external factors on the returns management process is improved by such internal integration.

Returns management has been under‐represented in much of the logistics and supply chain literature. This paper represents the first stage of an on‐going research project aimed at providing a theoretical framework for understanding the returns management process within a firm's supply chain strategy.

This study aims to explore the gaps concerning the organizational operant resources (OORs) of logistics service providers (LSPs) expected in outsourcing relationships. The study considers the views of both manufacturing firms (M-firms) and LSPs in India and DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) seeking gaps within and across regions.

This research employed a survey targeting executives from large M-firms and LSPs in both India and DACH. The perceptions about the importance and improvement expectations of 17 OORs are analyzed. A modified version of importance-improvement analysis (A-B), a novel comparative A-B analysis (CABA) method, has been proposed to identify the importance and improvement gaps in OORs between M-firms and LSPs within and across India and the DACH region.

There are more gaps between M-firms and LSPs in India compared to DACH. Cross-country comparisons reveal that LSPs in India and DACH have similar perceptions concerning the OORs, but M-firms in India have significantly higher improvement expectations than those in DACH.

This study proposes an analytical approach that enables managers to identify improvement areas and better align with their outsourcing relationship partners. It also highlights aspects that need to be considered while entering emerging markets such as India.

The analysis approach using CABA is novel. Also, among the cross-country studies, this is the first to compare outsourcing relationships in India with the DACH region while involving both users' and service providers' perspectives.

Describes the rationale behind a course designed by the trainees, employees themselves, in conjunction with external expertise and delivered to small groups over a 12‐month period. A “drip” feed across a diagonal slice of the structure in small (12 maximum) cross‐functional groups, awareness and education programme aims at creating a learning organization, enhancing thinking skills and developing a deeper team awareness in support of company strategies focused on customer satisfaction and utilizing all employees. In this article, listening, communicating, recognizing internal as well as external customers and complementing improvement on a continuous cycle are discussed as a means of allowing the manufacturing deliverables of quality, delivery and cost improvement to be a way of life.

This study aims to present Lean Six Sigma (LSS) deployment and sustainment strategies for the healthcare sector from a multi-level perspective. The objective is to present LSS implementation insights to enable policymakers, practitioners and academicians to test and develop an LSS framework for healthcare sectors.

The strategies identified are the result of a multi-method research design involving literature review, action research (AR) and Delphi study. Further, the AR portion of the study involved more than 10 years of projects focused on the deployment of LSS in the healthcare sector.

The strategies include a holistic view from the multi-level perspective, considering the Top Management Level, Middle Management Level and Operational Level. The authors ascertained 27 strategies across the three levels of organizational structure for the effective deployment of LSS. Further, the authors present a customized LSS “pocket guide” from the healthcare perspective for quick reference.

The strategies delineated in this study are based on the Indian healthcare section only; thus, further research in additional geographic contexts is needed. Also, further research is necessary to provide additional empirical validation of the effects of the identified strategies on LSS program outcomes and to verify that the strategies operate at the proposed organizational levels. Future research should also focus on identifying the interrelationships between strategies within and across levels, developing a “road map” for LSS implementation in hospitals and designing the LSS curriculum for medical schools and other medical training programs.

Observations of this study can contribute to developing a holistic framework for successful LSS implementation in the healthcare sector for academicians, practitioners and policymakers. This, in turn, ensures an enhanced value proposition, improved quality of life and reduced healthcare operational costs. Thus, it ensures a win-win situation among all the stakeholders of the healthcare sector.

The strategies put forth will enable the LSS researchers, academicians and, more particularly, practitioners to delve deeper into specific enablers and safeguard the LSS deployment from backlash. The research has two significant benefits. Firstly, it enhances the understanding of LSS from the healthcare perspective. Secondly, it provides direction for future studies with specific components for hospitals’ LSS framework, which can be further tested, refined and improved.

This paper aims to describe what facilitates small and medium‐sized suppliers in participating in green supply chain initiatives. These initiatives are inter‐organizational initiatives attempting to improve environmental performance throughout the entire supply chain. This paper seeks to examine buyer green supply chain management practices, government involvement, and internal readiness of the suppliers themselves, as possible drivers.

The research framework and hypotheses were examined by using a mail survey conducted in South Korea in 2005. The empirical analysis used data from 142 small and medium‐sized suppliers. Validity and reliability of the scales for the construct of interest were assessed through a factor analysis and Cronbach‐alpha test. To test the hypotheses for the drivers of suppliers' willingness to participate in green supply chain initiatives, hierarchical linear regression was adopted.

The study finds that buyer environmental requirements and support were positively linked to their suppliers' willingness to participate in green supply chain initiatives. The government can play an important role in motivating these suppliers. Finally, the paper reveals that the more slack resources and organizational capabilities suppliers had, the more willingly they were to participate in those initiatives.

This research is one of the few studies which explore the drivers of participation in green supply chain initiatives by considering small and medium‐sized suppliers and their most important stakeholders, including buyers and the government.

Outlines four interconnecting factors which are essential to motivating staff: an understanding of the “psychology of excellence in teams”; establishing cross‐functional quality improvement teams; understanding and reviewing processes of care and service; and the use of data display.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the managerial decision-making challenges of the use of data from online and offline customer data flooding into firms and managed through interactive dashboards. The paper provides insights into how managers within the hotel sector both manage and use the data as a core tool in discussions with finance managers/directors during negotiation on critical marketing investments.

The research design followed a multiple-case study design of five market-orientated hotels, which were selected as high performing data and dashboard users. Across each case company multiple informants were interviewed and shadowed, including marketing managers, general managers and finance managers/directors. There was also an in-depth investigation of the collection, dissemination and particularly use of traditional market research data and online data from social media sites, web sites and web and mobile analytics. This was augmented by a study of the customized, off site managed interactive databases, in use in all case companies.

This paper identifies managerial challenges experienced by general managers, marketing and financial managers using digital customer data. It investigated the power of the customer voice internally and found that unstructured qualitative data had greater visibility and usage once supported by a financial imperative. It also found that the use of interactive dashboards were a powerful manifestation of data technology use and increased marketing’s visibility, power and accountability within the firm.

The paper provided a limited hotel perspective which impacts on generalizability. The findings should be tested quantitatively to ascertain their validity across a wider sector of businesses and operations. Though multiple site and cross-functional research adds value, one site might have provided more depth.

This paper reveals that managers need support in terms of time, resources and personnel to manage the flood of information into their organizations. It also suggested that general and marketing managers need to develop the skills to interpret the data for decision-making, so that the financial implications are understand.

Most social media studies within the hotel sector focus on the impact of social media reviews on consumer purchasing processes and/or on how managers communicate online with consumers. This paper takes an internal managerial perspective on data use for decision-making. This paper expands our understanding of marketing strategic decision-making through an in-depth exploration into how cross-functional decision-making uses contemporary customer data.