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The purpose of this paper is to study whether the effectiveness of innovation in improving a firm's performance varies in different competitive situations and to analyze whether the competitive forces act as a motivator or as an inhibitor.

The paper formulates some hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling with data collected from 218 manufacturers.

The findings show that small firms must invest in innovation preferably when competitive forces are more intense. Moreover it is found the positive role that market orientation plays in promoting innovation and performance, no matter the level of the competitive forces.

A decision had to be taken on the range of concepts and the domain used for measuring each concept. For future research the paper suggests considering different types of innovations (e.g. incremental vs radical) to get a more precise explanation of the set of relationships considered in this research.

SMEs have to use product innovation in accordance with their competitive situation. When competitive pressure is low, SMEs should be cautious about exaggerating investments on product innovation, whereas investments in other type of market oriented behaviours could be more productive. On the other hand, firms should focus on innovations based on market orientation when the competitive forces expose them to a harsh environment.

This paper provides a clarification of the reasons that may be behind a positive, a negative, or a non‐significant moderating effect of the firm's competitive forces on the market orientation‐product innovation relationship in small manufacturers.

Michael Porter's Five Forces Model provides an ideal mechanism and framework to study the Oman telecommunications industry's competitive structure. The purpose of this paper is to use this model to identify the competitive forces that affect it the most.

This paper is based on empirical research. The data were collected primarily from secondary sources such as published interviews of chief executive officers of the telecommunication companies in Oman, government reports, and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Oman (TRA). The authors then used Michael Porter's five forces model to investigate the competitiveness of the telecommunication industry in Oman.

The analysis shows that the strongest competitive forces in the industry are rivalry among competitors and threat of substitutes. While the threat of entry and power of buyers also having a significant impact, the power of suppliers is of very limited impact. Hence, the five forces model impacts uniformly on all the players in Oman's telecommunication market and have important strategy implications for them all. The results of this analysis are then used as a critical tool to formulate effective strategies for industry players in the face of the changing dynamics of telecommunication services industry in Oman.

This study is one of the few papers that attempted to study the telecommunication industry in Oman in depth. However, this is the first research study that investigated the competitive landscape of this industry using an established framework such as Michael Porter's five forces model. As such, the study brought to light new insights and paradigms in competing in the telecommunication industry in Oman. This study also suggests new strategic directives to the incumbents, new entrants, buyers and suppliers.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the perceived implications of economic and monetary union (EMU) as a driver for changes in the hotel business environment and, consequently, on Portuguese competitiveness, in terms of the conceptual framework and methodology adopted and showing the way how it may contribute to help managers and decision makers to effectively manage their competitive strategies.

The paper adopted and adapted Porter's models (Diamond, Five Forces and Value Chain) as the basis for analysing the implications of EMU upon the hotel business environment (at national, industry and operational level). Those implications are the ones perceived by the stakeholders in that sector: public authorities, trade associations and hoteliers.

The findings indicated that EMU not only changed the hotel business environment at a national level, but also changed the competitive and operational environment. Nonetheless, as this study found, the hotel stakeholders had relatively different hopes and fears concerning EMU.

The paper offers a conceptual framework sufficiently versatile (regarding the context of the study) which can be used by decision makers or managers as a tool to understand their business environment and, consequently, to cope with potential challenges.

Two of the innovative features of this study are: the triangulation of perspectives on the implications of EMU on hotels and the use of a combination of Porter's models as a suitable tool for studying the implications of EMU in the services sector. This can be useful to service decision makers and managers that seek to cope with the business environment challenges.

This paper aims to focus on the gap between the very high prevalence of sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry (the phenomenon) and the limited academic discussion about it (academic knowledge), and suggests ways to bridge this gap.

The gap between phenomenon and knowledge is identified by comparing official data regarding sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry with a content analysis of the academic literature. Tribe’s (2006) knowledge force-field model is used to analyze this gap.

The five truth barriers identified by Tribe (2006), namely, person, rules, position, ends and ideology, are confirmed by the data. Five counter-forces – triangulation, interdisciplinary, collaboration, humanism and critical praxis – are developed to counter these truth barriers.

The five counter-forces offer practical solutions for research, higher education programs and the tourism industry. They demonstrate ways to reduce the high prevalence of sexual harassment in the industry and improve the working conditions of employees.

Underpinned by Tribe’s conceptual model, the paper identifies and analyzes a relative silence regarding sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality academy in contrast to its prevalence in the industry. Additionally, it advances Tribe’s model by identifying five truth-facilitating forces. Further, it offers a research agenda for revealing hidden topics and/or biased knowledge by understanding the relationship between tourism and hospitality phenomena and academic knowledge.

This paper seeks to explore five forces likely to significantly affect interlending operations in the near term: the transition from print to electronic resources; management of legacy print collections; mass digitization projects; competition from other information providers; and copyright.

The author uses data from authoritative sources to illustrate the effects these forces are having and will continue to have on libraries and ILL operations.

The author predicts that most libraries will be slow to divest themselves of print monographs on a large scale; libraries will continue to build new offsite storage facilities but put more thought into their contents; increased discoverability of digitized texts and greater copyright restrictions will drive users to print; librarians will make gray areas of copyright law work for them instead of against them; publishers, librarians, authors, lawyers, and scholars will find a responsible and fair solution to providing digital access to “orphan” works; and ILL will persist as a core operation for nearly all libraries.

This paper provides a unique look at forces that are shaping the future of global ILL activities.

Prior research has examined the sociopolitical force as simply a part of all types of environmental pressures, yet we argue that this force calls for a unique examination of marketing's role in firm responses to sociopolitical pressures. Understanding the degree to which firms attempt to manage forces and pressures in the external business environment is key to understanding marketing's role in impeding vs aiding public policy initiatives, and is the problem this research investigates.

Using structural equation modeling, data from 71 firms demonstrate that managing the sociopolitical force is, in fact, distinct from managing the other four market-based forces – consumer demand, supplier power, competition and technological shifts. Managing the sociopolitical force is shown to require fundamentally different skills and resources.

Results suggest that firm sociopolitical receptivity drives attempts to influence this unique external business environmental force, in turn limiting marketplace sociopolitical receptivity. Furthermore, attempts to influence such a unique force relies on resource-light marketing resources, which limits resource-heavy marketing.

Managing a political force with marketplace ramifications involves strategy that utilizes marketing, but is driven by relationships with social and political agents. This is truly an environmental management concept distinct from the management of the other four market-based forces. The analysis in this study demonstrates that managing another environmental force (i.e. competition force) involves different receptivity influences and marketing tactic outcomes.

The implementation of quality in health services should go beyond legal, regulatory and purely technical obligations in relation to carrying out health insurance practices. The purpose of this paper is to present a management model that intends to equip private health care companies in favor of quality development from the use of a model for forming a competitive strategy in the supplementary health sector companies.

In this approach the proposed model is grounded on guiding procedures for the process of strategy formulation, with a systemic structure that separates in analysis involving the internal and external environment to the organization to verify the strategy that best applies. It is based on prescriptive strategy – the five competitive forces and, with adaptive strategy, the competition arenas.

Through the proposed model the analytical mechanisms of political-legal environments surrounding companies in the sector can be described, identify organizations and their process performance, study them, and perform comparative analysis of information between them. All of this development seeks to ensure the formation of policies, to guide strategic action in health insurance.

This work strongly contributes to the foundation and strengthening of strategic knowledge and has quality aimed at the study of the private health care market, due to the high degree of regulatory requirements by the state to the businesses, the environment turns into a chain of complex information that migrates from the condition of just meeting legal requirements, to also satisfying the demands of a hypercompetitive market.

Reports research into developing the ability to sense characteristic information about fabric/machine interactions for real‐time control of the industrial sewing process. The sewing system under investigation was equipped with displacement and force transducers to measure the dynamic response of the feeding system during various modes of operation. A combination of fabric and machine factors was considered in a one‐half fractional factorial experimental design, including: fabric type, number of fabric plies, presser foot type, presser foot preload, and machine speed.

Managing e‐government is invariably managing change. Despite plethora of literature on change management, the rate of success of e‐government projects is dismal, especially in developing countries. Deriving from strategy and change management literature, this paper seeks to present a new approach to strategize for better change outcomes in e‐government domain. A new construct of “continuity” is introduced and proposed to be managed concurrently with change forces to attain better delivery of strategic deliverables in e‐government projects.

Continuity and change forces affecting e‐government domain identified from the literature are statistically validated by conducting an “idea engineering” exercise. For this response from e‐government experts to a structured questionnaire is elicited to validate the forces, which are further modeled in the strategic framework proposed.

Drawing from strategy and change management literature, it is hypothesized that “managing change in e‐government can be better leveraged by consciously and concurrently managing continuity”. Based on expert survey, out of the initial six continuity and eight change forces proposed, only one continuity force has been dropped and the rest are further modeled in the framework. Propositions for future research and implications for policy makers and implementers are highlighted.

Given the low rate of success of e‐government initiatives, especially in developing countries, this framework may serve as an important approach to strategizing in e‐government domain and may be of value to not just the policy makers but also to other stakeholders like project planners, implementers and also the beneficiaries.

The value of this paper lies in the application of the concept of strategic management of continuity and change in e‐government domain; identification of continuity and change forces in e‐government; and proposing a model linking the “constructs of continuity and change” forces with strategic deliverables of e‐government.

The purpose of this paper is to examine police use of force using individual, contextual, and police training factors, expanding prior research by including multiple police agencies in the sample, thus producing research findings that can be more easily generalized.

The data for the current study were derived from several primary sources: the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Census, Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and 1997 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS).

Among individual level variables, age and arrestee's resistance were significant explanatory factors. Violent crime rate and unemployment rate were significant factors as the neighborhood contextual variables. Finally, in‐service training was a significant organizational‐level explanatory factor for levels of police use of force.

The paper bridges the gap in research between contextual factors and police use of force. It also deepens our understandings of the association between organizational factors and use of force by incorporating police training into the analytical model.