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1 – 10 of 30John Stephen Sands, Kirsten Nicole Rae and David Gadenne
This study aims to investigate the feasibility of integrating the social, environmental and innovation processes within the four-perspective sustainability balanced scorecard…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the feasibility of integrating the social, environmental and innovation processes within the four-perspective sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) model by determining the extent of linkages between and within the four SBSC perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey collected responses from senior management and middle management of large Australian companies.
Findings
The findings support several positive significant associations. Direct associations are found between value-creating processes within the internal process perspective. These results support the feasibility of integrating environmental, social and innovation-orientated value-creating process into the internal process of the four-perspective SBSC model. The results also provide evidence about the extent to which direct or indirect associations exist between the four SBSC perspectives: first, direct association of human capital (learning and growth perspective) with value-creating processes (internal processes perspective); second, direct association of value-creating (internal processes perspective) with customer value (customer perspective); and third, direct and indirect associations of value-creating (internal processes perspective) with financial performance (FP; financial perspective).
Research limitations/implications
Several limitations are acknowledged related to cross-sectional data, senior and middle managers’ perceptions and assumptions underpinning structural equation modelling.
Practical implications
The implications for practice from this study concern how organisational management should relate to their stakeholders while providing value in their FP.
Social implications
These associations reflect the influence of stakeholders’ recognised needs on process and product innovation. These needs highlight the benefits of focusing on future-orientated environmental budgets and ongoing employee training that lead to customer value and FP.
Originality/value
This is an initial in-depth study of a four-perspective SBSC model that provides an effective means of integrating social, environmental and innovation processes within the traditional four SBSC perspectives.
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Salim Khalid, Claire Beattie, John Sands and Veronica Hampson
This study aims to explore the ways that the balanced scorecard (BSC) can be adapted to incorporate environmental performance in a health care context.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the ways that the balanced scorecard (BSC) can be adapted to incorporate environmental performance in a health care context.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts a qualitative approach that uses an in-depth case study including semi-structured interviews and document review. Interviews are conducted with individuals working within a regional public hospital and health service organisation in Australia. The research is informed by stakeholder theory.
Findings
The participants identified a number of approaches to incorporating environmental dimensions within the BSC: fully integrated, partially integrated, a separate additional perspective and differentiation based on the origin of the environmental activities and events. These findings confirm the contingent nature of the selected model and reinforce the importance of organisational vision and environmental strategy as formative factors.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides a starting point for future research to refine the proposed models and evaluate their viability and relevance in other contexts.
Practical implications
This study provides motivations for managers to engage with the BSC as an effective performance measurement system, which can be developed and adapted to incorporate important environmental elements of organisational performance.
Social implications
This study reveals the importance of difference between endogenous and exogenous environmental activities. As concerns around the environmental consequences of organisational activities continue to grow, opportunities for institutions to reassure stakeholders of their sustainable practices are increasingly critical.
Originality/value
This study presents preliminary evidence on the suitability of various models for integrating environmental dimensions within the BSC. The findings provide a valuable contribution to literature on performance measurement systems in the healthcare sector.
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This chapter summarises all the results of the section that studied cross-innovation processes between audiovisual media and tourism sectors. It relies first on the review of…
Abstract
This chapter summarises all the results of the section that studied cross-innovation processes between audiovisual media and tourism sectors. It relies first on the review of existing forms of cooperation and cross-innovation between sectors. Second, on the meso-level analysis of structural aspects that shape innovation processes in these sectors. Third, on a micro-level ethnography of a start-up company innovating at the intersections between the film and tourism industries. We learn that there are two core ‘rules’ that motivate sectoral cooperation – first, the broader platformisation of tourism and second, the emergence of augmented reality as a technique to augment experiences at locations. Regarding the second rule especially, we learned that the main innovator and innovation motivator in this area is currently the public sector, driven also by cultural policy goals. But local tourism sector small and medium-sized enterprises appear to not be particularly driven by innovation-orientated cooperation with other sectors.
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Piers Thompson, Robert Williams and Brychan Thomas
This paper aims to examine the impact of developing more active web sites and increasing e-commerce on the relationship between innovation and growth performance in SMEs. Using…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of developing more active web sites and increasing e-commerce on the relationship between innovation and growth performance in SMEs. Using the existing literature and empirical analysis the study seeks to consider the potential of engagement with the internet to achieve the often hard to attain ambition of both innovation and growth.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to examine the relationship, data are drawn from the Federation of Small Businesses' Lifting the Barriers to Growth Survey. In order to establish whether the use of more sophisticated web sites are associated with being an innovative high performance business, while controlling for other firm and entrepreneurial characteristics, multivariate analysis in the form of multinominal logits and discriminant function analysis are utilised.
Findings
The results suggest that although theoretically web sites with tools allowing interaction with customers or suppliers could benefit SMEs through a reduction in transaction costs and wider access to information, enabling them to jointly experience innovation and growth, in practice there is less evidence that this occurs. Those firms with active web sites are more likely to be innovative, but less likely to be both innovative and achieving growth.
Research limitations/implications
The paper suggests a framework for analysing the impact of e-business at process level that can be used with other SME case studies.
Practical implications
These results suggest that further work must be undertaken to establish whether SMEs should be encouraged to make such investments and if so what additional help is required to ensure that investments in this digital infrastructure achieves an appropriate return on investment.
Originality/value
The results are of importance to both SMEs and policy makers providing insight into the nature of potential benefits from web site development using a large dataset. A clear need to investigate further how more innovative SMEs can benefit from company web sites and ecommerce to grow is identified.
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Abigail Richard, Fred Ahrens and Benjamin George
This study aims to introduce a new prescriptive model to aid both managers and researchers in partner selection for innovation-orientated collaboration. This framework…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to introduce a new prescriptive model to aid both managers and researchers in partner selection for innovation-orientated collaboration. This framework demonstrates how prospective partner firms’ complementing bodies of knowledge and goal alignment interact to affect the success of a collaboration.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use geometric modeling to represent the interrelationships among knowledge similarity/dissimilarity, goal congruence, knowledge complementarity (KC) and innovation in alliance formation. Using this model as a framework, the authors derive relationships among predictors of innovation success and determine how they affect the nature of partnerships under varying conditions of KC.
Findings
This research shows how innovation success is strongly determined by partner selection. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of KC and partner goals on three aspects of a potential research and development (R&D) alliance – the potential level of innovation outcome for the alliance, the boundaries of knowledge sharing and limitations arising from knowledge and goal incongruence and the nature of cooperation.
Originality/value
Although there is broad empirical support that innovation success is influenced by the similarity of R&D partners’ knowledge, further research is still needed to model the relationship more precisely between partner KC and goal alignment. The authors address this gap by developing a model that is both prescriptive and predictive of how innovation success can be achieved in the context of disparate but complementing knowledge and goal sets. The authors conclude with practical implications for practice and future research directions.
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Rodney McAdam, William Keogh, Renee S. Reid and Neil Mitchell
The purpose of this research is to evaluate the longitudinal effect of innovation programmes on improving the process of innovation in manufacturing SMEs. The process of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to evaluate the longitudinal effect of innovation programmes on improving the process of innovation in manufacturing SMEs. The process of innovation in organisations covers people, process and technology. Therefore interventions in the form of innovation improvement programmes often require high levels of complexity. This complexity is compounded in SMEs, where issues such as scarce resources and skill shortages must be recognised.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case research methodology combined with an innovation evaluation model is used to evaluate the longitudinal effect of an innovation intervention programme, which combined taught modules and Critical Action Learning networks over an eighteen month period. Within‐group comparisons are made.
Findings/research implications
The findings reveal that SMEs, which have high levels of innovation improvement, adopted a broad process based approach to innovation rather than using a narrow technical definition of innovation. These SMEs also developed a process of critically reflective action learning to ground the innovation in organisational practice.
Originality/value
There is a paucity of longitudinal research studies on innovation interventions in SMEs.
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Adriana Andrea Amaya, Wann-Yih Wu and Ying-Kai Liao
Although previous studies noted the importance for organizations in establishing an innovation strategy, few have examined innovation orientation as a multidimensional knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Although previous studies noted the importance for organizations in establishing an innovation strategy, few have examined innovation orientation as a multidimensional knowledge configuration. Therefore, this study draws on the valuable theoretical underpinnings of the resource-based view and information processing theory to examine the mechanism through which an organization's innovation orientation (IO) and team unlearning (TU) can impact new product development (NPD) success.
Design/methodology/approach
A causal model was developed in order to analyze the role of innovation orientation and team unlearning on NPD success. This proposed model and several hypotheses were gauged using data from 255 NPD team members from Taiwanese high-tech and traditional companies.
Findings
The results indicate that both IO and TU relate to outcomes. Specifically, this study demonstrates that it is insufficient that firms simply establish the configurations needed to enhance their IO and TU, firms also need to find out the correct mechanism to enhance NPD success. The relationships between IO, TU and NPD success were fully mediated by team information processing.
Originality/value
This report sheds light on the importance of innovation orientation and team unlearning in today's NPD process and uncovers the underlying mechanism through which IO and TU contribute to NPD success. It also offers precise advice for the assessment of management of team information-processing to boost the performance of new products.
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This chapter provides an overview of the value and management of collaborative innovation in the development of library services. Open or collaborative innovation is innovation…
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the value and management of collaborative innovation in the development of library services. Open or collaborative innovation is innovation that bridges organizational boundaries. It discusses key aspects of interorganizational innovation and its application in libraries, namely the essence of innovation, the imperative for collaborative innovation, choosing partners and innovation networks, successful management of collaborative innovation, and the barriers to collaborative innovation and their management. It is argued that innovation is pivotal to survival and success in dynamic and complex organizational environments. Increasingly organizations are seeking to pool resources and enter into collaborative alliances in order to achieve large-scale, radical, paradigm innovations. However, the success of such alliances is not guaranteed, and is dependent not only on choosing the right partners but also on the leadership and management of innovation teams, having an understanding of the challenges of collaborative knowledge creation, and negotiating organizational and interorganizational barriers to innovation. While library and information literature has seen much discussion of innovations in terms of the outputs of innovation processes, there has been little discussion of the innovation processes needed to achieve new service developments, and other innovations. This chapter encourages information professionals to think strategically about innovation activities, specifically the management of the performance of collaborative or open innovation.
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Dynamic capabilities are regarded as the bedrock of businesses that survive in a dynamic environment. Building upon the social capital theory, the purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Dynamic capabilities are regarded as the bedrock of businesses that survive in a dynamic environment. Building upon the social capital theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the nexus between dynamic capabilities and social capital in family businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a quantitative approach. As there is no formal business database available in China, the study followed a snowball sampling procedure. In total, 628 useful responses were gathered.
Findings
The study echoes the call of Arregle et al. (2007) for understanding family business’s internal sources of competitiveness and the role of social capital. Results show that the three dimensions of social capital, namely, structural, cognitive, and relational capital, influence dynamic capabilities of family businesses.
Research limitations/implications
The lack of an official business database in China made the conventional representative sample survey used in the West difficult to replicate. Furthermore, empirical data were collected from different regions of China; regional cultures and different levels of economic development across the regions might influence the social capital-dynamic capabilities connection, but these were not examined in the current study.
Originality/value
The study integrates two significant but disconnected research streams, i.e. social capital and dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, the study shows how different dimensions of social capital influence dynamic capabilities. Research findings derived may contribute to the entrepreneurial debate as to why some family businesses can survive in the dynamic environment while others cannot.
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The concept of brand transformation concerns a brand strategy that advocates radical changes. It involves a collective set of actions and activities that are coherently steered to…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of brand transformation concerns a brand strategy that advocates radical changes. It involves a collective set of actions and activities that are coherently steered to regenerate the engagement experience of the target market emanating from the brand strategy. Nevertheless, there are still lack of case studies demonstrating this in the B2B business sector. The purpose of this paper is to exhibit a brand transformation initiative taken by a B2B business, particularly the handling challenges leading to the initiative coupled with the framework and processes involved to make it a success.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study method was applied with documentation of inputs captured from different stakeholders. Consulting practitioners from a brand consultancy involved in the brand transformation initiative documented interviews and audit findings which offered first-hand report regarding their involvement and experience of bringing the B2B business through the brand transformation journey.
Findings
Brand transformation at Fagerdala warranted a radical re-orientation of the brand positioning that supports a clear business intent that was put forward. The initiative encompasses strong leadership, commitment and change management to drive transformational changes involving both internal and external stakeholders. An innovation oriented mind-set is critical to drive radical changes to support coherent efforts that could ultimately engender to distinct brand experience to targeted stakeholders.
Practical implications
This paper provides brand managers, particularly the brand owners practical and realisable example on how to plan and execute brand transformation in a B2B business environment. More specifically, it highlights the indicators for embarking on this initiative, the approach to drive brand transformation based on established brand strategy frameworks and finally how to execute the strategy in a practical manner.
Originality/value
This paper extends the concept of brand transformation that has recently been mentioned in literature from one of conceptual perspective to one of practice perspective. It emphasises and underscores some of the details of execution that is instrumental in the practice of brand transformation within a B2B industry sector.
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