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– Some scenario projects, especially those that take short cuts, have design flaws that undermine the whole purpose of scenario analysis. This article aims to investigate these.
Abstract
Purpose
Some scenario projects, especially those that take short cuts, have design flaws that undermine the whole purpose of scenario analysis. This article aims to investigate these.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is a guide to avoiding four common project flaws.
Findings
Selecting one desired future and using scenario analysis to promote it to the exclusion of other possibilities is not a wise approach.
Practical implications
Scenarios that ignore the likelihood of serious competition from fledgling startups, market invaders from other industries, or even the possibility of several companies combining to gain the competencies needed to be a threat, are not addressing the future’s full spectrum of competitive uncertainty.
Originality/value
By becoming aware of the four “blind alleys” of scenario analysis warned about in this article, practitioners are more likely to use this planning tool effectively to scope out the true outlines of uncertainty or the fallout from discontinuity and prepare their firm to cope with new realities.
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In an environment characterised by flux and uncertainty, a capacity for innovative, divergent strategic thinking rather than conservative, convergent strategic planning is seen as…
Abstract
In an environment characterised by flux and uncertainty, a capacity for innovative, divergent strategic thinking rather than conservative, convergent strategic planning is seen as central to creating and sustaining competitive advantage. As the case study of Communications Co. illustrates, scenario planning is one tool that many organisations, committed to redesigning their strategic planning processes, are using with some success. However, scenario planning requires both left‐ and right‐brain thinking styles. The elements of left‐brain thinking reflect the planning side of strategy making, while right‐brain thinking mirrors the thinking component of strategy making. The relationship between the factors that enable strategic thinking and the level of “emotional intelligence” of business leaders is also considered. The Communications Co. case findings appear to support the view that while strategic thinking capabilities can be nurtured and diffused through an organisation, it will need business leaders with a high degree of emotional intelligence to lead the way.
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Sophie Michel, Jean-Philippe Bootz and Jeanne Bessouat
Although crowd logistics (CL) is a promising digital solution, its future development remains uncertain. This paper aims to suggest multiple possible futures of CL in terms of…
Abstract
Purpose
Although crowd logistics (CL) is a promising digital solution, its future development remains uncertain. This paper aims to suggest multiple possible futures of CL in terms of business relationships and value co-creation between manufacturers and digital platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper offers a systemic and multistakeholder approach related to the field of strategic foresight, based on the scenario method. The scenarios construction involved 22 participants (practitioners, academic researchers and foresight experts).
Findings
Four scenarios emerged from the strategic foresight study. For each scenario, the configuration, diffusion and coordination of CL – as well as the balance of power between manufacturers, digital platforms and customers – are specified.
Research limitations/implications
The foresight analysis reveals not one certain future, but multiple potential business configurations and research avenues related to the development of CL.
Practical implications
The adopted multistakeholders perspective, including macro factors, regarding CL allows business-to-business (B2B) managers to rethink its potential. Managers can use the scenarios to consider multiple types of coordination with digital platforms and its implication for value co-creation.
Social implications
This paper provides insights into social changes that may constitute drivers and consequences of the development of CL and identifies two forms of coupling that may drive the development of CL: regulation–social transformation and technology–environment.
Originality/value
This research contributes to IMP research on B2B relationships in digital contexts, by showing that CL presents an opportunity for the co-creation of distribution value in a B2B environment.
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Nandakishor Sirdeshpande and Vishwanath Udupi
Wireless communication channel provides a wide area of applications in the field of communication, distributed sensor network and so on. The prominence of the wireless…
Abstract
Purpose
Wireless communication channel provides a wide area of applications in the field of communication, distributed sensor network and so on. The prominence of the wireless communication channel is because of its robust nature and the sustainability for the precise ranging and the localization. The precision and accuracy of the wireless communication channel largely depend on the localization. The development of the wireless communication channel with improved benefits needs the accurate channel model.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper characterizes the tangential path loss model in the WINNER based wireless communication channel model. The measurements taken in the WINNER channel model are compared with the tangential path loss characterized WINNER Channel model.
Findings
The model operates well over the varying antenna orientations, measurement condition and the propagation condition. The proposed tangential path loss model is performing well over the various outdoor scenarios.
Originality/value
The proposed characterization shows change in the small-scale parameters (SSP), such as power, delay, angle of arrival and angle of departure as well as the large-scale parameters (LSP), such as RMS delay spread, shadowing, path loss and Ricean factor associated with the model.
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The purpose of the paper is to report on a novel approach to assessing long‐term policy and technology impacts. This approach combines a qualitative forecast with a tri‐level…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to report on a novel approach to assessing long‐term policy and technology impacts. This approach combines a qualitative forecast with a tri‐level quantitative projection to provide a broadly socio‐economic analysis. It is aimed at forecasting problems, such as impact assessment for future policy formulation in the light of socio‐economic, technological and market developments.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a variety of research methods including scenario planning, and techniques taken from analysis of stochastic processes to identify and correlate behaviour, combined with the concepts meso‐economics, in order to produce more robust tri‐level quantitative estimations, driven by qualitative analysis.
Findings
The paper finds that it is possible to join micro‐economic behaviour to macro‐economic, using meso‐economics to attack what was previously seen as a difficult gap between the two. It also finds that quantitative forecasting, based on socio‐economic behaviour using the qualitative assessment from a scenario – i.e. from stories about the future – can form a basis for quantitative forecasting. Different scenarios may be linked to corresponding quantitative economic estimations using key indicator parameters at each economic level, those which are the most relevant to the scenarios, and so exploit statistical techniques across the three levels in a balanced fashion.
Originality/value
This paper summarises a novel approach, taking a fresh look at forecasting economic impacts assessments by shaping the quantitative form with a qualitative tool, while introducing the linking powers of meso‐economics. General economic theories in widespread use today seem to be weak when dealing with the non‐deterministic nature of real markets and economies and especially in linking micro‐economic parameters to macro‐economic. The approach attempts to resolve this dilemma. An example is presented of its use in a recent study.
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The author aims to provide a macro (organization‐environment) view for knowledge creation (KC), a study traditionally considered to be a micro (individual‐organization) management…
Abstract
Purpose
The author aims to provide a macro (organization‐environment) view for knowledge creation (KC), a study traditionally considered to be a micro (individual‐organization) management issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review and literature integration are the main approaches used in this paper. Instead of providing a critique, the author reviews recent KC process studies and integrates them into a “process heuristic,” in which different phases of KC activity are embedded. The author then discusses how each phase of KC interacts with the change of an organization's external environment (the integration of change theories and the KC process heuristic).
Findings
The author found that an organization needs the function and balance of three different momenta – imitation, rationality, and inertia – to proceed with KC when confronted with pressure from external environments. Knowledge feedback, prompted by the synergy of these momenta, ensures the fitness of an organization and its environment. However, knowledge feedback falls short if organizations fail to process ambiguous information in a turbulent environment.
Research limitations/implications
The author provides five propositions based on the literature review. One may need more qualitative or quantitative evidence to test these propositions.
Practical implications
In addition to the traditional micro view, managers can diagnose their KC problems from a macro view.
Originality/value
This paper is the first one to address the importance of environment‐organization fitness in terms of KC studies.
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Christopher Agyapong Siaw, David Sugianto Lie and Rahul Govind
The purpose of this study is to examine how corporate communication of their social programs on their websites affects the ratings of those programs by independent rating…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how corporate communication of their social programs on their websites affects the ratings of those programs by independent rating agencies. Firms expend resources on corporate social programs (CSPs) to promote their corporate social responsibility and sustainability credentials. Stakeholders, however, often respond to such “self-promotion” with skepticism because they believe that there are inconsistencies between corporate claims and actions. This research draws on attribution theory as a framework to examine how the perceived CSP performance of firms by uncontrollable sources are affected when firms disseminate CSP information on firm websites, i.e. a controllable source, where their claims may not be verifiable.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a two-step, mixed method study for the analysis using data from Fortune 500 companies. A qualitative content analysis process identifies the interfaces of CSP and their communications on firms’ website. The process allows the authors to collect CSP data systematically from firm websites and to identify relevant variables through the patterns that emerge from the analysis. The findings are used in a quantitative analysis to study how the patterns underlying CSP communication on their websites affect the ratings of firms’ CSP by independent rating agencies.
Findings
Results show that the location, the manner, the content and the scope of CSP information dissemination on firm websites, as well as perceived commitment to CSP identified on the website are important drivers of perceived CSP performance. A robustness check using an alternative independent rating of CSP also provides results that are supportive of the findings. In addition, the effects are found to differ by sector of operation, firm age and profitability.
Research limitations/implications
This research suggests that communication of CSPs at controllable sources of firm information dissemination can have a significant effect on the evaluation of CSP at uncontrollable sources when such communication facilitates the assessment of other information from a firm to determine the motive underlying a firm’s CSP.
Practical implications
The findings show that firms and managers can influence the perceived ratings, rankings or scores of their CSP by stakeholders when they put the right information at the right place on their corporate websites. One of the findings shows that even moderate levels of CSP commitment demonstrated on firm websites result in positive perceptions of CSP, which has marked practical implications.
Social implications
The findings show that integrating even a medium level of commitment to CSP increases the positive perceptions of a firm’s CSP. Thus, society benefits from the firm’s action without a substantial impact on the firm’s profits.
Originality/value
This research shows that firm-controlled sources of CSP information dissemination to stakeholders can affect uncontrollable sources of CSP information evaluation.
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V. Kumar, Ankit Anand and Nandini Nim
Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation. However, in the current scenario of technological dynamism, firms are exploring multiple sources to generate ideas for innovation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the relative effect of various sources of innovations on a firm’s performance.
Methodology/approach
We offer a conceptual framework where we identify six distinct sources of innovations – firm, customers, external network, competition, macro-environment, and technology and how they create value for focal firms especially their brand equity. We introduce a taxonomy of various costs and benefits related to innovations. We then argue using our proposed taxonomy to understand the relative strengths of various sources of innovation affecting a firm’s brand equity.
Findings
We discuss and compare the relative effects of these sources of innovations on a firm’s brand equity by rank-ordering the sources. The customers and the technology as a source of innovation have the maximum impact on the firm’s brand equity followed by the marginal impact of macro-environment and external network of a firm. The firm itself has a moderate impact on its brand equity, while competition has the minimal impact. Further, we also discuss how the relationship is moderated by different innovation characteristics (nature and type of innovations).
Practical implications
The main practical implication is to create awareness among managers about various costs and benefits of the proposed six sources of innovations and their effects on brand equity. Managers would be able to prioritize their sources of innovation based on firms’ current needs, and whether to focus on lower costs or building higher brand equity in the scarce resource environment.
Originality/value
We offer a comprehensive list of six sources of innovation, build a conceptual framework wherein we discuss the relative strengths of these sources affecting brand equity.
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Hakim Bendjenna, Nacer‐eddine Zarour and Pierre‐Jean Charrel
The requirements engineering (RE) process constitutes the earliest phase of the information system development life cycle. Requirements elicitation is considered as one of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The requirements engineering (RE) process constitutes the earliest phase of the information system development life cycle. Requirements elicitation is considered as one of the most critical activities of this phase. Moreover, requirements elicitation is still a challenge, especially in the distributed environment of so‐called inter‐company cooperative information systems (ICISs). The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to elicit requirements for an ICIS.
Design/methodology/approach
An analytical research approach was conducted. The current RE approaches, which are based either on goal, scenario or viewpoint were evaluated. Then the role of the elicitation technique selection step within the requirements elicitation process was examined. Finally the factors that affect this step in a distributed environment were studied. An example from the textile industry is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.
Findings
Though existing requirements elicitation approaches based either on goal, scenario or viewpoint are effective techniques, they do not fit exactly to a cooperative distributed environment: more issues are created by inadequate communication, time difference between sites, cultural, language and characteristics diversity of stakeholders which affect the elicitation technique selection step and thus the requirements elicitation process. In order to tackle these issues, this paper presents a methodology called MAMIE (from Macro‐ to Micro‐level requirements Elicitation) to elicit requirements for an ICIS. A prototype tool has been developed to support the operation of the methodology.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of the paper is that has not yet been tested in an existing organization.
Practical implications
To provide the analyst with well‐defined steps in order to elicit requirements of an ICIS. To understand the role of the elicitation technique selection step within the requirements elicitation process and identifying the factors which have an impact on this step. To select an appropriate elicitation technique according to these factors.
Originality/value
MAMIE integrates the three notions of goal, scenario and viewpoint to elicit requirements for an ICIS. The paper argues that these concepts may be used simultaneously and in a complementary way to improve the requirements elicitation process. Moreover, in order to increase the quality of the elicited requirements and thus the quality of the system‐to‐be, selecting an elicitation technique in MAMIE is not based on personal preferences but on situation assessment.
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