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Supply chain flexibility has been acknowledged as a necessity in the context of constantly changing operational and service requirements in the global marketplace. However, limited research has focused on analyzing and empirically testing the dynamics of achieving enhanced flexibility performance. Drawing upon the knowledge-based view of the firm, the purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by introducing supply chain learning (SCL) and integration as key factors in the process.

Survey data were collected in India. Structural equation modeling technique was used as the main analysis method to test the proposed conceptual model on SCL, integration, and flexibility performance.

Research findings indicate that the supply chain integration construct (in its internal and external dimensions) mediates the proposed SCL-flexibility performance relationship. The analysis also confirms the positive relationship between cross-functional integration and inter-firm integration.

Focusing on only one country may limit the generalizability of the findings. Also, cross-sectional data collection may not be the ideal approach for evaluating the impacts of SCL. Therefore, future research with longitudinal data and in different contexts is warranted to validate the research results of this study.

The proposed conceptual model adds to the limited existing knowledge body of SCL and links SCL, integration, and flexibility performance. It also provides a new venue for future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the antecedents and impacts of a largely overlooked concept, employee development, within the challenging area of returns management.

The proposed relationships are validated through structural equation modeling analysis with survey data collected in India.

Combining the ability–motivation–opportunity model in human resource management and the theoretical tenets associated with dynamic capabilities, the authors confirmed that supply chain learning, returns management orientation and information support are important antecedents of returns management employee development. In turn, the findings suggest that, as a dynamic capability, returns management employee development positively impacts a firm’s returns management and market performance.

To successfully tackle the challenges related to handling returns, companies must focus their resources not only on new technologies and related processes, but also on employee training and development as well.

Although recruiting and retaining talent in supply chain management has long been recognized as a serious global challenge, no previous research has empirically studied employee development practices in the returns management context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the Intellectual Capital perspective can be altered in order to include ethically questionable practices of knowledge acquisition.

The paper explores the relationship between formal and illicit forms of intellectual capital acquisition through a case study of the Formula 1 industry. The paper is based on secondary data from public sources.

Ethically questionable practices are a part of the knowledge economy. In the case study, the view on what was ethical and accepted was changed due to uncovered practices of espionage.

Firms in knowledge‐intensive industries often employ unrecognized informal channels for intellectual capital acquisition. Managers should consider the boundary between right and wrong in their particular industry, and whether they have the tools for dealing with ethically questionable practices.

The paper suggests a complementary interpretation of the Formula 1 industry not only as a best‐practice case of how community and trust knowledge spillovers facilitate innovation, but also how ethically questionable practices of intellectual capital acquisition exist as an accepted part of the process.

To explain how an organization has been able to use seismic changes in its wider external environment to transform its performance without the need for radical internal restructuring or coercive forms of leadership.

This paper utilises a three year case study from elite sport, an under‐represented sector in the management literature but one that offers a fascinating view of change.

Whilst the change management literature typically emphasises dramatic and rapid coercive restructuring accompanying open‐ended environment change, this study found that known routines and historical ways of working existed alongside innovation, risk‐taking and learning; the paradoxical foundation upon which performance flourished.

Although the dangers of single cases are noted, difficulties regarding access and comparability with other similar organizations prevented a similar degree of focus on multiple cases. Future research either within elite sports teams or other organizations facing similar environmental change is needed to extend and enhance the asset maximization model presented here.

This analysis and the development of an asset maximisation approach questions the traditional processual or design‐based approaches towards managing change and argues for the capture and incorporation of business and strategic decision making within such accounts.

The paper is a rare account of change within elite sports. The asset maximisation approach developed within this case study illustrates how holistic value creation in turbulent times is achieved. As such, its conclusions will have much to offer organizations as well as academics interested in the management of change.

The paper advocates a Darwinian explanation of the process of firm transformation. Existing but generally opposing views related to the selection‐adaptation debates are united to consider the dialogic nature of both approaches. It is argued that a Darwinian approach, as opposed to a neo‐Darwinian or Lamarckian approach, provides the means to scale the sides of a debate that has for too long divided scholars interested in firm and industry transformation.

The paper addresses three specific issues to develop its Darwinian argument. First, the various works of Geoff Hodgson that have for many years advanced Darwin's evolutionary ideas are used to argue the nature and application of Darwinism in the socio‐economic domain. Second, the nature of what constitutes the elements of firm‐environment interaction is considered to establish basic areas of focus through which the process of firm transformation is more understandable. Finally, the construct absorptive capacity is likened to a mechanism of transmission through which the learning processes associated with the acquisition of favoured variations can be reconciled with the generic evolutionary processes of variation, selection, and retention.

To understand the process of firm learning, the role of habits and routines must be outlined in specific detail. They cannot be assumed to perform interacting and replicating roles simultaneously. To do so undermines the fundamental qualities of an evolutionary theory.

The preliminary framework advanced takes us beyond the Darwinian‐Lamarckian debate and provides elements of focus from which a greater understanding of the process of firm/industry transformation is possible.

The authors consider current policy debates in the UK about the professionalisation of the police to respond to changing patterns of crime and, specifically, the suggestion that officers be educated to degree level. Drawing on the ethnographic evidence, the purpose of this paper is to focus attention on how officers learn, and continue to develop the applied, that is the craft aspects of the work of uniformed constables.

The authors draw on a long-term ethnographic project observing officers during the course of their duties. The focus is on the use of discretion and of particular powers. But in the course of the research, the authors also observe the way officers behave and the way they talk about their job.

The authors suggest that, while there may be a role for degree qualifications, attention needs to be paid to the practices the authors observe, practices that have long been the core craft skills of uniformed officers.

The authors suggest that, despite the emergence of cybercrime and other new forms of crime/threat, the evidence suggests that much has not. Not least, crime is not the only focus of police work.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how HIWS may shape organisational capabilities, in particular organisational ambidexterity (OA) – the ability to be both adaptable to the wider world, and internally aligned so that existing resources are used well. Given the demands on public agencies to manage conflicting objectives, and to do more with less in increasingly complex environments, this paper improves our understanding of how HIWS can contribute to public sector performance. The paper sheds light inside the black box of the HIWS/organisational performance link.

This multi-level quantitative study is based on a survey of 2,123 supervisory staff, and 9,496 non-supervisory employees in 56 government organisations.

The study identifies two paths to organisational performance. The first is a direct HIWS performance link. The second is a double mediation model from HIWS to organisational systems, to OA and then performance.

A focus on developing HIWS provides an alternative means to public sector performance, than restructuring or other performative activities.

This is one of the few studies that explore how HIWS can develop collective as well as individual capabilities. Studies in the public sector are particularly rare.

Since its early conception, the group has grown from a handful of enthusiastic engineers to the largest trade association in Europe, if not the world, for Surface Mount. As in previous years, SMART will be arranging Seminars, Hands‐on Workshops and Open Forums, giving valuable knowledge for those just entering or those already experienced in SMT. Open forums allow the opportunity for the exchange of information on a variety of different topics, building experience in the technology which would otherwise be unobtainable.

Since its early conception, the group has grown from a handful of enthusiastic engineers to the largest trade association in Europe, if not the world, for Surface Mount. As in previous years, SMART will be arranging Seminars, Hands‐on Workshops and Open Forums, giving valuable knowledge for those just entering or those already experienced in SMT. Open forums allow the opportunity for the exchange of information on a variety of different topics, building experience in the technology which would otherwise be unobtainable.