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1 – 10 of over 4000Managers’ work is surrounded by complex environments, from which they need to learn, in order to understand them. However, complexity poses several challenges to managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
Managers’ work is surrounded by complex environments, from which they need to learn, in order to understand them. However, complexity poses several challenges to managerial learning, for which usually management educational programs have not prepared managers. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore such challenges and possible ways to overcome them.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper that explores in depth the issue of managerial learning challenges in a complex world. Managers face these challenges during their practice, yet sometimes management education has not prepared them for this.
Findings
Three managerial learning challenges due to complexity are identified. First, through cognition and cognitive structures, managers simplify the world around them. Nevertheless, biases, inertia and inaccuracy emerge, as managers’ mental models are not truly capable of capturing complexity. Second, managers look for information to aid them in their learning processes, but the information they gather is sometimes bogus, invalid or unfounded. Third, managers could seek for support from management research to improve their learning. However, given management research intricacies, limitations and particularities, a learning challenge emerges as well, as management research has been rarely capable to capture complexity.
Originality/value
Having explored these managerial learning challenges due to complexity, this paper discusses a carefulness-based management learning ideal, which by being underpinned by the quality of carefulness and the related concepts of critical thinking, negative capability and a deep learning style, suggests a potential new way to approach management learning in light of complexity.
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Apithamsoonthorn Sompong and Suthiwartnarueput Kamonchanok
Outsourcing is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of pharmaceutical supply chain management (PSCM), and many pharmaceutical companies engage in…
Abstract
Outsourcing is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of pharmaceutical supply chain management (PSCM), and many pharmaceutical companies engage in international outsourcing of services (IOS) to survive in global highly competitive business. Since the key success factors for both domestic & international alliances are partnership characteristics and strategic fit management, but there is no empirical research on this issue in Thai pharmaceutical partnership offshore outsourcing. Therefore, this survey of Thai and foreign companies, both contract providers (CPs) and contract manufacturers (CMs), seeks to indicate significant relationships among both outsourcing strategic fit and partnership types, including outsourcing performance outcome. This research is two-fold. First, the partnership types (Type I, II, & III), the strategic fit types (low fit, moderate fit, and good fit), and their correlations are analyzed. And second, their outsourcing performance (company revenues and growth rates) are presented. The results showed that the most of the Thai pharmaceutical outsourcing manufacturing are classified as the partnership Type II, as well as the moderate strategic fit, and strongly support the relationship between the two models. Both of the companies’ revenue and growth rate could predict the companies’ performances outcome for each of partnership and strategic fit types. However, it is not necessary that the most integrative type of partnership, Type III, will be always the best, because it depends also on the strategic fit between each pair of partners as well.
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Anthony Alexander, Maneesh Kumar and Helen Walker
The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.
Findings
Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.
Research limitations/implications
The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.
Practical implications
Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.
Originality/value
A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.
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External factors such as global competition and new technologies, require organizations to be innovative. Such organizational innovations also ask for innovative human resource…
Abstract
Purpose
External factors such as global competition and new technologies, require organizations to be innovative. Such organizational innovations also ask for innovative human resource management (HRM). However, in the current literature, it is not completely clear what innovative HRM means, as it is conceptualized in different ways. This study aims to provide clarity about innovative HRM by suggesting a new measurement scale; formulating hypotheses about some core determinants of innovative HRM; and investigating how innovative HRM relates to organizational innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 719 Dutch organizations it was possible to investigate the properties of the inventory and examining several determinants of innovative HRM and how it relates to organizational innovation.
Findings
The innovative HRM scale is internally consistent and differs from other HRM indicators. It is explained by external developments, organizational size and stability of the organization. Finally, innovative HRM is a predictor of organizational innovation.
Originality/value
The measure that was developed in this paper is new to the literature. Innovative HRM has not been measured in a similar way to date. Besides that, the innovative HRM Survey is a novel data set.
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Ali Aslan Gümüsay and Michael Smets
Much recent work on hybrids has focused on the strategies and practices these organizations develop to manage the institutional contradictions associated with straddling competing…
Abstract
Much recent work on hybrids has focused on the strategies and practices these organizations develop to manage the institutional contradictions associated with straddling competing logics. Less attention has been paid to what we call the liability of novelty, defined as the heightened institutional challenges new hybrid forms face both internally and externally. These, we argue, go beyond the liability of newness commonly associated with new venture formation. In this chapter, we use the case of Incubate, a Muslim social incubator in Germany. This case is particularly instructive insofar as Incubate is a hybrid in both substance and mode of organizing: Its mission integrated domains of religion, commerce, and community, and its mode of organizing straddled the digital–analog divide. Neither Incubate’s members, nor its external stakeholders could rely on existing institutional templates to make sense of it. It was not only organizationally new, but also institutionally novel. As a consequence, it experienced what we distinguish as descriptive and evaluative challenges. It was both “not understood” and “not accepted.” This chapter outlines four practices to address these challenges: codifying, crafting, conforming, and configuring, and categorizes them along internal versus external as well as forming versus transforming dimensions.
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Gregory Berry and Kareem M. Shabana
Traditional feasibility analysis is focused on the immediate and urgent needs of a new venture start-up. All four parts of the feasibility analysis (product/service…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditional feasibility analysis is focused on the immediate and urgent needs of a new venture start-up. All four parts of the feasibility analysis (product/service, industry/market, organizational, and financial) are valuable and essential, but what is missed is a part that provided attention to the longer-term requirements for success and sustainability. A fifth strategic feasibility analysis is needed, focused on the long-term sustainability of the new venture. This strategic/contingent context-dependency lens considers the organization's long-term survival, confirming that organizational success depends on the new venture's ability to emphasize its uniqueness and fit with its external environment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes advantage of the decades-long literature review in Strategy to combine known data with entrepreneurial practice in undertaking the feasibility analysis.
Findings
This enhanced feasibility analysis adds a strategic lens beyond the traditional four-part feasibility analysis, resulting in identifiable value-added benefits and awareness of potential opportunities or threats in the longer term.
Research limitations/implications
This research is conceptual and theoretical at this point, without field implementation.
Practical implications
New venture failure is an ongoing concern for many. This suggested strategic lens, especially the sustainability aspect (beyond the “what-do-we-need-to-do-to-open-the-doors” of much feasibility analysis) may prove very useful. Competitive advantage is examined in the traditional feasibility analysis, but this strategic lens suggests a longer term examination, and engages with competitor response.
Social implications
If adopted, this enhanced analysis may lead to greater success for new venture start-ups, thus less wasted time, energy and money.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt at adding a focused strategic lens to the traditional entrepreneurial feasibility analysis. This may seem like a simple and elementary shift of perspective, but the implications are huge, and take advantage of the decades-long research stream in strategic thinking and planning.
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Dongping Cao, Xuejiao Teng, Yanyu Chen, Dan Tan and Guangbin Wang
This study aims to explore how project-based firms, which generally organize most of their work around temporary projects in discontinuous and fragmented types of business…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how project-based firms, which generally organize most of their work around temporary projects in discontinuous and fragmented types of business contexts, proactively formulate and implement digital transformation strategies under institutional pressures in a predigital era.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory case study was conducted in a large-scale construction company in China using multiple data collection methods, including semistructured interviews, documentation collection and observation.
Findings
An integrated framework is developed to conceptualize three key dimensions of digital transformation strategies of project-based firms: strategic adaptation for organization-environment fit through balancing the internal efficiency needs with the external legitimacy pressures; proactive business transformation through comprehensively managing the roles of digital technologies in optimizing defined business processes and fostering new business models; and delicate organizational transformation to integrate temporary project-level operation processes with ongoing firm-level business processes.
Originality/value
This study represents an exploratory effort to empirically investigate how project-based firms strategically organize complex digital transformation imperatives in their discontinuous and fragmented business contexts. The findings contribute to deepened understandings of how complex organizational and environmental contexts can be comprehensively managed for systemic business and organizational transformations to leverage the value of emerging digital technologies for project-based organizations.
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Izabela Kowalik, Lidia Danik and Agnieszka Pleśniak
The entrepreneurial marketing orientation (EMO) has been studied primarily in developed countries. The past research has focused on entrepreneurial marketing dimensions and their…
Abstract
Purpose
The entrepreneurial marketing orientation (EMO) has been studied primarily in developed countries. The past research has focused on entrepreneurial marketing dimensions and their relationship with selected small- and medium-sized firm (SME) activities, strategic orientations or performance. Scholars have not paid enough attention to the EMO determinants. This study aims to investigate whether the SMEs originating from different countries, including the post-transition market, differ in their entrepreneurial marketing approach and checks its external determinants connected with environmental turbulence.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 219 Polish and 81 Finnish manufacturing SMEs, serving mainly business-to-business clients, were surveyed using the mixed-mode computer assisted telephone interview/computer assisted web interview method between 2020 and 2021. Structural equation modelling, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis analysis, analysis of variance and T-tests were applied.
Findings
The metric and partial scalar invariance of the EMO scale used in Finland and Poland was found. The authors showed that Finnish firms represent a more robust entrepreneurial posture in marketing than Polish ones. The export market turbulence and the perceived crisis influence are the environmental determinants of EMO level, while the industry technological development level is not.
Research limitations/implications
The conducted analyses allowed to identify EMO determinants, verify the entrepreneurial marketing measurement concept in a new country (Finland) and show the differences in EMO between SMEs from a less and more developed country.
Originality/value
The existing literature lacks empirical data on the external EMO determinants and inter-country comparisons. This study shows the differences in EMO level of companies from different country backgrounds and points to the market turbulence as its determinant.
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Ambra Galeazzo, Andrea Furlan and Andrea Vinelli
Drawing on the theoretical concept of organisational fit, this paper questions the relevance of employees' participation in the link between continuous improvement (CI) and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the theoretical concept of organisational fit, this paper questions the relevance of employees' participation in the link between continuous improvement (CI) and operational performance. The literature has long emphasised that to be successful, CI implementation needs to rely on employees' involvement as soon as its inception. This paper argues that this approach is not generalisable.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a database of 330 firms across 15 countries, regression analyses were used to hypothesise that the fit between CI and employee participation is positively associated with operational performance, and that the fit between CI and centralisation of authority is negatively associated with operational performance. The authors also ran a robustness check with polynomial regression analyses and the response surface methodology.
Findings
CI–employee participation fit is positively associated with operational performance, suggesting that there is less need for employees to be involved when a firm has scarcely developed CI. Employee participation becomes gradually more relevant as CI progresses. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the CI–centralisation of authority fit is negatively associated with operational performance, suggesting that a top-down management approach with centralised authority is preferable when CI is low, whereas a bottom-up management approach is helpful when a firm has extensively developed CI.
Originality/value
This research draws on the concept of organisational fit to explore the relationships between internal practices in the operations management literature. The authors suggest that managers should dynamically balance the practices of employee participation and centralisation of authority as CI improves. This study highlights that CI has different evolutionary levels that require different managerial approaches and practices.
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