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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between capabilities and renewal of organizational and business know-how in franchise networks.

This work uses a comparative case study of adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities to investigate knowledge renewal in 16 franchise networks.

The findings show that adaptive and innovative capabilities complement each other to foster know-how renewal. Furthermore, networks without internal R&D need to mobilize adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities to renew both organizational and business know-how. The findings also highlight that the three capabilities are interconnected.

The results of this research could provide insights for franchise networks to regenerate their knowledge base and ensure their long-term survival.

The underlying capabilities that explain organizational and business know-how renewal in franchises have not been investigated.

This chapter addresses ambidexterity at the individual level. Ambidexterity is defined as a company's ability to guarantee both short- and long-term successes by simultaneously exploring new market or new technological paths and improving existing products. We demonstrate that this ability can result from the evolution of social networks linking individuals involved in idea development. We used a longitudinal approach that combined case study and social network structure analysis of the R&D center of a semiconductor company. Six cases have been selected according to the level of disruption of the first idea generated and the end result in terms of exploration and exploitation. For these six cases, data have been gathered from monthly project reviews, press articles and listings of patents. Seventy-four interviews with key actors in the idea-development process have also been conducted.We mapped the relationships between actors who have contributed to the development of the idea through creative thinking and/or helped it to be accepted both internally and externally over three-year windows. Consequently, two network pictures are drawn for each case, and network structure indicators are computed for these two representations. We created a description of network evolution and the consequences of this process on the level of disruption of the ideas involved. This research demonstrated that different network structures and types of connections are relied upon depending on the explorative or exploitative objectives of teams of individuals.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The study provides evidence of how franchise businesses integrate various capabilities to renew their business and organizational know-how.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists, and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Correspondence and other materials pertaining to Selig Perlman may be found especially in Archival Volume 8 but also in Volumes 4 and 18B. Perlman was the author of a major history and a psychologically rich interpretation of labor and trade unionism in the United States (A History of Trade Unionism in the United States, New York: Macmillan, 1922 and Theory of the Labor Movement, New York: Macmillan, 1928). Published below, thanks again to the generous cooperation and permission of his son, Mark Perlman, is further correspondence, principally from Selig Perlman to his former student, Ben Solomon Stephansky.

Andreas Al-Laham has been holding the chair for strategic and international management at the University of Mannheim since September 2009. After his studies of economics and business administration at the Technical University of Dortmund he received his PhD (1996) and Habilitation (2000) degree at the same University, Faculty of Business Administration, Chair of Strategic and International Management. From 2000 to 2002 he worked as a visiting research scholar and visiting professor for strategic management and organizational theory at the J.L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada. Afterward he became professor of international management and business policy at the University of Stuttgart. In 2004 he took a professorship of strategic management at the CASS Business School, City University of London, UK. Up till today, he is visiting professor for General Management and International Strategy. Between 2006 and 2009 he held the chair for management and international strategy at the University of Kaiserslautern. He has written several books, for example! Strategisches Management. Theoretische Grundlagen-Prozesse-Implementierung (together with M. K. Welge), Organisationales Wissensmanagement. Vahlens Handbücher der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaft, Praxis des strategischen Managements (together with M. K. Welge and P. Kajüter) and Strategieprozesse in deutschen Unternehmungen. His current research focuses on evolutionary dynamics in the German biotech-industry, alliances and network dynamics as well as the internationalization of SME.

Harriet Martineau analyzed the structural characteristics associated with health, sickness, medicine, occupations, and the bureaucratic administration of health care in her later writings. I concentrate here on two major examples of this type of work: England and Her Soldiers (1859a) and Health, Husbandry, and Handicraft (London: Bradbury and Evans, 1861). In this type of study, in contrast to her early non-fiction, her own illnesses and bodily difficulties are invisible. Her sympathy with the sick and ill, nonetheless, helped her maintain her interest in the topic and her sense of mission to document and discuss it.

Martineau was aided in this work through a close alliance with Florence Nightingale and together they created a public sociology with a major social impact on health, war, and occupations delivering health care. Their intellectual and personal alliance is one of the first examples of female sociologists successfully co-ordinating their work for the common good, a model also applicable to their female successors at Hull-House and the University of Chicago.

This case study aims to illustrate the interaction of organizational culture, human resource (HR) policy and firm performance. It contrasts the cultures of two science‐driven organizations – the Navy's nuclear submarine force and Merck, the large pharmaceutical firm – and traces the reaction of one individual to two organizations – the United States nuclear navy and Merck & Co., a large pharmaceutical firm.

This paper is a case study based on field interviews and secondary sources.

The task‐oriented culture of the submarine fleet is compared to Merck's relations and team‐oriented corporate environment. Management skills such as flexibility, power and influence, interpersonal communication, self‐awareness and goal setting can influence career outcomes. Managerial skills are important in all settings, but a given style's efficacy is contingent upon organizational context. Adaptability is important, as is personal mission. Thus, the case examines how organizational culture, HR policies and leadership interact with an individual's career outcomes and organizational performance as well.

Because this is a case study it is not generalizable. However, the issues depicted in the case have been recognized in the managerial skills literature. The case study serves to illustrate and deepen managerial skills concepts.

This case study has illustrative value as well as hypothesis and theory‐building value, but is not generalizable.

There is relatively little research on the specifics of how to apply managerial skills in a corporate setting. Hence, the case covers important, sensitive material of practical and theoretical value.