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Extant research and practice of patent management are often occupied with how to best utilize patenting as a source of competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a patent management trichotomy where firms make strategic decisions between patenting, publishing, and secrecy.

The paper is conceptual in nature and draws on received IP management literature to develop an analytical framework.

The authors suggest that the choice between patenting, publishing, and secrecy can be understood in terms of differences in the degree to which the firm can appropriate value from the invention and the degree to which it can operate freely.

Through an analysis along the dimensions of direct and indirect appropriation as well as static and dynamic freedom to operate, the paper conceptualizes the choice between patenting, publishing, and secrecy in a way useful for managers as well as for academics.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the centrality of anxiety in health care, especially in the context of leading change. It identifies the importance of emotional labour for clinical professionals and the resultant development of defensive routines. The idea of containment is central to addressing anxiety.

The approach involves identification of anxiety as a key factor in leading change in health care, but one which is often ignored.

Anxiety is the elephant in the room vis-a-vis leading change in health care. To address the use of defensive routines, a range of activities can act as “containers” for anxiety and help with leading change.

To lead change in health care implies addressing the existence and importance of anxiety and the emotional labour which health-care professionals undertake.

The existence of anxiety and the profound impact it has on leading change in health care has typically been under-estimated or avoided. The paper aims to remedy this.

Innovation management has been acknowledged as a crucial activity for the growth and survival of firms. An important element of a firm’s innovation management strategy is the acquisition and management of patents. Although the role of patents has been widely discussed in the economics literature, only limited effort has been devoted toward examining the issue in the marketing context. To address this important gap in the literature, this article focuses on the factors governing the perceived value of patents and how such perceptions affect the firm’s product development strategies. A conceptual model is developed and a number of research propositions based on existing research derived. The research has the potential to make a contribution to the academic literature, to offer insights for managers, and to provide guidelines for public policy makers.

The scholarly literature in consultation emphasises scenarios where the role of the consultant is external and formalised. However, many consultations exhibit neither of these characteristics. The dynamics of an informal, four‐year long, internal consulting project conducted by two faculty members on a university campus are examined. Analysis suggests that this type of consultation involves challenges which, although not unique to informal/internal consulting, are sufficiently distinctive to warrant increased attention from researchers. Of particular importance in this regard is the pervasive influence which ambiguity can have on the handling of various stages of the intervention process in informal/internal projects.

The discussion about firearms in the United States often involves a contentious confrontation between two polarized groups: gun owners and those that might increase regulation of guns. The former group often uses rights-based arguments, including the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, while the latter assesses problems related to gun violence from a collectivist perspective, focusing on the health, social, and policy implications of firearm ownership. The National Rifle Association (NRA) adds to the mix through communicating and lobbying activities.

The chapter uses qualitative data and interpretive methods to gain an in-depth insight into the values of the gun culture and the role of the NRA in this community. Data used are from nine depth interviews with gun owners and field notes derived from participant observation in addition to examination of email communications sent by the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Three significant values espoused by members of the culture – self-sufficiency, safety, and privacy – are based on the individualist perspective and this perspective is reinforced by public narrative provided by the NRA.

A limitation is the geographic limitation on data collection, although it is expected that rural gun culture does not vary significantly throughout the United States. The study has implications for a more nuanced understanding of the gun debate in the United States by suggesting how the narrative is structured by lobbying groups such as the NRA.

This chapter provides insight into the U.S. gun culture that has not been previously addressed through a consumer culture theory lens.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the change in Chinese managerial network systems to identify adaptation to Western strategic systems.

A sequential explanatory approach was adopted – a quantitative analysis of personal value systems of Chinese managers visiting the UK using established cultural value dimensions, with qualitative semi‐structured interviews to assist statistical inferences.

The traditional values of Chinese managers are decreasing in importance and lower power distance is apparent. A more flexible, dynamic approach with increased heterogeneity in countering competitive challenges – a transvergence, rather than crossvergence or convergence – is inferred.

This paper has three major limitations. First, it applies cross‐cultural methods but uses strategic theory as the interpretative framework. Second, the sample size is small, based on convenience sampling, and is specific to managers arriving at a foreign interface. Third, this research is exploratory and explanatory, designed to challenge present understanding. Future research at country interfaces should identify global patterns of strategic adaptation, creating stronger inferential arguments with convergence of economic problems as a causal mechanism.

The practical implications are twofold: Chinese strategy is adapting to new economic problems not new ideological structures; managerial network systems and not Chinese firms are the locus of the adaptation.

This paper draws together concepts from strategy, problem solving, decision making, and cultural values, arguing that Chinese strategic change results from a dynamic interaction between strategic problem‐solving choices.

The paper presents a new paradigm for implementing action learning in a key subject area in a program.

An action research‐based course evaluation methodology was linked to course design and development at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Involving students via effective communication provided a sense of connection and greater understanding for instructors in terms of engagement through direct insight into relevant issues of student learning and knowledge management.

The use of this and a wide variety of other relevant information via the application of action research provided an innovative platform that embedded the desire to innovate and improve the learning outcomes by combining course evaluation with a continuous course design process. This has been shown to be a far more effective method than the narrow measurement process of student course evaluation questionnaires.

As with all action research this is a continually evolving process and the data provided are from early iterations of the cycle.

The research provides a platform for ongoing investigation of learning while improving and assuring outcomes for those involved in the process.

The study presents a new paradigm in action via a case study set within core management and human resource management courses. The new evaluation methodology, together with its implementation, has proved beneficial in terms of innovation through the action research cycle.

Organizations increasingly operate under volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions. Traditional command-and-control leadership can be ineffective in such chaotic environments. The purpose of this paper is to outline an alternative model to help leaders and organizations navigate effectively through VUCA environments. By developing three fundamental capacities (absorptive, adaptive and generative), leaders can cultivate organizations capable of continuous synchronization with their fitness landscapes. Central tenets of the framework include diversity, slack, learning, humility, reflection in action and abductive logic.

This framework is designed based on literature insights, conceptual analysis and experts’ judgment. The paper integrates knowledge from a variety of disciplines and interprets them through the lens of complex adaptive systems.

This paper argues for a process centered, contemplative approach to organizational leadership and development. By providing the underlying rationale for the proposed interventions (e.g. Ashby’s law of requisite variety), the paper also reorients busy leaders’ mental models to show why these time investments are worth implementing.

This actionable framework can help leaders and organizations be more effective operating in a VUCA context.

This paper provides a historic context as to why prediction and certainty are favored leadership strategies, why these approaches are no longer suitable and specific steps leaders can take to develop absorptive, adaptive and generative capacities to transform their organizations. Its scholarly contribution is the synthesis of disparate bodies of literature, weaving those multiple academic perspectives into a practical roadmap to enhance organizational leadership.

The purpose of this article is to illustrate and address idea gaps to bring improvement and add value to organizations.

A framework for ideas is developed to enhance and extend conventional management theory and practice.

It recognises the essential interaction and progression of ideas so that managers can more comprehensively encourage, promote, integrate, and advance ideas in their organisations.

A breakthrough passage is suggested and constructed.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a void in the literature on enterprise flexibility: The Management Control Systems’ (MCS) role in the enterprise flexibility and stability discussion. MCS can be instrumental in securing an organization’s strategic performance objectives, far beyond the mere managerial control and accounting perspectives of traditional MCS’ roles.

This study is qualitative in nature, and presents a theoretical approach with a conceptual model to address enterprise flexibility and stability jointly; arguing that both should be part of the MCS’ design and implementation with a distinct strategic outlook. Several theoretical and practical arguments are presented which reinforce this thesis.

To operate optimally, enterprises must be able to manage their limited resources in efficient and effective manner. This is especially so when dealing with uncertainty and contingencies on an ongoing basis, while following a defined strategic choice. Such choices are expected to mirror enterprise flexibility types and measures without neglecting enterprise stability requirements, linking both to strategic performance measurement indicators.

Further work is needed to explore not only how different types of enterprise flexibility and stability measures can bring additional benefits to the firm but also how best to apply such types in accordance with business and operations strategies, organizational stability requirements and management control strategies.

MCS can and should take part of an organization’s strategic performance measures but these are to be understood from a systemic design perspective of the enterprise system’s metacontrollability, addressing flexibility and stability jointly.

There is a need to reevaluate the role of MCS and their strategic potential. The approach presented can have valuable potential ramifications and insights for management and information sciences as well as for the enterprise management practitioners as a whole.

This paper provides original research on enterprise flexibility and stability analysis, covering all aspects of MC and its role on the enterprise’s metacontrollability. Design and coordination of the seven basic elements which comprise MCS are analyzed, as well as how they influence one another. The paper includes two tables to illustrate the approach being proposed. Table I presents a classification of the literature reviewed in the paper while Table AI presents the choice of the theoretical lens on enterprise flexibility from other authors which contrasts with the model proposed. The role of MCS in the enterprise is also included.