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The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

An abundance of academic studies have been devoted to the investigation of corporate social responsibilities, and although the business world seems to have accepted the general idea that it should be socially responsible, it has never been asked what executives perceive their social responsibilities to be. Additionally, extensive research in an attempt to identify the relationship between corporate social and financial performance by investigating companies' annual and financial reports has shown largely inconclusive results. This paper therefore aims to investigate the insights of corporate executives on both the issues of the social responsibilities of business and the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance. With respect to corporate executives, the authors investigated if there are differences between the perceptions of executives of FTSE 100 and FTSE All‐Share.

The data was collected via online survey and semi‐structured interviews with the executives of FTSE All‐Share companies. Out of 531 executives, the authors received 82 responses of a response rate of 17 per cent. They contacted 178 executives representing FTSE 100 companies and received 29 responses of a response rate of 17.6 per cent. In order to build a phenomenological approach to this study, the authors interviewed four executives to document their opinions and thoughts.

The results indicate that the business world holds a narrow view of its social responsibilities whilst maintaining that it is possible to be both profitable and respectful to its stakeholders. The analysis also reveals that socially responsible businesses employ CSR in pursuit of their commercial interests and consider it to be their competitive advantage. Moreover, the business seems to have integrated CSR into all its operations and activities and considers it as a necessity rather than luxury, which suggests that CSR and financial performance are in synergy.

One major contribution of this study is the difference analysed between perceptions of executives of FTSE 100 and other FTSE All‐Share companies on whether CSR policies and activities are implemented only when extra financial resources are available. This might suggest that FTSE 100 companies are more likely to have already integrated CSR into their business strategy and therefore devote financial resources to their CSR programs. Other FTSE All‐Share companies, in contrast, might still be regarding CSR as an add‐on and therefore spend monies on CSR only when they have extra financial resources available. The similar explanation can be offered for the difference between perceptions of executives of FTSE 100 and other FTSE All‐Share companies as to whether implementation of CSR policies and activities will increase overheads, increase share prices in the following years and help raise new capital.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organizational level on employees' perceptions and reactions to a complex organizational change involving proposed work force redesign, downsizing and a physical move to a new hospital.

Participants included executives, supervisory and non‐supervisory staff in a major tertiary hospital. Recorded in‐depth interviews were conducted with 61 employees about the positive and negative aspects of the change.

A total of 12 themes were identified from content coding, including emotional responses and attitudes toward the change, issues about the management of the change process and about change outcomes. Supervisory and non‐supervisory staff referred more to conflict and divisions, and expressed more negative attitudes toward the change, than did executives. Executives and supervisory staff focused more on planning challenges and potential outcomes of the change than did non‐supervisory staff. Finally, compared to other staff, executives focused more on participation in the change process and communication about the change process.

This study examines the organizational change at only one time point in one organization. Perceptions of the change may change over time, and other identities like professional identity may influence perceptions.

These findings suggest that change agents should consider the needs of different organizational groups in order to achieve effective and successful organizational change.

This study clearly shows the impact of organizational level, identifying similarities and differences in perceptions of change across level.

The purpose of the paper is to determine whether management’s optimistic perceptions of their organization’s level of information security preparedness can ultimately result in increased information security risks.

A case study was conducted in a financial institution. In all, 24 employees were interviewed. These employees came from all functional areas and various positions, from tellers to executives. Interviews were conducted, internal policies and examiners’ reports were made available and access was given to observe the employees during working hours and to observe the facilities after hours.

Executives were overly optimistic about the level of information security at their organization. These optimistic perceptions guided security priorities; however, the findings show that their perceptions were misguided leaving their organization open to increased security threats. More specifically, the results show that optimist perceptions by management can put an organization’s information at risk.

The paper uses existing theory and evaluates it in a “real-world” setting. For security research, it can be difficult to get honest responses from questionnaires; however, the hands-on approach provided a deeper insight to the problem of optimistic perceptions in an organizational setting. For practitioners, the case can raise managements’ awareness of perceptional inaccuracies, resulting in more informed information security decisions and ultimately improved security for their organization.

At the level of a cognitive schema, a business model is a mental map of a firm’s value-creating, value-delivering, and value-capturing activities and the linkages between them. An important question in the study of business models as cognitive schemas is whether and how schemas differ across industry actors and whether the differences are connected to the variation observed in actual business models in the industry. This chapter examines, in particular, the ways in which business model schemas of industry insiders differ from those of industry outsiders. Using data from interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) of 30 legal-tech firms, we graphically construct and analyze the CEOs’ schemas of important causal interdependencies between their firms’ activities. The analysis shows systematic differences between insiders and outsider CEOs’ schemas. We theorize that these differences underlie insider and outsider CEOs’ distinct approaches to opportunity recognition, expertise perception, and value framing, and have consequences for actual business model evolution in the industry.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a taxonomy useful for classifying the training activity preference patterns adopted by executives and for describing how these patterns relate to important workplace measures. Although many organizations hold that well-trained and developed leaders are important for organizational success, little is known about the patterns of self-developmental activities that such leaders choose to initiate and how such training impacts organizational outcomes. Understanding these patterns may be useful in characterizing leaders in terms of training interest and showing a relation between executive training and valued organizational outcomes.

Using a sample of 4,624 senior executives who completed a training activity and attitude survey, cluster analysis was used to derive a five-type training and development (T&D) taxonomy. Types varied by training activity pattern/attitudes and the proportion of well-trained and less-well-trained executives in each agency were described. The researchers collected an independent sample of employee perceptions of engagement and leader effectiveness and number of equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints within each agency.

Organizations with higher concentrations of well-trained/developed leaders tend to have employees with more favorable workplace attitudes and higher regard for senior leaders and generate smaller proportions of EEO complaints.

Data were collected from 2011 and 2012, government leaders were sampled, and outcome analyses were conducted at the agency level rather than at the individual level.

A link between leader training and organizational outcome is useful for promoting and justifying such training to stakeholders.

Characterizing leaders by training pattern will be useful in examining training usage/interest and in crafting programs tailored to leaders of different patterns.

An executive training pattern taxonomy is unique in the literature and evidence linking such training to outcome is rare.

While non-profit organization (NPO)-corporate alliances have proliferated in recent years, study has yet to examine on the perception of corporations toward NPOs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that shape corporate perceptions of NPOs. What does the corporation consider when evaluating the activities of an NPO? Which factors are accorded the most importance when the corporate sector observes the NPO sector?

Corporate respondents generally held negative attitudes toward NPOs in terms of general activism functions. In contrast, they held neutral perceptions on trustworthiness. In factor analysis, the four factors that directed how corporate executives perceived activist groups were “positive functions of activists,” “negative aspects of organizational culture,” “trustworthy characteristics,” and “expected ethical management practices.”

While the participating corporate executives expressed positive attitudes toward activists and the role that they play in society, they showed negative attitudes toward their management style and their organizational culture. In particular, they expressed negative perceptions of the activists’ perceived elitism in their management style and internally oriented approach to the decision-making process.

Empirical evidence gathered in this study could shed light on how public relations professionals at NPOs build and maintain relationships with corporate sector, which has resources to support organization financially as well as emotionally.

Purpose – This research presents empirical evidence on which performance measures are perceived as short-term oriented and long-term oriented by company executives, and on whether any perceived performance measure-related time orientation affects the time orientation of these executives. In addition, the study explores which measures impact executive time orientation, regardless of how these measures are perceived.

Methodology/approach – A survey was used to collect the perceptions of chief financial officers (CFOs) in 109 companies listed in the Nasdaq OMX, the Nordic Stock Exchange. Performance measures include: stock price, earnings, returns, cash flow, success of development programs, EVA™, sales, and balanced scorecard, and the method employed was multiple regression.

Findings – First, the CFOs perceived returns, sales, EPS, and stock price to have long time orientation. Second, the use of returns, stock price, and success of development programs as major performance measures encourage the CFOs toward long-term behavior, whereas the use of cash flow encourages short-term behavior. Third, stock price, earnings, and EPS are measures whose perceived time orientation affects the time orientation of executives. It is most likely due to this influence, that they have received major attention in public debates on the short time orientation of executives at the expense of other, more “silent” measures that also impact executive time orientation. Contextual factors strongly affect the results.

Practical implications – The study assists in designing executive performance measurement systems that encourage desired time orientation.

Originality/value – This study contributes to the fields of performance measurement and time orientation by recognizing the multidimensionality of the construct of time orientation and by showing how performance measures and their perceived time orientation influence executive time orientation.

To identify differences in perceptions between executive sponsors (ESs) and project managers (PM) regarding sponsor involvement on projects, for the purposes of contributing to project management practice and encouraging further sponsor‐related research.

A survey of 365 executives and managers interested in project management investigated differences between ESs and PMs in perceived importance on eight dimensions of ES behavior and three dimensions of project success during the initiation stage of a project. This study followed a previous exploratory analysis study that identified sponsor behaviors. Factor analysis and t‐tests were used to develop variables and test for differences, respectively.

Results indicated significant differences between ESs and PMs on the perceived importance of ES involvement on the critical dimension of mentoring and assisting PMs with executives indicating higher importance.

Three specific suggestions are made which are directed toward improving project management practice. Further, additional research is encouraged on the role and influence of the ES in the initiating stage of the project management process.

The value of this research is two‐fold. One, the investigation identified a critical project management dimension on which sponsors and PMs differ, which may account for disruptive conflict during a project. Two, the present study adds to the limited body of research on the role of project sponsors.

Salesperson’s actions are critical in helping the firm develop customer value orientation and long-term relationship with profitable customers to achieve sustainable sales growth and profitability over time. The purpose of this paper is to examine the salespeople and service executives’ perceptions about the relevance of some human resource management variables and employees’ attitudes as key factors to develop a company’s customer value orientation. The authors tested whether the perceptions of role ambiguity, incentives policy and provided training (PT) had an impact on job involvement (JI), job satisfaction (JS), and consequently, on customer value orientation.

Research design was nested with data from 327 executives from medium and upper positions in Chilean companies.

The results show that while the perception of role ambiguity had an indirect negative impact on customer value orientation through JI, perception of PT level had a direct impact over and above the other variables.

JS and JI are attitudinal variables, which companies try to encourage in their employees through different human resources, practices. Incentives and training are ways to develop favorable employees’ attitudes and improve their customer value orientation. With the research, companies could invest their resources in better and more effective practices to generate favorable attitudes toward customer value orientation.

Through structural equation modeling, the model shows the relevance in the perception of sales executives about the relationship of employees’ JI and customer value orientation. This commands to open the view of the customer value orientation management to include other attitudinal variables as JI.