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This chapter argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The chapter presents an organizing framework on how intra-firm geographic mobility creates value for firms and discusses how intra-firm geographic mobility can create value for individual workers. The chapter concludes by presenting a future research agenda for intra-firm geographic mobility in light of emerging phenomena such as global collaborative patenting by multinationals, temporary colocation of knowledge workers, and nonstandard work.

This paper aims to look into contemporary thinking within the brand equity paradigm, with a view to establishing avenues for further research on the drivers of brand equity formation, enabling a more in-depth understanding of the antecedents of brand equity and its determinants, as well as the development of an improved instrument to measure brand equity. The brand equity paradigm and its importance for marketing theory have been in the research focus for more than two decades. There is no agreement in the literature how to develop a unique measure of brand equity, neither what are the sources, drivers or determinants.

The authors develop the relating conceptual study through the differentiation and integration as specific conceptual goals. The authors present a taxonomic framework of brand equity grounded on a synthesis of contemporary approaches to the theme.

The authors identify gaps in the brand equity literature. The analysis and development of the conceptual study in this paper shall serve as beacons for future research and provide valuable theoretical insights on the determinants of brand equity formation and the development of better brand equity measurement tools.

The authors synthesized contemporary approaches in the field, identified research gaps and proposed open questions that should be tackled, as well as provided avenues for future research. The authors argue that creation of a unifying brand equity theory should be based on three pillars: stakeholder value, marketing assets and brand financial performance outputs.

This research aims to identify, examine and evaluate barriers to the adoption of digital servitization in manufacturing firms in the case of the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector and analyze the inter-relationships among digital servitization barriers.

Based on the comprehensive literature review, 13 barriers were identified. The grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (grey-DEMATEL) approach was used to uncover and analyze the relationships among barriers in terms of their overall influence and dependencies.

A prominent barrier to the success of adopting digital servitization in the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector is the lack of digital strategy in developing activities related to the design of digital service packages, organizational structures and processes. Supply chain integration is the most influential factor, which plays an important role in developing a competitive advantage by encouraging innovation process capabilities in servitized companies.

Industry practitioners can develop guidelines for adopting digital servitization practices based on the importance and interdependencies of different barriers and thereby prioritize projects within a program of digital servitization adoption in their organizations.

Research studies on barriers to digital servitization are limited to exploratory nature and have adopted mainly the qualitative approach, such as in-depth interviews. No empirical study has investigated the inter-relationships among digital servitization adoption barriers in the manufacturing sector. This study provides a holistic view of different barriers to the adoption of digital servitization in the manufacturing sector as a basis for developing comprehensive digital servitization strategies to manage and leverage complexity in digital transformation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of supply chain integration (SCI) in terms of supplier, customer and internal integration on supply chain performance (SCP) and export performance (EXP). The effect of SCP on EXP is also explored. This study further seeks to examine the mediating effect of SCP on the relationship between the types of SCI and EXP.

The population of this study consists of manufacturing companies in different industries in Jordan. Data were gathered using self-administered questionnaires; managers from 271 companies responded to the survey. The study constructs were assessed for validity and reliability, and it was ensured that acceptable levels of these tests were obtained. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the study hypotheses.

The findings showed that supplier and customer integration were not drivers of EXP, but internal integration positively impacted EXP. In addition, internal and customer integration positively affected SCP, while supplier integration did not. Also, SCP positively impacted EXP. Furthermore, customer integration and internal integration indirectly impacted EXP through SCP.

Manufacturers should establish both intra- and inter-organizational collaborations to improve their performance. Specifically, managers in developing countries need to pay substantial attention to internal integration, as it is the key antecedent of both SCP and EXP. Furthermore, managers must be aware of the essential role of customer integration in improving SCP and subsequently EXP. Therefore, they should make long-term plans to integrate and incorporate key customers. In addition, managers are advised to reconsider their current relationships with suppliers. By failing to take advantage of the valuable expected contribution of supplier integration, manufacturers may lose export opportunities to international competitors.

The present study addresses an evident gap in the available literature regarding the effect of SCI on EXP. It tests a comprehensive model underlining the role of SCP on the relationship between SCI types and EXP. This study is also valuable because it was conducted in a developing country. Generally, manufacturing companies in developing countries face more SC-related difficulties than those in developed countries; these challenges can limit the export abilities of manufacturers in developing countries. The study offers important implications for the managers of manufacturing companies to improve their SCP and, subsequently enhance their EXP.

The purpose of this paper is to address how marketing assets and resources of the firm perform under different product (brand) innovation conditions using the dynamic marketing capabilities (DMC) research perspective. The study contributes to the DMC research stream showing the effects and performance of heterogeneous firm drivers and resources. Academic research to date has paid a little attention to the interrelationship between market share as a performance metric, dynamic capabilities and product (brand) innovation. The current study bridges this knowledge gap by empirically validating the effects of DMC on market share performance output using panel data for 753 retail food brands.

The model was initially fitted with the β regression analysis and cluster analysis in the second step of the estimation procedure. The results of simulation by Monte Carlo experimentation are discussed.

The findings show that firms leverage their marketing capabilities unequally in the multi-brand portfolios, which leads to an unequal intra-firm distribution of assets and resources. The research contributes to the understanding of the brand competitive dynamics and appropriate deployment of assets and resources for improved firm performance.

These findings are useful for both academics and practitioners because they address new and future research. In doing so, the authors advance the firm performance and branding literature with extension in the DMC literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the interrelationships in internal and external supply chain integration (SCI) across multiple tiers of manufacturing-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a developing country, Malawi.

Utilizing the resource-based view, resource-dependence and network theory perspectives, and drawing on a multiple embedded case-study approach, the research investigated the internal and external linkages within three-tier supplier, manufacturer and retailer SCs and described varying perspectives of SCI across supply chain positions.

Firms with strategic intra-firm resources were less committed to external integration, deploying their resources as a source of power to dominate and exploit their dependent partners. The SCI across multiple tiers was impaired by dependence but enhanced by interdependence strategies of firms. Although lack of trust, promotion of non-overlapping self-interests, corruption in sourcing processes and resource constraints negatively affected SCI, firm commitment to external integration promoted greater commitment among firms, thus having a positive effect on SCI.

Further analysis of SCI of SME triads and a more systematic longitudinal analysis across other market segments should be explored to generalize the conclusions of this study.

The external influences on dyadic relationships go beyond the interactions of heterogeneous firms in the network to encompass interpersonal interactions across the network, where individuals may potentially prioritize personal connections and sabotage the interests of their firms.

The research explored the internal and external dimensions of SCI in multi-tier SCs of SMEs, and provided for the first time new evidence to show that firm commitment to engaging with partners complements the mechanisms of SCI within a developing country context. It highlights the need to develop trust, eliminate corruption, promote greater commitment of SC partners and encourage greater investment in firms’ resource capabilities to enhance SCI among SMEs.

The strategic management literature lacks a comprehensive explanation as to why seemingly similar business models in the same industry perform differently. This paper strives to explain this phenomenon.

The model is conceptualized and accompanied by a case study on the airline industry to explain knowledge brokerage that creates value from the effective utilization of knowledge resources acquired from intra‐ and inter‐firm environments.

The model explains a cyclical view of business model flexibility in which the knowledge‐based resource accumulation of the business model is spread across the intra‐ and inter‐firm environments. Knowledge brokerage strategies from the inter‐ and intra‐firm environments result in improved performance of the business model. The flexibility that the business model acquires is determined by how efficiently resource accumulation is aligned with its external environment.

The paper effectively integrates the concepts of knowledge brokerage and business models from a resource accumulation‐based view and simultaneously arrives at the performance heterogeneity of seemingly similar business models within the same industry. It has performance implications for firms that start out without any distinct resources of their own, or that use an imitated business model, to attain better performance through business model evolution aligned with successful knowledge brokerage strategies. It adds to the resource accumulation literature by explaining how resources can be effectively acquired to create value.

In this research, collaboration attributes related to the firm's intrinsic and extrinsic facets at pertinent levels (i.e. enterprise, strategic, operational, and tactical levels) for construction equipment OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) operating in India have been quantified and modeled.

For modeling the intra-firm collaboration at respective organizational levels, relevant attributes have been populated employing literature review followed by subsequent validation from pertinent focus groups. The focus groups comprising professionals working in the construction and mining equipment industry in India aided us in estimating the extent of interdependencies and influences within/amongst collaboration attributes. The collaboration attributes and respective interdependencies/influences are modeled employing the concept of graph theory wherein the individual attributes are represented using vertices and influences/interdependencies are represented using edges. The collaboration indices resulting from the variable permanent matrix have been derived as well.

Scenario and subsequent sensitivity analysis are performed. This research discusses the significance and aspects related to various collaborative attributes and the interrelations amongst them. Further, the research also evolves quantitative measures of collaboration indices at enterprise, strategic, tactical and operational levels by employing a graph-theoretic approach (GTA). The authors have also extricated and discussed a number of meaningful implications from both the perspectives of interorganizational relationships (IORs) and the normative theory of organizations using a cross-case analysis of five firms having operations in India.

The research would aid organizations (particularly those belonging to the construction equipment sector) measure the efficacy of collaboration in respective value-chains at strategic, tactical and operational levels. From the theoretical perspective, the integration of the IORs and normative theory of organizations enables looking at the intra-firm collaboration problem from a multi-dimensional standpoint involving activities, performance measures, action initiation, communication, shades of top management, level of activity, etc.

This paper investigates the inhibitors and enablers of supply chain integration (SCI) across multiple tiers in the supply chains of manufacturing-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malawi.

Following a qualitative approach, data were collected through face-to-face interviews across three supply chains, each consisting of a focal manufacturer, a major supplier and a retailer.

The research identified interpersonal relationships, supplier cost transparency and joint supply chain management (SCM) investments as key enablers of SCI. Concerning the inhibitors of SCI, the study found that a lack of external integration inhibited internal integration by acting as a source of disruption to intra-firm processes and relationships. Further, the research found weaker links between manufacturer–-retailer dyads than in manufacturer–supplier dyads, which constrained the ability to achieve multi-tier supplier–manufacture–retailer integration. The study also revealed that resource and infrastructural deficiencies, a culture of fear and intimidation within and between firms, corruption in sourcing transactions and a lack of inter-firm trust inhibited SCI.

The paper extends earlier evidence that internal integration is a prerequisite for external integration demonstrating that a basic level of external integration is necessary to prevent disruptions to internal integration.

This study is one of the few to go beyond the focal firm perspective and explore the inhibitors and enablers of SCI across multiple supply chain positions, and provides new evidence on the role of external integration in achieving internal integration.

Examines the implications for the economics of the firm of the development of total quality control and just‐in‐time management which are becoming increasingly important for intrafirm resource allocation. Shows the Alchian and Demsetz and transaction cost perspectives on the firm and work organization to be theories of a particular management style rather than a general economics of the firm. Develops an alternative and more general framework on the basis of the firm as a strategic framework, defined in terms of the knowledge base of an organization, rather than a single strategic orientation. This framework constrains and directs organizationally lower level proactive activity. Emphasis is placed on the importance of participative management, in core firms, and an economic rather than legal definition of the firm.