Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of demand-side search in service strategy of manufacturing firms. In particular, this study examines whether service-oriented human resource management (HRM) practices promote demand-side search by enhancing firms’ market capability as well as how top management service commitment and service organizing moderates this relationship in manufacturing firms.

To test this research model, this study obtains survey data from two distinct informants of 279 manufacturing firms in China. Data were collected applying a standard questionnaire in a five-point Likert scale. The hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression analysis and partial least squares.

Results show that service-oriented HRM practices can promote demand-side search by enhancing firms’ market capability. Furthermore, it is found that top management service commitment negatively moderates the relationship between service-orientated HRM practices and demand-side search, while service organizing positively moderates this relationship.

Depending on cross-sectional subjective data for the core variables and the choice of Chinese manufacturing firms limit the capacity to generalize the findings.

This research suggests that service-oriented HRM practices are important drivers of demand-side search activities and to take advantage of service-oriented HRM practices, firms should commit to market capability development. In addition, it is better to match service-oriented HRM practices with other service-oriented organizational parameters such as top management service commitment and service organizing.

The study highlights the crucial role of service-oriented HRM practices in demand-side search, the mediating role of market capability and the moderating role of other service-oriented organizational parameters such as top management service commitment and service organizing. This study advances research on knowledge search, servitization and strategic HRM.

Given the importance of frontline employees in implementing the service strategy, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether service-orientated human resource management (SHRM) practices are important organizational antecedents to help manufacturing firms gain the benefit of the service strategy. Furthermore, the paper also explores whether SHRM practices promote manufacturing firms’ performance through demand-side search.

This study employs survey methodology to examine a research model that explores whether and how SHRM practices influence manufacturing firms’ performance through demand-side search. Data from 151 high-tech manufacturing firms in a science park of China are analyzed to test the research model.

This study finds that SHRM practices can enhance manufacturing firms’ performance, and demand-side search plays a mediating role in this relationship.

Depending on a single science park in China to provide cross-sectional subjective data for the core variables and the choice of firms limits the capacity to generalize the findings.

These findings suggest that during transition to service business model, manufacturing firms should design supported organizational systems, especially SHRM practices, and commit to demand-side search as an efficient means to gain the benefit of the service strategy.

The study highlights the crucial role of SHRM practices in the implementation of the service strategy, as well as the mediating role of demand-side search. These results provide some new insights to explain the inconsistent findings in the servitization literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how boundary-spanning demand-side search (BSDSS) fuels radical technological innovations as well as how innovation appropriability moderates this relationship. In particular, based on Teece’s (1986) argument regarding the appropriability of innovation, the authors divide factors to influence innovation appropriability into two types: external institution related and internal capability related.

This study employs a survey methodology. Specifically, the authors collected a sample composed of 150 high-tech manufacturing Chinese firms.

Results show that BSDSS has a positive effect on radical technological innovations. Further, the authors find that dysfunctional competition and political ties negatively moderate the main effect, whereas firms’ legal and IPRs protection capabilities positively moderate the main effect.

One major limitation is that the findings are based on data derived from Chinese firms, which may limit the generalization of the findings.

The findings suggest that firms competing Chinese market, both Chinese and foreign firms, should actively leverage BSDSS to boost radical technological innovations. Chinese firms should pay attention to the negative roles of appropriability hazards originating from external institutional environment. Foreign firms in Chinese market should be cautious on potential dysfunctional competition from local competitors, such as imitation and intelligence property violation, and enhance appropriability through building internal capabilities, such as legal and IPRs capabilities.

The study highlights the crucial roles of BSDSS in radical technological innovations, as well as the moderating roles of innovation appropriability. These results provide new insights into the drivers of radical technological innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual effects of boundary-spanning search from suppliers (supplier-side search (SS)). It is proposed that SS contributes to innovation ambidexterity (IA) and then business performance (BP). Further, this paper includes buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) and competitive intensity (CI) as moderators to clarify boundary conditions.

An ordinary least squares regression was employed to test hypotheses, based on 184 sets of data from Hong Kong manufacturing firms. The SPSS version of PROCESS was utilized.

The results show that IA partially mediates the relationship between SS and BP. Contingently, the direct effect is negatively moderated by BSRs and CI.

This paper confirms the partial mediating effect of IA on the relationship between SS and BP. Additional mediators, such as organizational innovation and marketing innovation, can be examined in the future.

This paper contributes to practice by suggesting that suppliers are a rewarding single source for firms to undertake boundary-spanning search. IA plays a significant role in reinforcing the effects of SS on BP and should be implemented with sustaining efforts. BSRs and CI can be detrimental and should be responded to cautiously.

This paper highlights the individual effects of SS on BP. Furthermore, the underlying process and boundary conditions are analyzed. The exploitation-exploration framework is applied throughout the entire study.

A firm's geographic boundaries represent an important demarcation line when searching for new knowledge. Prior research on geographic search has generated conflicting results concerning its influence on firm innovation outcomes. The purpose of this study is to fill the gap by examining how and under which conditions geographic search affects firm radical innovation performance.

This study hypothesizes a positive association between a firm's geographic search and radical innovation performance, which is mediated by potential absorptive capacity (PAC). It further proposes that the influence of geographic search on PAC will be moderated by a firm's collaborative network. Drawing on a random sample of 286 Chinese manufacturing firms, the theoretical model is tested.

The study's results show a positive relationship between geographic search and radical innovation performance, which is partially mediated by PAC. Moreover, attributes of collaborative networks (i.e. diverse location of and strong relational ties with partners) are observed to enhance the positive effect of geographic search on PAC.

This paper advances the understanding of how and when firms can better capture the benefits of geographic search in the development of radical innovation.

With access to the large-scale search data from Rightmove plc, the paper firstly indicated the possibility of using user-generated data from online property portals to predict housing market activities and secondly embraced a GIS approach to explore what people search for housing and what they chose and investigated the issue of mismatch between search patterns and revealed patterns. Based on the analysis, the paper contributes a visual GIS-based approach which may help planners and designers to make more informed decisions related to new housing supply, particularly where to build, what to build and how many to build.

The paper used the 2013 housing search data from Rightmove and the 2013 price data from Land Registry with transactions made after the search period and embraced a GIS approach to explore the potential housing demand patterns and the mismatch between searches and sales. In the analysis, the paper employed the K-means approach to group prices into five levels and used GIS software to draw maps based on these price levels. The paper also employed a simple analysis of linear regression based on the coefficient of determination to investigate the relationship between online property views and values of house sales.

The result indicated the strong relationship between online property views and the values of house sales, implying the possibility of using search data from online property portals to predict housing market activities. It then explore the spatial housing demand patterns based on searches and showed a mismatch between the spatial patterns of housing search and actual moves across submarkets. The findings may not be very surprising but the main objective of the paper is to open up a potentially useful methodological approach which could be extended in future research.

It is important to identify search patterns from people who search with the intention to buy houses and from people who search with no intention to purchase properties. Rightmove data do not adequately represent housing search activity, and therefore more attention should be paid to this issue. The analysis of housing search helps us have a better understanding of households' preferences to better estimate housing demand and develop search-based prediction models. It also helps us identify spatial and structural submarkets and examine the mismatches between current housing stock and housing demand in submarkets.

The GIS approach in this paper may help planners and designers better allocate land resources for new housing supply based on households' spatial and structural preferences by identifying high and low demand areas with high searches relative to low housing stocks. Furthermore, the analysis of housing search patterns helps identify areas with latent demand, and when combined with the analysis of transaction patterns, it is possible to realise the areas with a lack of housing supply relative to excess demand or a lack of latent demand relative to the housing stock.

The paper proves the usefulness of a GIS approach to investigate households' preferences and aspirations through search data from online property portals. The contribution of the paper is the visual GIS-based approach, and based on this approach the paper fills the international knowledge gap in exploring effective approaches to analysing user-generated search data and market outcome data in combination.

Competitiveness and contemporary changes in our society and modern technologies force countries to apply the innovative processes in their managerial and marketing activities. Cities as the places of life of human beings and their coexistence with modern technologies could benefit from the implementation of place marketing and branding strategies and from the accepting of new approach to their consumers, predominantly citizens, but also local and international businesses and visitors. This process should be governed by the active and effective co-operation of public authorities, which means a symbiosis of multilateral parties aiming at one goal – a successful and satisfied city users and a destination with modern and effective leadership. For this reason, not only a concept of the effective co-operation is crucial, but also a concept of modern technologies application, for instance a model of smart city or the co-creation principles applied in the fulfilment of service provision to citizens. In order to succeed in competitiveness, it is important to support in destinations the application of the innovative development and sound managerial strategies. This chapter explored a strategy applied in city marketing of one city in Slovakia, Banska Bystrica. The methods of comparison and benchmarking to propose the innovative approach to marketing have been applied. In primary and secondary researches, mixed methods have been used, a combination of quantitative methods (demand side perspective) and the application of the importance–performance analysis and qualitative methods (interviews with the representatives of municipalities, private sector and non-governmental sector representatives, e.g., supply side perspective).

In the last two decades the economic literature has devoted significant attention to the mechanisms behind firms′ recruitment strategies as a possible way of reducing (un)employment problems. At the workfloor many efforts have also been made by firms to develop strategies that both alleviate conflicts with employees and at the same time lead to acceptable levels of productivity. This effort has resulted in the broad acceptance of the personnel management function in the firm. Examines how successful this approach has been by focusing on the gap between practice and theory in recruitment, by investigating the extent to which and the way in which experiences and findings from actual recruitment (personnel management) have been incorporated in economic theory. Gives an overview of findings on recruitment and selection strategies of firms, with a particular emphasis on economic motives.

This paper aims to study the pricing strategies of an online trading platform with indirect network externalities by considering heterogeneous trading behavior in the downstream market and the long tail.

The game theory, optimization and comparative static are used in this research. The equilibria are derived from the game theory, and with them, the authors optimize the platform’s profit function. Comparative static is used to study pricing strategies.

It is found that with heterogeneous trading behavior, the transaction-based model is more profitable than the subscription-based model by reason of the feasibility of “price discrimination”. However, with certain advantages of subscription fees such as avoiding offline transactions, the subscription-based model is better with a concentrated distribution of sellers’ revenues (the Gini coefficient is small). With a lucrative long tail, the platform should set a low price to attract small sellers in the long tail. Besides, if the Gini coefficient is large, the effects of the market entry barrier of sellers on the optimal price in each model may be opposite.

It implies that the choice of revenue models and pricing strategies are influenced by the Gini coefficient or the long tail. The exogenous setting in which buyers can use the platform for free needs further extension.

The authors provide insights on how to choose revenue models and how to price the sellers with the long tail phenomenon.

This paper emphasizes the role of the long tail on pricing strategies and the effect of heterogeneous trading behavior on model selection.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which firms utilise hierarchical relationships and the market system to supply and acquire intellectual property (IP) and/or innovation capabilities from sources external to the firm.

The authors conduct a field study to explore emerging governance structures for open innovation, using multiple data sources including documents (e.g. white papers) and interviews published by the firms studied, analysis of the firms' web‐based systems (where applicable), secondary content (e.g. news articles) and elite interviews with key personnel.

The analysis of seven exemplars of open innovation reveals that inter‐organisational relationships that facilitate open innovation can be categorised based on whether they are mediated or direct, and seek to exchange intellectual property or innovation capability. Using this categorisation, the authors present an analysis that reveals four governance structures along ten dimensions, and discuss the influence of knowledge dispersion, uncertainty and transaction costs on the emergence of such structures. The authors conclude that the appropriateness of hierarchical/market relationships or intermediaries to source IP and/or innovation capability is dependent on the information asymmetry in relation to the existence and availability of potential solutions/solvers; the suitability of potential innovation partners (solution providers and solvers); and the acquisition process for external innovations (including problem specification, solution evaluation, transfer, etc.).

The research is exploratory in nature, and designed to serve as a foundation for future research efforts. In particular, the work highlights the need for research that takes an inter‐organisational perspective on facilitating open innovation.

The research highlights the prominence of information asymmetry as a key issue in choosing and designing appropriate governance structures for open innovation.

The paper presents an exploratory study of an emerging, and consequently under‐researched phenomenon.