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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers’ electronic integration with global customers on their capability widening, following the literature on electronic integration, firm innovativeness, product modularity and dynamic capabilities. It also examines the moderating roles of supplier innovativeness and product modularity in the proposed relationship.

This study conducts empirical examination on a sample of OEM suppliers in Taiwan. It collects 201 self-reported responses via mailed surveys of 1,069 electronics companies listed in the 5000 Largest Firms in Taiwan, and the archival data are obtained from the Taiwan Economic Journal database.

The results show that electronic integration with global customers affects capability widening negatively, whereas supplier innovativeness affects capability widening positively. In addition, product modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between electronic integration and capability widening.

This study contributes to the electronic integration literature by providing empirical evidences on how OEM suppliers’ electronic integration affects their capability widening. This study also adds to the supply chain management literature by demonstrating the relationship between OEM suppliers’ innovativeness and their move into higher value-added activities, as well as how product modularity interplays with electronic integration between customers and suppliers on suppliers’ capability widening in global supplier‒customer relationships.

For OEM suppliers with a low level of product modularity, they may widen their capabilities by exploring other value-added activities (e.g. original design manufacturing or original brand manufacturing). For OEM suppliers with a high level of product modularity, the improvement of their manufacturing capabilities is a helpful approach to create competitive advantage.

This study is one of the first to examine the interplay between electronic integration and product modularity on capability widening of OEM suppliers from an emerging market. Meanwhile, this study provides support for the relationship between supplier innovativeness and innovative activities in the global supply chain context.

Logitech has succeeded in the expensive and difficult process of establishing a global brand. In high‐tech markets, product lines change and evolve rapidly, but the brand name, capabilities, distribution and marketing channels represent an ongoing asset of the business. Logitech now faces another series of challenges as it attempts to exploit its brand by developing and marketing a stream of new products.

New service businesses carry opportunities for industrial companies. The different cost management and management control implications of those service businesses deserve attention, which is a widely under-researched area in management accounting and control literature. Digital twins could hold potential in unveiling and supporting those new service business opportunities, as a unique approach of this paper. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility and potential for creating a digital twin of a service, especially to unveil the management accounting and control implications of the digital twin in developing new service businesses.

This paper investigates the potential of a digital twin in unveiling cost and control implications of new service businesses by examining the characteristics of a digital twin in the service business development context. The paper use an in-depth interventionist case study, where the designed animations illustrate the possibilities of a digital twin of a service. The animations showing the service process characteristics were first used as a communication tool and eventually those animations were actively used in customer cases for different purposes. This motivated the idea for examining the implications of such animations representing a digital twin of a service.

The paper provides empirical insights regarding the potential for developing and using a digital twin of a service for different cost management and management control purposes. The digital twin of a service may include all main details of a new service offering, simulating the functionality of a service, hence making the performance and the implications of the new service concept clear for all the stakeholders. The digital twin of the service enables defining the processes, setting targets and helps communication about the value generation. Thus, they represent a significant toolkit for the management accounting and control function of the manufacturers.

This paper is among the first attempts to understand the digital twin of the service. The paper is unique in providing financial and control implications of digital twins also in the context of service business development. The in-depth interventionist approach enabled an exceptional exploration process on the subject. The article paves the way toward further research on managing the digital twins of services in the future.

This paper aims to enable students craft a winning corporate strategy applicable for organizations in various contexts. The practical approach consists of conducting scenario planning based on internal and external environment analysis, identifying the winning factor, proposing an implementation strategy of entry and exit strategies, and future customers, and evaluating matching of business ethics and legality.

Wesley Chen, the executive director and group chief executive officer, has the ultimate challenge of leading his management team to operate from a sole proprietorship management style to a listed large company in the Malaysian Stock Exchange. He identified the gap in the need to craft a winning corporate strategy for business sustainability. The corporate strategy should address expansion of their service offerings and needs to be carefully crafted to suit TopSteel’s risk appetite and overall business strategy. The strategy must also consider the internal and external factors that TopSteel faced with, identify the core competency of TopSteel, build in strategic agility in the implementation plans to address the dynamic business landscape, and most importantly ensure the corporate strategy must be in compliance to ethical and legal standards. The case study documents the one year of transition of TopSteel’s operations with a strong focus on the strategic management process direction for a winning OEM+ model through the use of SWIM concept.

This case is suitable for undergraduate or postgraduate programs or even executive courses in strategic management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the renaming effect of brand value of state‐owned corporations in Taiwan.

This study aims to evaluate and analyze the value of the CPC brand by: using the Interbrand and Hirose models, and analyzing empirically the difference‐comparison of the results.

For the state‐run corporations, the practical application of the Hirose and Interbrand models, the main target market, and the business orientation categories, which the corporations belonged to are illustrated in a two‐dimensional four‐quadrant framework.

This study presumes that Chinese Petroleum Corp. will be affected in various ways after being renamed CPC Corp., Taiwan, and the fluctuations in value will be reflected in related profit/cost data. It is also assumed that the brand will bring value to the company. However, there are constraints in doing this research despite the completeness and objectivity of the study subject.

Research on brand equity is still in a state of evolution. This study makes two major contributions. First, it suggests that choosing the more applicable valuation model depends on the enterprises' industrial characteristics. Second, the differentiation of the applications of brand value models is based on: the orientation characteristics of the various valuation models, the target markets, and business orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how translation activities influence knowledge transfer across cultures in Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs). Although translation is recognized as a critical instrument for MNEs to enhance cross-national knowledge flow, scholars have not put much emphasis on the importance of translation in international business research.

This paper proposes a novel hierarchical framework to delineate the five major boundary-spanning functions regarding translation for knowledge transfer in China (i.e. exchanging, linking, manipulating, facilitating and intervening). Due to the paucity of relevant literature, the authors used exploratory case studies investigating two large Chinese MNEs to illustrate how individuals as boundary spanners handle the translation requirements associated with cross-cultural knowledge transmission within a MNE’s business network. The data coding approach was used to examine the assumed model.

The findings demonstrate that translators indeed play a vital role in cross-border knowledge exchanging, linking people with crucial knowledge, manipulating the flow of knowledge for protecting confidentiality, facilitating the cross-cultural interaction of various knowledge sources and intervening to prevent the occurrence of misunderstanding in MNE contexts. The authors also reveal how translators overcome the three constraints of language interpretation concerning knowledge transfer (i.e. lack of equivalence, cultural interference and ambiguity). The proposed research framework was fully supported.

The results provide insightful implications for MNEs to treat translation as a significant “re-codification” rather than a mundane task. Knowledge transfer within MNEs involves not only knowledge regarding products, technology and operations but also involves “whole organizations” including business models, organizational visions, missions and strategies.

The main value of this paper is to propose a novel model regarding the role of translation in cross-cultural knowledge transfer in China. Language is a container of contexts; the translation procedure in MNEs is actually dynamic and contingent in nature and can be seen as an act of knowledge creation per se.

Although there have been many discussions on the status and development of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), theory on how they survive is minimal. Little is known about how OEMs survive and upgrade to other business models, such as original design manufacturers (ODMs) and original brand manufacturers (OBMs), in emerging economies. The purpose of this paper is to extend the theory on the survival path of OEMs from the perspective of emerging countries by examining how OEMs survive cost pressures and upgrade to ODMs or OBMs.

Using a multi-case study method, this study analyzes the survival path employed by OEMs by examining eight firms in the Chinese toy industry.

This study shows that OEMs remain weak in the global toy industry chain due to labor costs. While some OEMs move to low-cost regions, others turn to OBM management, after transitioning through an ODM model, by investing in research and development and marketing.

This study explores the survival paths of OEM enterprises, showing that OEMs can first upgrade to ODMs and then to OBMs, or they can directly upgrade to OBMs. Shifting from OEM to ODM is an important step in the transition process, although the contract that OEMs have with their foreign partners does not change significantly.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all manufacturing sectors from basic products to luxury goods including the automobile industry. This has necessitated a new line of research on competency building, transparency, and sustainability in automotive supply chains. In this study, the authors examine the competencies required to improve the automotive supply chain routine operations to address the parts supply crisis from multitier suppliers in the post-COVID-19 environment. The authors also propose a list of competencies required in the automotive supply chains to deploy the transparency for sustainability (TfS) framework on a long-term basis.

The authors have adapted a cross-case study process using intervention-based research and a design science approach for use in this study and used multiple sources for data collection such as published literature, operational experience, and critical opinions of original equipment manufacturer representatives. The research design includes interviews with global OEMs practitioners as one of the relevant sources of information.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on automotive manufacturing operations and global supply chains is unprecedented. The TfS framework cycle has been validated using the real-world semiconductor supply crisis which deals with multitier sustainable supply chain management (MTSSCM), and the authors found that there are competency gaps when compared with existing literature. The list of key competencies identified along with the formulation of design propositions to facilitate both the supply crisis and collaboration among automotive firms to enhance their business performance were also presented.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the automobile sector significantly. This situation has created many opportunities and obstacles, but this paper only considers the automotive semi-conductor shortage situation, which may be resolved in the near future when there are more installed capacities. Therefore, it is unclear whether the proposed responses will result in long-term solutions. Further adjustments may be needed to revisit the TfS framework. The research paper only addresses the automotive side of the current supply crisis, but more sustainability issues may arise in the future, which need to be dealt with separately.

Research findings may prove particularly interesting to global automotive vehicle manufacturers, suppliers and policy makers who are seeking to understand multitier supply networks to resolve the current challenges associated with the post-COVID-19 pandemic situation.

In addition to contributing to developing competency requirements, this study enhances the evolving research stream of MTSSCM by linking it to wider research applications of intervention-based research coupled with design science.

This study aims to identify and prioritize various growth-accelerating factors in the Indian automotive industry. It further develops a hierarchical model to examine the mutual interactions between the factors, their dependence and their driving power.

This study first identifies the growth-accelerating factors and then uses the modified total interpretive structural modeling (m-TISM) framework, which is an extended version of TISM. It further uses MICMAC analysis to analyze the mutual interrelation between the identified factors.

This study highlights the interrelation amongst the factors using m-TISM model. A hierarchical model shows the level of autonomous, dependence, linkage and independent factors considering the Indian automotive industry. This study also provides the understanding related to the interdependence of growth-accelerating factors.

The government and practitioners could evaluate the growth-accelerating factors which have higher driving power for implementing efficient policies and strategy formulation. By implementing m-TISM model in the Indian automotive industry, auto manufacturers can become more productive and profitable. Future studies could use other methods such as expert opinion to derive the factors, and further model could be verified using structural equation modeling technique.

This study uses a novel m-TISM framework for the analysis of growth-accelerating factors in the context of the Indian automotive industry. It further provides a detailed theoretical and conceptual understanding relating to the philosophy and establishes an interrelation amongst these under-researched growth-accelerating factors.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the global value chain (GVC) perspective with firms' innovation in emerging economies (EEs) and explain why EE firms can improve their innovation capabilities more from their domestic markets by focusing on R&D and marketing than from original equipment manufacturer/original design manufacturer (OEM/ODM) modes in the GVC and how they contribute to the national innovation system (NIS).

The literature on GVC is reviewed and then several propositions are developed using the example of the underground mobile phone developers in China by integrating the GVC perspective.

The paper proposes that EE firms, especially firms that have a large underdeveloped domestic market such as China, should focus on R&D and marketing instead of on OEM/ODM in GVC to increase their competitiveness and strengthen their NIS. Also implications are drawn from their success in the underground markets to advance knowledge on NIS.

The paper shows that EE firms can build and strengthen their innovation capabilities through intense interaction and learning in domestic markets, which, subsequently, moves them upwards in their GVC. Industrial policy needs to change in order to facilitate such technological entrepreneurship in NIS, whether it is informal or underground.