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This study draws on the natural resource-based view to analyze the effects of technologies, managerial commitment, and firm strategy on sustainability performance, in terms of both environmental and social profits. It also examines how the effect of green technologies on sustainability performance can be triggered by a managerial commitment to sustainability issues, and by the adoption of a prospector strategy. Multiple linear regression was used to test research hypotheses on a sample of 426 Spanish tourism firms. The results provide important insights into the importance of the adoption of explorer strategies fostering the strategic exploitation of green technologies to obtain new efficient processes, organizational procedures, and products. This research also shows the contingent moderating effect that managerial commitment exerts on the strategic implementation of green technologies for sustainability performance.

The chapter investigates the relationship between environmental management practices (EMPs) and financial performance (FP).

The study is based on a sample of 187 SMEs and uses data on six EMPs (energy, water, waste, material, emissions, and biodiversity) collected through a self-administered questionnaire from owner-managers of SMEs. Ordinary least squares regression is employed to model the hypothesized paths.

The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between EMPs (energy, water, and material) and FP. There is also a significant positive relationship between an aggregate EMP measure and FP. However, other EMPs (waste, emissions, and biodiversity) are not significantly associated with FP. Overall, these results provide empirical support to the mostly normative suggestion that the conflicting results on the environmental management and financial performance relationship are partly due to the EMP measure used.

The study is based on cross-sectional data, and therefore, it is impossible to determine any changes over time. Longitudinal studies could help confirm the relationship between EMP and FP over a longer period. From a policy perspective, this results mean that the Ghanaian EPA must monitor more closely for violations of laws and regulations relating to waste, emissions, and biodiversity since SMEs do not have incentives to manage these impacts without commensurate return.

The study contributes by documenting evidence of the relationship between multiple measures of EMP and FP. This unlike most existing studies has enabled us to report evidence of how each EMP measure affects FP differently and where win–win opportunities are for SMEs. Thus, the win–win opportunities are associated with some EMP measures but not all.

Purpose: There have been continuous developments in the production industry to meet the increasing customer demand from the past to the present. At this point, supply chain management (SCM) systems emerge as an important topic. SCM is a set of systems that manages the entire process from the production of a product to its delivery to the end user. Industry 4.0 aims to improve the production industry by increasing the quality, efficiency, and performance of the production process. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors highlight the challenges, benefits, and future trends of the combination of Industry 4.0 and SCM systems.

Methodology: In this chapter, the integration of Industry 4.0 and SCM systems was investigated. For this purpose, the Industry 4.0 position of the countries and the current status of SCM systems have been examined. In addition, the key technologies in the Industry 4.0 transformation, the possible problems encountered in the transformation, the deficiencies encountered in SCM systems, and how these deficiencies can be solved with Industry 4.0 were investigated.

Findings: The results of this study show that companies that use an SCM system can separate themselves from their competitors by using Industry 4.0 technologies.

Significance: This can allow them to achieve their strategic goals and to ensure the maintenance of their competitive advantage.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

This chapter conceptually addresses outward internationalisation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the emerging markets (EMs) by focussing on the role of prior contract manufacturing relationships with a developed market multinational enterprise (DMNE). The internationalisation of SMEs originating from EMs is a rather under-researched area and the role of prior contract manufacturing experience specifically has not been addressed in prior studies. Based on a literature review, the authors identified four capabilities developed by EM SMEs during their contract manufacturing relationships with DMNE(s) that potentially help in later outward internationalisation. The authors incorporate some insights from dynamic capabilities theory, and develop propositions addressing the role of relational capital, human capital, manufacturing productivity capabilities and product innovation capabilities in this specific context. Despite being conceptual in nature, this chapter is one of the first to explicitly highlight the role of these specific capabilities developed during contract manufacturing relationship for outward internationalisation, setting bases for future studies to further empirically investigate them in different contexts.

Regardless of its relevance for economic development, the influence of strategic orientation by innovation orientation, and strategic marketing by marketing capability on firm performance, this interesting study focused on firms with strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia. It approached the gap in three ways. Initially, the examination was conducted on the role of innovation orientation, marketing capability, the interaction of innovation orientation and marketing capability on firm performance. The next step was considering the contribution of state-owned enterprise (SOE) and non-SOE. Finally, this relationship was studied in strategic industries of firms in Indonesia. The firm performance in this study, which we chose, was operational performance. The proposed conceptual model would be tested by distributing questionnaires to 41 firms in Indonesia. This study gave insight into the matters, which should be the companies’ focus, to improve their operations’ performance. By using PLS-based structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the results of the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and the interaction between innovation orientation and marketing capability on operational performance were identified. The findings could be clarified via the variations in the characteristics of enterprises (SOE and non-SOE). Moreover, there were clear variations in the findings, which were recognized among the firms’ relatively different characteristics. The main finding was a challenge to generalize the relationship from strategic orientation and strategic marketing to performance. The results of firm characteristics also had considerable managerial relevance. The authors recommend strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia in achieving operational performance excellence. Management’s importance is paying attention to the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and dynamic capability in running a company organization.

This paper makes a contribution to the discussion on micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities – actions and interactions in organizations that enable continuous organizational renewal. More specifically, we propose the idea that dynamic capabilities of an organization are a positive function of corresponding dynamic capabilities of individual and collective actors in the organization. Further, we develop the assumption that not only individual acts of managers but also those of individuals and teams without managerial responsibility relate to dynamic capabilities of the organization. Following a holistic view, we also take into consideration empowering working conditions as an enhancing factor of this function. To examine these roots of dynamic capabilities, we use a multi-level model of competence provided by Wilkens, Keller, and Schmette (2006) that operationalizes the concept of dynamic capabilities provided by Teece (2007) on a concisely behavioral base. We investigated our hypotheses with a standardized questionnaire in a case study of a German plant engineering company with 112 participants and found primary support for our assumptions. Our results show an impact of individual dynamic capabilities on dynamic capabilities of the organization that is mediated by team dynamic capabilities. Psychological and social–structural empowerment moderated this relationship. A case-specific interpretation and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Strategic management research has shown growing interest in understanding the dynamic resource reconfiguration processes through which firms grow, evolve, and sustain profitability. The goal of our study is to understand how dynamic resource reconfigurations enable firms to pursue growth opportunities. We use the methods of inductive theory building from case studies to elaborate current theoretical understanding about how firms draw on both internal and external resources in the pursuit of growth. We examine the patterns of resource reconfigurations through which Yahoo and Google powered their early growth strategies in their first 10 years of existence. We analyze a total of 192 new product launches in 43 markets by the two firms to capture how they reconfigured resources dynamically. Our analysis reveals that both firms developed highly dynamic strategies exhibiting both surprising similarities and differences. These similarities and differences provided the basis for our theoretical insights about the development of what we term “dynamic resource platforms,” comprising of (a) dynamic resource shifts; (b) targeted resource orchestration; and (c) complementary processes balancing dynamism and capability development. These ideas contribute novel theoretical insights to current strategic management research on dynamic capabilities and on resource reconfiguration and redeployment.

The dynamics of platforms, particularly the eventual need for renewal, are too often neglected. This chapter adopts a four-stage model – Birth, Expansion, Leadership, and Self-Renewal – to analyze the requirements at each stage of the platform lifecycle in terms of its dependence on the high-level dynamic capability categories of sensing, seizing, and transforming. The requirements evolve from a heavy emphasis on generative sensing and planning-stage seizing in the birth phase, through greater emphasis on “seizing” activities and minor transformations as the platform, ideally, grows and stabilizes. When platform renewal is called for, the emphasis returns to sensing future possibilities and generating new ideas for a platform and business model, developing them alongside the existing business, and eventually undertaking a major transformation to restart the platform lifecycle. An awareness of these lifecycle changes can help managers adopt a longer-term perspective on the competitive requirements of their platform-based business.