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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of two formal controls, namely target rigidity and process autonomy, on team adaptability and project success in new product development (NPD) projects. Target rigidity refers to performance goals that are non-negotiable once they have been set. Process autonomy refers to the extent to which a project team is free to choose ways to achieve its goals. Team adaptability is considered a key factor that explains the relationship between formal controls and project success.

Two separate models related to resource and cost measures are analysed, since different target types may influence managerial perceptions. This study uses data collected from a survey with 113 project managers as respondents.

The findings show that target rigidity and process autonomy support team adaptability. Furthermore, team adaptability mediates the impact of formal controls on project success. The effects are more pronounced for cost targets as compared to resource targets.

Firms can increase project success by using formal controls in such a way that they allow project managers to provide their teams with motivating guidelines (target rigidity) and discretion (process autonomy) to adapt to new circumstances.

This study reveals the impact of formal controls on NPD project success through team adaptability. A balanced use of target rigidity and process autonomy may help improving NPD project success.

This study examines the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. Meaningful work is an important driver of individual performance of managers, and employees and can be enabled by sufficient use of management controls. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

Based on bibliometric analyses and a structured literature review of academic research studies from the organizational, management and accounting literature, the authors develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work.

First, the authors propose that the use of formal management controls in a system (i.e. the levers of the control framework) is more powerful than using unrelated formal controls only. Second, they suggest that the interaction of a formal control system together with informal controls working as a control package can even stretch the perception of meaningful work. Third, they argue that the intensity of the control use matters to enhance the perception of meaningful work (inverted u-shaped relationship).

This study presents the first conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. It provides valuable implications for practice and future research in the field of performance management.

As the population of the western world is aging, the importance of seniors for the tourism economy is growing. Seniors are expected to be an important future market. Thus overall leisure behaviour in general, and travel and tourism behaviour in particular, are analysed for the example of the Austrian market.

A focus group was conducted with participants aged 55+, where their leisure and travel habits as well as preferences were investigated.

The results showed that leisure and travelling played a major role in the participants’ lives. Additionally, the participants did not change their travel behaviour considerably when entering retirement status. While they changed their preferences to longer stays and to travelling off‐season, their preferences considering holiday destinations, mode of transport or distance of travel did not change significantly. The assumption that travel behaviour and travel preferences are acquired over a longer time span during the life of tourists and will therefore not change considerably when retiring can be confirmed for the participants of the focus group.

It can be concluded that future senior tourists will differ from today’s travelling seniors in their travel behaviour and their preferences. A larger sample and more detailed research concerning the actual motivation and preferences of Austrian holiday travellers, as well as the factors influencing them, are necessary in order to be able to react adequately to future demands of senior tourists.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of the importance of and attitude towards leisure and tourism in the growing senior market. Based on the results of a focus group, it serves as a basis for further research in the field.

Grid computing has often been heralded as the next logical step after the worldwide web. Users of grids can access dynamic resources such as computer storage and use the computing resources of computers under the umbrella of a virtual organisation. Although grid computing is often compared to the worldwide web, it is vastly more complex both in organisational and technical areas. This also extends into the area of security and incident response, where established academic computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) face new challenges arising from the use of grids. This paper aims to outline some of the organisational and technical challenges encountered by the German academic CSIRT, DFN‐CERT while extending and adapting their services to grid environments during the D‐Grid project.

Most national research and education networks (NRENs) already have computer security incident response teams to respond to security incidents involving computers connected to the networks. This paper considers how one established NREN CSIRT is dealing with the new challenges arising from grid computing.

The paper finds that D‐Grid Initiative is an ongoing project and the establishment of CSIRT services for grids is still at an early stage. The establishment of communication channels to the various grid communities as well as gaining of knowledge about grid software has required DFN‐CERT to make changes even though the basic principles of CSIRT operation remain the same.

The D‐Grid project aims to establish a common grid infrastructure that can be used by other scientific domains. The project consists of six community projects and one integration project (DGI – D‐Grid Integration). The DGI project will develop the basic infrastructure, while the community projects will build on this infrastructure and enhance it for the specific needs of their research areas. At the initial stage of the DGI project, the idea of a central CSIRT for all grids in Germany was seen as an advantage over having a CSIRT for each grid project, which would have replicated efforts and thus wasted resources. This paper gives an overview about the organisational and technical challenges and experiences DFN‐CERT has encountered while setting up a CSIRT for the D‐Grid communities.

Increased business competition requires even more rapid and sophisticated information and data analysis. These requirements challenge performance management to effectively support the decision making process. Business analytics is an emerging field that can potentially extend the domain of performance management to provide an improved understanding of business dynamics and lead to a better decision making. The purpose of this positional paper is to introduce performance management analytics as a potential extension of performance management research and practice. The paper clarifies the possible application areas of business analytics and their advantages within the context of performance management.

The paper employs a literature based analysis and from this a conceptual argument is established. Finally, a business analytical model is presented to be used to undertake future research.

The paper clarifies the possible application areas of business analytics and their advantages within the context of organizational performance management.

The main implication is that the paper provides evidence of the use of business analytics for understanding organizational performance. Several insights are provided for management accounting research and education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether narrative corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures (the provision of textual information on companies’ environmental and social performance to external stakeholders) are associated with firm value in Germany.

Based on the global reporting initiative guidelines, the paper uses content analysis to assess the value relevance of CSR disclosures of 130 German companies over four years.

The results show that CSR information is value-relevant, but the value relevance of CSR information differs among CSR categories. Specifically, the disclosure of social information is positively associated with firm value yet environmental disclosures are not.

The results confirm that management should be aware of the potential capital market effects of voluntary CSR disclosures, even though such disclosures may be directed at other stakeholders.

Germany is an interesting setting as CSR disclosures are voluntarily, even though the institutional environment appears sensitive to CSR disclosures. Despite this, little research has focussed upon the value-relevance of CSR-disclosures in Germany. In addition, the results confirm that management should be aware of the potential capital market effects of voluntary CSR disclosures, even though they are not directed at shareholders as such.

This study aims to expose the challenges associated with theory development and its implementation, as it relates to services marketing and hospitality management. The author summarizes the literature, creates a conceptual model and proposes directions to bridge the theory–practice divide.

The author synthesizes and extends the literatures of services marketing, general marketing and hospitality management through a systematic literature review. A conceptual model is created to illustrate the challenges related to theory development and implementation.

Four types of theory challenges and three contemporary practical challenges are presented. The challenges for theory development include a communications gap, difficulties in applying universal theories into idiosyncratic organizations, researchers disconnected from practice and practitioners disconnected from research. Contemporary practical concerns include: human resource constraints, customer behavior and misbehavior and the organizational and business environment.

Managers can bring contemporary business challenges to the forefront by collaborating and writing with scholars. Similarly, keeping abreast of the latest advances in customer service, applying best practices in human resource management, educating and cocreating with customers are among several recommendations proposed to managers and marketers. Internal and external scanning can assure that managers engage in efforts to reduce barriers to implementation and improve services in their organizations.

Despite the decades-long study of customer service, organizations still struggle to deliver exceptional service. This study informs scholars on developing and communicating theories and managers on how to better access and interpret the latest research. In order for research to be successfully generated and implemented, scholars can engage in efforts aimed at joint (researchers and managers) idea generation, publication in multiple outlets, sampling that resembles real life, adoption of contingency theories and reconsidering journal editorial and institutional policies.

This paper aims to explore how value co-creation processes can influence the generation of dynamic capabilities and the retention of industrial customers. The authors explore this influence with the support of social exchange theory and resource-based view.

The methodology applied was qualitative research, based on 29 semi-structured in-depth interviews with owners, managing directors and technical managers with previous experience in co-creation processes. The research was performed in four different European countries and is focused on the mobile crane industry.

The findings suggest that co-creation processes promote the generation of dynamic capabilities linked to adaptation, knowledge, innovation and relationship management. In addition, the closer contact with customers and the availability of their expertise favour the development of solutions that better meet their needs, bridging the cognitive gap which often exists between partners. Regarding customer retention, the results show that co-creation processes foster customer predisposition to buy and cross-sell.

Although value co-creation is a topical subject, research in industrial marketing literature analysing the effects of co-creation processes has been scarce up to now. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by analysing how the co-creation of value can influence the generation of dynamic capabilities in companies and how it affects the retention of industrial customers. Based on social exchange theory and dynamic capabilities, the researchers have been able to address how value is developed and its influence in customer retention proxies.

Wilhelm Launhardt (1832‐1918) is a founder of mathematical economics. His main work, Mathematical Foundations of Economics, published in 1885, was translated into English in 1993. As an engineer, he contributed to the field of not only engineering, but also of economics and, in particular, to those parts in economics which can be treated fruitfully with mathematics. Launhardt developed his work independently from the French engineers, but based it squarely on the work of the agricultural engineer von Thünen. He made references to the economists Sax, Walras and Jevons. His main economic contribution lies in founding location theory but, beyond that, he contributed to the mathematical treatment of economics, labor economics, monetary economics and technology economics with a special emphasis on railway issues from a locational point of view. Hence, it is the purpose of this paper to show how Launhardt used mathematics in his engineering‐based approach to the economics of location and technology.