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This chapter adopts the midrange theories schema to expand Pels and Sheth (2017) matrix on business models to serve the low-income consumers (LIC): market adaptation, mission focus, radical innovation, and inclusive ecosystems. To this end, it identifies the underlying general business theories (systems theory and neo-classical economics) and ontological theories (positivism and interpretivist) nested in each of the matrix’s four cells.

Understanding the general theories from which concepts and guidelines are drawn allows a two-way contribution. On one hand, it comprehends which other concepts can be integrated into the LIC literature. Alternatively, it highlights what insights generated from the study of the LIC markets bring to these theories.

Ben & Jerry/Unilever raises the issues of (1) how to bring a nonbusiness culture (B&J) into a corporate culture (Unilever) while preserving the value acquired; (2) how to manage a recently acquired subsidiary whose parent company is an ocean away; (3) how, as a corporate-appointed general manager, the French general manger can gain the trust of the acquired firm; and (4) how (or even whether) to preserve the Social Responsibility (SR) aspects of the target. An additional focus might be how (or whether) to export a socially-responsible firm's values to overseas locations. The case can be positioned near the end of a PMI course, where the students can apply PMI skills in a unique ethical and cultural situation. Alternatively, it can be used in an Ethics course to highlight the challenges of maintaining an SR mission when a public global corporation acquires a local (Vermont) SR organization.

The world in which companies operate today is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, thus subjecting contemporary forms to an array of risks that challenge their viability in an increasingly competitive landscape. Organizations that cling to their traditional ways of operating impede their ability to survive while those able to embrace evolving changes and lever their strategic response capabilities (SRCs) will thrive against the odds. The possession of such capabilities has become a prominent explanation for effective adaptation to the impending changes but is rarely analyzed and tested empirically. Strategic adaptation typically assumes innovation as an important component, but we know little about how the innovative processes interact with the firm’s SRCs. Hence, this study investigates these implied relationships to discern their effects on organizational performance and risk outcomes. It explores the effects of SRCs and the role of innovation as intertwined adaptive mechanisms supporting strategic renewal that can attain superior performance and risk effects. The relationships are analyzed based on a large sample of US manufacturing firms over the decade 2010–2019. The study reveals that firms possessing effective SRCs have the ability to exploit opportunities and deflect risky situations to gain favorable performance and risk outcomes. While innovation indeed plays a role, the precise nature and dynamic effect thereof remain inconclusive.

Whole Foods and Wild Oats were both natural- and organic-food stores that competed for similar customers on values such as high-quality and healthy products, excellent customer service, knowledge of products, and an enjoyable shopping experience. In February 2007, Whole Foods announced that it would purchase a smaller but formidable competitor, Wild Oats. There was tremendous geographic complementarity involved: The merger would give Whole Foods the largest footprint within the natural- and organic-grocery industry in North America.

Prudential Equity Group had downgraded Danaher to underweight status, citing concerns over its inadequate organic growth. By March 2009, its CEO wondered how to keep growing a company that faced changing worldwide economic circumstances, pressure from low-cost competitors, new competitors, flat or declining demand for company products, price increases for certain raw materials, and criticism from market analysts.

This study updates the discussion on demand-pull attention as a source of radical product innovation. Demand-pull attention shows an ex ante alignment with market characteristics and needs as opposed to pushing resources toward markets. The authors suggest a holistic framework and specify three dimensions of demand-pull attention: anticipated or revealed market demand, market environment, and external economic environment. Based on a large German longitudinal panel consisting of 941 firm-year observations from 2003 to 2013, the authors conceptualized the measurement of demand-pull dimensions’ attention and radical product innovation using computer-aided text analysis of annual reports. The authors analyzed the relationship between the attention that a firm pays to different demand-pull dimensions and the firm’s strategic intention to radically innovate; thus, the authors actually focused on the cognitive sources of radical product innovations. This chapter suggests that radical product innovation activities are positively driven by attention toward the market environment and market demand orientation. However, the hypothesis, which assumed a negative relationship between attention toward the external economic environment and radical innovation, could not be significantly confirmed. This demands a closer look into the underlying decision processes of firms when deciding on radical product innovations. With the theoretical grounding on the attention-based view of the firm, the authors contribute to a better understanding of the role that organizational cognition plays in innovation processes.

The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

Organizational and cultural misfits have been among the most vital factors associated with Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) failure. Admittedly, in a foreign environment, such problems can be further amplified due to the liability of foreignness, increased information asymmetries and additional transaction costs, further hampering the success of the deal. Considering that, in 2019 alone, the value of cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) exceeded $1.2 trillion (out of $3.9 trillion of the total global M&A value), deciphering the “black box” of CBA success comes at the forefront of the academic and managerial interest. In this chapter, the authors examine a missing link on the post-acquisition performance for cross-border deals, the role of organizational slack. The authors particularly theorize that slack may benefit foreign acquirers, by sheltering them against liability of foreignness and acculturation costs; yet this benefit will be conditional upon the type of slack and the acquirer’s prior CBA experience.

Past theorizing and empirical work suggest that long-standing strategic leaders generate harmful attention and information-processing effects in their organizations, which in turn impair organizational learning and performance. In contrast, our argument is that longevity and its attendant inertia foster useful transformational and strategic persistence for organizations pursuing stretch goals. Through attentional vigilance and restricted focus, inertia may create the cognitive profile necessary for effective learning when organizations pursue the seemingly impossible. We empirically examine our ideas in the context of the French royal navy and the naval battles it had with the British in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. More specifically, we focus on two distinct but related stretch periods during which the French royal navy was tasked with building a powerful naval force and using it to gain naval supremacy over Great Britain. Given its exceptionally weak starting position at the beginning of the two studied periods and its desire to displace the established and advantaged navy of the era, the French had a lofty task. Our results are supportive of the stability argument, with leader longevity and inertia being positive for outcomes.

This case presents the “best practices” of a highly successful post-merger integrator that grew from $400 million in 1997, to $1.5 billion in 2000, to $4 billion in 2002. The case focus is on the $4.0 billion IT sector of Northrop Grumman, a company confronting immense change in the rapidly consolidating defense business. This integration is unique in that the product is a complete melding of various companies, systems, leaderships, and cultures of 11 legacy organizations. Not only is the result an organization with a new identity, but also one with new strategic capabilities unavailable to any of the stand-alone legacy companies. A teaching note is available to registered faculty, along with video clips that include footage of weapons systems (e.g., B-2 bomber) and information about the company's PMI process.