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This paper discusses the concept, definition and usage of Key Activity Indicators (KAIs) and their integration within a Performance Measurement and Management system (PMM).

The actual definition and application areas of the KAIs are determined through a systematic literature review. Successively, a thorough definition of Key Activity Indicators is provided, along with a set of criteria for their deployment. Lastly, a case involving a Large Scale Retail Trade (LSRT) company is reported to report an example for guiding KAIs adoption.

This research shows that the scientific background concerning KAIs is still not mature. Moreover, the paper defines the role of KAIs for measuring operational activities and their possible connection with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Although KAIs have been introduced and discussed in the scientific literature; there is no evidence of criteria to deploy these indicators, leaving organizations without any guidance for their operational implementation.

From an academic standpoint, the study provides an overview of the usage of KAIs within the present scientific contributions, showing the advancements of this research field. From an industrial standpoint, the research proposes a set of criteria for the organizational deployment of KAIs.

The study investigates the concept of KAIs that, besides being originally conceived within World Class Manufacturing (WCM), has not received much attention in the scientific literature.

A survey of Japan's new religions (1) shows “ancestor worship” (2) to have played an important part in various religious bodies (3), as a means for attaining happiness for the living. Generally speaking, new religions advocate that the adequate veneration of ancestors leads them to enter a “blissful state”, as a result of which they can bring happiness to their living descendants (4). At the same time, the new religions also teach that lack of proper consolation for ancestors results in misfortune for the living (5). This tendency to put importance on ancestor worship is a particular feature of the Reiyu‐kai group of new religions which denotes those religious bodies which were established by schism within Reiyu‐kai (lit. the Spirit Friends' Society) and by the subsequent re‐splitting of those bodies (6) which resulted. The parent organization, Reiyu‐kai, is a large‐scale new religion of lay Nichiren origin (7), which was founded by Kakutaro Kubo and Kimi Kotani in 1925, and its doctrine of memorial rites for ancestors, concentrating on the combination of ancestor worship and faith as found in the Lotus Sutra, draws upon that of the Bussho Gonen movement founded by Toshizo Nishida (8).

The identification of consumer innovators offers marketing managers the opportunity to tailor new products to the buyers who initiate the diffusion of innovations. Progress has been made in identifying such consumers in economic and social terms, but there are advantages of cost and convenience in isolating the personality profiles of innovators, especially during pre‐launch product testing. But innovative consumers' distinctive personality traits have proved elusive. This article reports an investigation of innovative brand choice in the context of new food product purchasing which employed the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI). This highly reliable test of cognitive style correlates with several personality traits known to be associated with innovativeness; it also has high validity in the prediction of behaviour over a wide range of contexts. The research reported went beyond the common expectation of a simple, direct relationship between personality and brand choice to investigate the predictive validity of the KAI over a range of product continuity/discontinuity. The results are considerably more encouraging than those of earlier research for the identification of personality/consumer choice links. They suggest an operational measure of product continuity/ discontinuity and support the use of the KAI as a viable marketing tool.

The identification of consumer innovators offers marketing managers the opportunity to tailor new products to the buyers who initiate the diffusion of innovations. Progress has been made in identifying such consumers in economic and social terms, but there are advantages of cost and convenience in isolating the personality profiles of innovators, during pre‐launch product testing. However, innovative consumer’s personality traits proved elusive. Reports an investigation of innovative brand choice in the context of new food purchasing employing the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI). This test of cognitive style correlates with several personality traits associated with innovativeness; it also has high validity in the prediction of behaviour. The research investigated the predictive validity of the KAI over a range of product continuity/discontinuity. The results suggest an operational measure of product continuity/discontinuity and supports the use of the KAI as a marketing tool.

Tribal economic development in post-settlement era Aoteroa/New Zealand has opened up opportunities for Maori to invest in the sustainable commercial utilisation of their traditional economic resources. Mahinga kai (traditional food and food sources) has always been at the heart of the Maori tribe Ngāi Tahu’s spiritual, cultural, social and economic existence. The purpose of this research is to revitalise mahinga kai enterprise through the commercial development of traditional and contemporary food and food resources in a culturally commensurate manner.

Participant action research theory and practice were used by researchers from Toitū Te Kāinga (Regional Development Unit of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu) between 2008 and 2012. This was informed by a Kaupapa Maori philosophy of respect and empowerment of the participants’ needs.

The development of the Ahikā Kai Indigenous business system shows that competitive advantage can be created for Indigenous businesses and enterprises through a four-pronged strategy based around: first, human rights that empower tribal members; second, product differentiation based on cultural principles; third, an internal accreditation system to help verify the ethical credibility of the products; and fourth, lowering producer costs through website marketing and direct-to-consumer selling.

This research adds to a growing (yet still evolving) body of literature on Indigenous entrepreneurship and the role of voluntary certification in Indigenous business development. The Ahikā Kai business system is an original world first for this type of Indigenous development based on creating a competitive advantage for multiple independent enterprises while maintaining the core integrity of its cultural brand and its operations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences between adaptive behaviour and innovative behaviour of individuals according to Kirton adaptation-innovation (KAI) model and determine how these differences impact entrepreneurial potential dimensions. Research sample consisted of student population from three countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (EU candidate countries) and Belgium (EU country). Research results will be valuable for the development of entrepreneurship in EU candidate countries. Data were collected from a sample of 1,008 university students from these three countries. KAI inventory, questionnaire on entrepreneurial traits (QET) and the scale of entrepreneurial potential (SEP) were used to obtain data. The canonical discriminant analysis determined differences and structure of differences between the adaptive and innovative persons, described by KAI model and their scores on the dimensions of the entrepreneurial traits model, as well as on entrepreneurial potential model.

In this study, the first research question concentrates on the existence of differences among students from Bosnia, Serbia and Belgium with regard to the dominant style of problem-solving according to KAI model to determine whether students from EU countries and non-EU countries differ in regard to problem-solving style. Second research question is the existence of differences in the development of entrepreneurial potential by EQT and SEP among student adaptors and student innovators according to KAI model to investigate to what extent the dominant style of solving problem contributes to differences in the development of entrepreneurial potential among students.

The research has confirmed the existence of significant differences between the adaptors and innovators described by the KAI model in terms of developed characteristics of entrepreneurial potential in the student population. Results of the research prove that young innovators possess to a greater extent developed key characteristics important for entrepreneurship, as well as intellectual and organizational skills, motivational factors and social capacity, self-confidence and constitutional factors. This research also revealed key differences among students with regard to the country of origin.

The practical implications of the research are reflected in the creation of the initial guidelines and structural support for the promotion of entrepreneurial potential in young people, where it can be concluded that it is particularly important to encourage innovation and creative approach to problem-solving, but also awareness of young individuals and development of their knowledge of entrepreneurship.

The main objective of this research was the examination of differences between students who belong to the category of adaptors and students innovators according to the KAI model (Kirton, 1976, 1998, 2003), with regard to the researched dimensions of entrepreneurial potential, to explicitly as possible identify differences in personal characteristics of young people who are predisposed for entrepreneurship and those who are not. Young innovators and adaptors significantly differ according to the researched dimensions of the EQT and SEP models of entrepreneurial potential and young innovators possess more developed entrepreneurial potential than adaptors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine advertising placed within Kai Tiaki: The Journal of Nurses of New Zealand. The periodization for this study is 1908-1929, a chronological time span and approach that incorporates the first issue of the Kai Tiaki in 1908 and ending 1929, thus representing the launch of the journal and first two decades of its production. During this period, New Zealand nursing was emerging as an organised and professionalised body of health-care workers. At the same time, New Zealand, Britain’s most distant “dominion”, was beginning to realise its own nationhood and growth.

The primary source of data was digitalised Kai Tiaki issues between 1908 and 1929. Each four issues for every year were analysed. All advertisements were coded (n = 1895), followed by a qualitative content analysis in which key themes were derived.

Five overarching themes were found. The two main themes were the proliferation of therapeutic “tonics” and the second the relationship of nurses to them that was profiled by advertisers. The three remaining themes were accommodations, lifestyle and the nurses “role” as nurse, handmaiden or mother. Conclusions discuss reasons for key findings, and, in particular, the reinforcement of the traditional nursing role, which was often at odds with the increased technological roles and responsibilities nurses were undertaking. In turn, advertisers saw the nursing profession as a new and potentially lucrative market of women with disposable income and influence in the health field.

To date, there is a scarcity of marketing analysis that examines advertising placed in trade journals and in particular for early twentieth century health-care professionals. Through a lens of advertising analysis, this study investigates the advertising nursing readership of the day was exposed to and the motives and tactics used by those interested in expanding both health-care worker and consumer markets through a singular strategy.

The Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory and the Learning Styles Questionnaire were used as part of a wider investigation, reported in an earlier paper, to explore the influence of personality, discipline and organisational structure on the information behaviour of biochemists, entomologists and statisticians working at an agricultural research station (n = 67). Results from the psychometric tests were assessed in terms of the groups obtained from a cluster analysis. Groups identified by the KAI as Innovators and by the LSQ as Activists sought information more widely, more enthusiastically and from more diverse sources than other groups. Groups identified as Adaptors by the KAI and Reflectors by the LSQ, were more controlled, methodical and systematic in their information behaviour.

The analysis of manufacturer-supplier relationships in Japan has contributed significantly to the advancement of interorganizational theory. It has yielded broad evidence that long-term collaborative partnerships enable firms to exploit the incentive benefits of market-based exchange while reaping the learning and coordination benefits of internalization within a corporate hierarchy. In this paper, we go beyond the issues of trust and cooperation that have occupied much prior theory and research on supplier relations in considering another dimension along which collaborative agreements may be arrayed. We build on transaction and network theories, respectively, to propose two types of long-term collaborative ties: dyadic or bilateral governance and network embeddedness. A comparative analysis of collaborative relationships in product and process development between two Japanese TV manufacturing companies and their suppliers provides empirical evidence for the distinctive effect of network ties over dyadic relationships for collaborative knowledge-sharing.

The Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory was introduced as a survey‐feedback instrument during a team development workshop. The instrument proved easy to apply and interpret. Furthermore, the intervention appeared to provide the participants with a powerful means of dealing with misunderstandings and in‐group conflicts. The instrument deserves further trials by organisational change agents and trainers.