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This study aims to develop a framework to systematize the emerging literature on integrated thinking and offers empirical insights on how integrated thinking has been practiced within an organization. The paper also introduces the contributions that compose the special issue “exploring integrated thinking in action: theoretical interpretations and evidence from the field” and outlines avenues for future research.

The paper critically reviews the literature on integrated thinking and proposes a framework that classifies prior studies into three areas, namely, integrated thinking and sustainable strategies; integrating thinking in practice; the concept and measures of integrated thinking. The study also provides an illustration of the ways in which integrated thinking has been adopted by a European energy company to shape and execute its purpose-driven strategy, as well as the benefits that have emerged. The paper uses the framework developed from the literature to introduce the contributions of the special issue and to suggest future research opportunities.

The study shows that while the literature on integrated thinking is still in its infancy, the evidence emerging from contemporary organizations supports empirical-driven research and stimulates a variety of theoretical and empirical contributions that will enable the academic debate to move forward.

The theoretical and practical insights offered by this study, together with those provided by the papers of this Meditari Accountancy Research special issue, will foster future research on integrated thinking. In particular, the framework developed in this paper may be drawn upon by researchers to plan new research projects on integrated thinking and its adoption within organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an integrated model of a service‐delivery system, customer relationship management (CRM), and customer satisfaction evaluation. The strategic objectives, such as the pursuit of key performances, the retention of customers, the provision of new services, can be realized through this integrated model. The paper then uses the “strategy map” of the balanced scorecard (BSC) to develop and deploy these strategies and the related objective performance indices.

The establishment of a conceptually integrated model based on the literature review, holistic thinking, and the researchers' consultant experience. The development of strategy map and the related performance indicators based on the integrated model.

The analysis presented by this paper shows that the perspectives of the BSC and the stages in CRM have good correspondence in the development of an integrated model.

The integrated model, strategy map, and related performance indicators' presented in this paper offer useful guidance for service organizations to having a holistic view of their operational systems.

This study aims to explore how the co-created value arising from integrated solutions results in both, intended and spill-over effects.

The research uses a qualitative multi-level field study, with data from 12 respondents in 1 supplier firm and 29 respondents from 10 buying firms.

The resulting propositions suggest that co-created value developed through exploitative and emerging strategies, each may lead to both higher intended and spill-over effects. However, it appears that exploitative strategies are more effective in returning intended effects, whereas emerging strategies lead to higher spill-over effects.

The results are exploratory, obtained from a limited number of buyer companies. Concerns of external validity were traded off against opportunities to gain insights into a poorly understood phenomenon.

The paper contributes to the existing value co-creation literature by offering insights from integrated solutions, associated with the development of buyer and seller relationships. The resulting propositions suggest that co-created value developed through both exploitative and emerging strategies may each lead to both higher intended and spill-over effects. However, it appears that exploitative strategies are more effective in returning intended effects, whereas emerging strategies lead to higher spill-over effects.

The international integrated reporting framework encourages organisations to disclose material information that affects their ability to create value. This paper aims to investigate the challenges and techniques preparers of integrated reports use to determine the materiality of non-financial information.

This paper uses an exploratory interpretive thematic analysis and an archival research approach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 55 integrated reporting (IR) preparers in 12 publicly listed companies, supported by the perusal of the companies’ integrated annual reports over a three-year period.

IR preparers find materiality determination for non-financial information challenging. This study found that preparers convert challenges into opportunities by using materiality disclosures as image-enhancing marketing tools, which causes concerns regarding weak accountability and a deviation from the International Integrated Reporting Council’s objective of improving information quality. This study found that IR preparers use various techniques in conjunction to determine materiality levels, as well as whether to disclose non-financial information in their integrated reports. The institutional isomorphism lens used in the study highlighted the issues IR preparers faced in their determined efforts of IR materiality levels under mimetic and normative isomorphism pressures.

The challenges and techniques identified can contribute to the development of a framework for materiality level determination for non-financial information.

Regulators who are concerned with ensuring sufficient information to improve investor decision-making will be interested in the techniques IR preparers use to determine materiality levels for non-financial information, to improve their regulations and frameworks.

This study contributes to the literature regarding challenges with materiality level determination in integrated reports and techniques used by IR preparers. The application of an institutional isomorphism lens led to greater insight and understanding of IR preparers’ challenges and techniques in materiality determination. This paper makes a number of significant contributions to the IR literature. First, it identifies the usefulness of material information for decision-making and the influence stakeholders have on the materiality determination of non-financial information, which have not been mentioned in the prior literature. Second, the literature is silent on how organisations relate materiality to value creation for the purposes of determining the materiality content of an integrated report; this research provides empirical evidence of the use of value creation criteria in materiality determination. Third, the study highlights that materiality is a combination of efforts that involves everyone in an organisation. Further, the strategy should be linked to IR and preparers have indicated that integrated thinking is required for materiality determination.

The study explores the possibility of developing a valid scale for integrated management of heritage sites to bring a holistic approach to heritage properties' conservation practices.

The study followed the exploratory sequential method. An in-depth interview was adopted for exploring indicators, and a questionnaire survey was administered for descriptive analysis.

Cultural resources conservation strategies have been analyzed from a tourist, local communities and stakeholder's perspective with local-specific indicators. The study indicates that a multi-dimensional approach that integrates tourists, local communities and other stakeholders-based indicators can be developed at the destination level for the integrated management of heritage properties. Tourist-centric, local community-specific and stakeholder-oriented approaches could act as catalysts for more pragmatic conservation practices in the local areas based on the site-specific indicators.

The study is limited to lesser-known heritage sites located in the southern provincial states of India. The technical conservation strategies on the structure and architecture are not part of the study. Theoretical implications on the study of this kind can contribute to the literature as it throws light on future studies seeking local-centric conservation and management practices of heritage sites hitherto less explored in the domain of conservation science. The scale provides insight into the appropriate form of intervention that the local communities, tourists and other stakeholders can do at the heritage sites, hence the possibility of garnering the attention of other discipline strivings towards the conservation of heritage sites and to apply along with other relevant variables. It is expected that the study might expedite the knowledge accumulation in conservation science.

The scale can be used in a similar context for the integrated management of heritage sites. The study can assist the policymakers and planners in seeking the support of stakeholders, local communities and tourists for the implementation of heritage conservation and management programs. Such a local-centric management strategy promoting responsible consumption and production could contribute to SDG 12. Further, the study can also contribute towards SDG 11.4, which calls for strengthening the effort to protect and safeguard cultural and natural heritage. This scale can be a tool for destination management organizations (DMOs) to understand the level of intervention of local communities, tourists and other stakeholders at the heritage site.

The integrated management approach of heritage conservation immensely helps the lesser-known heritage sites the world over as such structures are out of the focal point of government funding and other conservation efforts. The synergy of the integrated approach could protect lesser-known unfunded heritage sites, and thereby, the cultural reflections of the community concerned can be made available for future visitors’ consumption.

The study attempted to understand the conservation approaches for lesser-known heritage sites with the support of both demand and supply-side stakeholders. Such a collaborative approach is the first of this kind in the conservation of heritage sites in India.

Innovation is a complex process, one easily identified as being of critical importance for organisational success yet not easily managed. As international competition intensifies and product life cycles shorten, the pressure to innovate heightens. This paper compares the effectiveness of radical, incremental, and integrated innovation strategies on performance excellence. Hypotheses are tested in a cross‐sectional study of Australian and New Zealand manufacturing companies. Quantitative data was gathered from a large sample in a mail survey of manufacturing site managers and analysed using multivariate analysis techniques. Three performance excellence outcomes (customer satisfaction, productivity, and technological competitiveness) were used as dependent variables in the regression models. The major finding of the study is that a “bottom‐up” continuous improvement strategy is the preferred strategy to improve customer satisfaction and productivity in Australian and New Zealand manufacturing firms. On the other hand, a “top‐down” strategy is considered appropriate for increasing relative technological competitiveness. Surprisingly, an integrated strategy had the least explanatory power on performance excellence. This is consistent with the literature perception that firms have not reached a stage of systems integration and networking. The main implication of the study for practicing managers is that a continuous incremental improvement strategy is the major driving force behind any improvement effort, and that radical innovations should be used to “jump start” critical products, services, and processes intermittently. Once these strategies are in place, managers will be well on their way in achieving systems integration.

The aim of this paper is to explore the implementation of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 approach in meat industry for environmental performance and examine a proposed conceptual framework by capturing insights from lean and ISO 14001 experts in New Zealand (NZ).

Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with a group of consultants (lean and ISO 14001) to evaluate the suitability of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 approach in the meat industry for environmental performance. A conceptual framework from literature has guided this study leading to its further development based on the empirical evidence collected.

Findings have illustrated a synergistic positive impact of lean and ISO 14001 implementation as an integrated approach for sustaining environmental performance in the meat industry. A joint implementation program provides more clarity in aligning ISO 14001 operational procedures with lean tools and techniques for an enhanced environmental performance outcome.

The application of an integrated lean and ISO 14001 framework is proposed in this paper, which can help industry practitioners and academia in developing a joint implementation strategy and conducting future research.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to assess the effective implementation of lean and ISO 14001 as an integrated approach in the NZ meat industry.

This paper aims to set out the case for integrated reporting (IR) and its potential to lead to change in the public sector by examining it in practice and analyzing the challenges associated with its implementation.

The paper investigates the role of IR in the public sector through the development of a theoretical framework applied to a case study focused on the University of Udine in Italy.

IR can be considered more as an incremental than a groundbreaking transformation of existing arrangements and approaches. The analysis revealed that the vagueness, complexity and intrinsic discrepancy between the IR concept and its operationalization brought the University of Udine to challenge and debate the IR approach and ultimately, to reconceptualize and implement its own version that better fitted its strategic aims, its intended audience and its status as a public entity.

The application of the findings to other contexts should be further investigated, while the analytical framework should be applied to different settings and could be enriched to add knowledge and sharpen the paradigms of integrated thinking and value co-creation. Moreover, the interviews focused on people directly involved in the preparation of the integrated report, excluding other stakeholders. Further research could explore their perceptions of IR and focus on their understanding of the IR as well as the value co-creation process.

The findings provide decision makers with insights about how IR can be promoted to enhance its impact on value co-creation. The key processes to be considered for a public organization are integrated thinking and value co-creation, while the key aspects to be investigated in an integrated report for the public sector are materiality and stakeholder engagement. Yet, the IR framework is missing indications on how to account for stakeholders' inputs, outputs and outcomes in a value co-creation process, which is fundamental in a public service logic.

The results shed further light on two fundamental phenomena in the public sector, namely, integrated thinking and value co-creation. The paper also answers the call for more empirical research on IR's rhetoric and practice and on its concrete role in the value creation process.

Many manufacturers implement a dual channel strategy, which can be defined as the simultaneous use of integrated and independent channels of distribution for the same product line. This study employs the resource-based theory and examines how manufacturers' and distributors' capabilities affect manufacturers' choices of dual channel strategy. The study also examines how fit between organisational capability and channel structure affects channel system performance.

Empirical testing was conducted using survey data collected from 262 Japanese business-to-business manufacturers. This study performed a multinomial logistic regression analysis to examine the antecedents of dual channel strategy and a t-test to examine its performance implications.

The results show that manufacturers' information capabilities and the availability of distributors' selling capabilities affect whether manufacturers choose a dual channel strategy, and that market turbulence moderates the effects of these two capability factors. The results also indicate that manufacturers can improve their channel system performance by choosing channel strategies that fit organisational capabilities.

Most previous studies employ transaction cost theory to identify the factors driving the choice of dual channel strategy. However, these studies neglect the heterogeneity of resources/capabilities. Little is known about whether capability factors affect the dual channel strategy, and how this choice can be linked to channel system performance. By addressing this knowledge gap, this study contributes to enhance our understanding of dual channels.

The paper aims to investigate automobile manufacturers in Thailand and the effects that their business strategies had on their organizational performance.

For empirical analysis, the method of confirmatory factor analysis and the structural modeling method were applied in order to refine business strategies, functional strategies, financial, and marketing organizational scales.

This research reveals that there are three significant business strategies of automobile manufacturers in Thailand which have a positive effect on the organization's financial and marketing performance: cost focus (the first priority), cost leadership (the second priority), and integrated cost an differentiation (the third priority). All the priorities of functional strategies that have a positive effect on the financial and marketing organization performance were subsequently analyzed as follows: manufacturing strategy (most significant), human resource management (the second most significant), marketing strategy (the third most significant), and the financial strategy (the least significant).

Future research should select different random samples to assess the perceptions of front line managers of automobile manufacturers, dealers and automobile part firms.

The management of automobile manufacturers and automobile part firms should implement and improve their business strategies in terms of cost focus, cost leadership, and integrated cost leadership strategies achieve higher financial and marketing performance.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by reexamining the impact of business strategies of automobile manufacturers on organizational performance.