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This paper reconstructs the clash between William Baumol’s and Paul Samuelson’s different approaches to the history of economic thought, disguised as a debate on the Marxian transformation problem on the pages of the Journal of Economic Literature in 1974. The published papers were the result of an intense exchange of letters that shows how the debate on the transformation problem is just the surface: the debate originated from the authors’ different approaches to the history of economic thought. Samuelson applied his famous “Whig” history of economics to suggest that Marx had little to nothing to offer to modern theorists, while Baumol was interested in the past authors’ theoretical and moral intentions. Baumol and Samuelson’s Methodenstreit resulted in two different visions of Marx, and there is evidence that they kept their different approaches for their entire career.

This paper provides a longitudinal view of one organization’s experiences with IT implementation and Business Process Reengineering since 1990. The organization is EuroProducts; a manufacturer of air freshener and related products located in thecountry, in the West of England, EuroProducts has identified data integration and data standardization as critical to leverage increased performance from its materials requirements process flow. As a result, a new MRP system is being introduced to integrate data input from factory floor workers, management, staff, and IS professionals. The goal is to use the new MRP system as a rallying point to facilitate redesign of material requirements work flows. Aspects of innovation and systems theory are introduced to help the authors organize and identify root causes of the problems EuroProducts has had with its IT implementation and reengineering efforts.

In 1997, Gamma Health Care Systems embarked on a redesign project for their Human Resource Information System (HRIS). Redesign involved major changes to the existing system to guarantee a very high level of service. This case describes the efforts of the Human Resource Department (HRD) to redesign its HRIS to better meet enterprise‐wide goals of cost effectiveness and efficiency. The reengineering project transformed the HRD from a historic role of transaction processing to one of a strategic partner.

John Andrews Fitch spent a year studying labor conditions in the steel industry around Pittsburgh during 1907 and 1908. The results of his research became The Steel Workers, one of six volumes in the Pittsburgh Survey, a groundbreaking 1910 analysis of conditions faced by working people in a modern industrial city. Introducing his discussion of common employment practices in the steel industry, Fitch declared, “A repressive regime…has served since the destruction of unionism, to keep the employers in the saddle.” He traced the origins of management’s arbitrary power to the Homestead lockout of 1892, when Carnegie Steel destroyed the last stronghold of organized labor in the mills of western Pennsylvania. During his stay in Pittsburgh, Fitch saw the results of fifteen years of management domination. “The steel worker,” he wrote, “sees on every side evidence of an irresistible power, baffling and intangible. It fixes the conditions of his employment; it tells him what wages he may expect to receive and where and when he must work. If he protests, he is either ignored or rebuked. If he talks it over with his fellow workmen, he is likely to be discharged” (Fitch, 1989, pp. 206, 232–233).

We embarked on a case study to explore one organization’s experiences with radical change for the purpose of uncovering how they achieved success. The organization we examined was Honeywell Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. From the interview data, we were able to devise a set of ten lessons to help others transform successfully. Two important lessons stand out above the rest. First, execution of a carefully developed change plan separates the high performers from less successful BPR projects. Second, recognition that dealing with change is difficult and complicated is not enough. Top management should make change management a top priority and communicate the change vision across the organization.

The purposes of this conceptual paper are fivefold: first, to present a resource definition of care in work organizations that allows business and its managers to reconnect human wealth with social progress and economic wealth in order to create a responsible, sustainable, and healthy world; second, to examine the sociological and feminist origins of care; third, to discuss identifiable qualities of care; also, to compare and contrast care with the knowledge resource; and then, to identify future research directions for care.

Theory development and literature review were carried out to present a conceptual definition of care.

A definition of care is proposed: care is a universal construct and is inherent in all human beings; care is the core foundation, the core energy, of all human activity, work, and interaction; care may be seen as a socioeconomic resource that acts similar to the knowledge resource and may be built into organizational strategy, management, and leadership and serves as a measurable and trainable managerial capability; and care comprises identifiable qualities in individual, relational, and managerial decision‐making categories. This definition has important cross‐cultural implications and is valid for any culture, team, and organization.

This paper is conceptual in nature and lays the foundation for further research, which is outlined in the discussion. Follow‐on work should include case studies and other qualitative research methods as well as quantitative research methods to substantiate the definition with evidence.

In this paper, the author proposes that care lies at the core of being human. Care energizes all human work activity and may be employed by leaders, managers, and strategists across all organizations and cultures to maximize human potential, integrate care with the wealth creation process, and create healthy, sustainable organizations. Care is proposed as a driver for economic success and human well‐being that can give rise to the next major transformation in business and thinking. The proposed care definition, and especially, its comparison to the knowledge resource, offers scholars and practitioners a new orientation to apply to the value creation process in organizations. Care can be seen as an essential aspect of management practice, organizational strategy, and socioeconomic transformation.

This paper offers a unique and profound definition of care. Care has never been studied or examined in terms of energy or socioeconomic resource before. It leverages the definition of care associated with ethics of care research and provides a broader and deeper means to energize and transform work environments, management practice, and organizational strategy.

As global competition drives organizations towards becoming leaner and more streamlined, many corporations have turned to Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as a means to radically change the way they conduct business. However, in many instances, dramatic improvements have just failed to materialize …

The purpose of this paper is to examine which value capture strategies are efficient in the invention stage and commercialization stage for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

According to the characteristic of four primary value capture strategies, the authors categorized the formal-oriented strategy (patent), informal-oriented strategies (secrecy, lead-time), mix strategies (both formal and informal strategies), and whether to invest in complementary assets. In order to assess R & D productivity based on value capture strategy, this paper applied the two-stage data envelopment analysis for data collected from Korea Innovation Survey 2010. The sample was made up of 640 SMEs in manufacturing industry.

The results suggest that informal strategy (secrecy, lead-time) is efficient in the invention stage. Furthermore, mixed use of formal (patent) and informal strategies results in higher productivity in the commercialization stage. Lastly, the results suggest that productivity may vary depending on the investment in complementary assets. Whereas the investment in complementary assets may reduce R & D productivity at the invention stage, it may increase the productivity at the subsequent commercialization stage.

This paper did not consider external conditions such as institutional environment, industry characteristics and complexity of technology, as possible factors affecting their firm performance that need future studies.

For practitioners, the results seem to stress that should be good at combining value capture strategies in order to capture financial performance from the invention.

This study is a novel attempt to analyze R & D productivity in terms of each value capture strategy throughout the two stages: invention stage; commercialization stage.