Search results

This article aims to investigate collaborative procurement as a sourcing strategy amongst competing small enterprises in an effort to reduce their material supply costs through increased efficiencies, bargaining power and economies of scale.

A case study approach is applied to a network of breweries that are regionally clustered. Interview data from producers, suppliers and industry experts is inductively interpreted to understand the viability, organisational impact and benefits/limitations of joint procurement activities.

The craft brewing industry follows a market place strategy of differentiation to achieve competitive advantage. This has supply chain implications that promote raw material diversity, which is in conflict with standardisation – a necessary factor for collective buying. Competition impacts information sharing and governance mechanism, while the structural factors of size asymmetry along and across the supply chain influence returns. These issues impact the potential economic benefits of collaborative procurement.

The research propositions have been developed in a specific industry but are generalisable to other companies with a differentiation strategy, especially in the consumer packaged goods sector.

Enabling conditions and constraints are captured in a framework and capability matrix, which can be used by practitioners to assess industry and product feasibility for collaborative procurement.

Previous studies of collaborative procurement have been in the public sector amongst large organisations. This work focusses on coopetition in the context of small businesses to identify the viability and cost-benefit of this strategy.

This paper aims to present the vertical integration state-of-the-art and propose an expansion of the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) field by identifying gaps and bottlenecks.

This paper uses a systematic literature review based on a sample of 173 OSCM field articles, collected from Scopus and Web of Science databases.

There are no single factors, such as future costs, structures or skills development, in the decision to vertically integrate operations. It is necessary to combine the vision of production costs with the perspective of governance and transaction costs. In addition, it is essential to consider the competency perspective and its impact on capability building.

Few studies have attempted to understand how vertical integration is used in terms of OSCM research themes and theories. Vertical integration can help companies face challenges and serve as a potential solution for achieving better prices, demand control and quality management.

The significant role of vertical integration mechanisms in supply chains is crucial for managers evaluating a firm's reconfiguration with more vertical operations. Policymakers interested in supporting the smoothness of vertical integration decisions in regulatory agencies play a key role as contingencies.

In times of global challenges, vertical integration is a strategy known to be more effective for firms to obtain a competitive advantage, making them more resilient.

This paper addresses gaps in the vertical integration theme and provides insights for future research development.

This paper aims to explore the increasing importance of the intraorganizational dimension of the sales role (IDSR) based on service-ecosystem theory. Specifically, it examines how firms can improve interactions both internally and with external actors and stakeholders to both create and sustain advantageous “thin crossing points” (Hartmann et al. 2018). Academic research on sales ecosystems has yet to fully harness the rich insights and potential afforded by the crossing-point perspective.

After developing and unpacking the paper’s guiding conceptual framework (Figure 1), the authors focus on crossing points and the diversity of interactions between the contemporary sales force and its many stakeholders. They examine the sales literature, identify opportunities for thinning sales crossing points and propose dozens of research questions and needs.

The paper examines the importance of improving interactions both within and outside the vendor firm to thin crossing points, further develops the concept of the “sales ecosystem” and contributes a series of important research questions for future examination.

The paper focuses on applying “thick” and “thin” crossing points, a key element of Hartman et al. (2018). The primary limitation of the paper is that it focuses solely on the crossing-points perspective and does not consider other applications of Hartman et al. (2018).

This work informs managers of the need to improve interactions both within and outside the firm by thinning crossing points. Improving relationships with stakeholders will improve many vendor firm and customer outcomes, including performance.

Integrating findings from the literature, the authors propose a conceptual framework to encompass the entire diversity of idiosyncratic interactions as well as long-term relationships the sales force experiences. They discuss the strategic importance of thinning crossing points as well as the competitive disadvantages, even peril, “thick” crossing points create. They propose an ambitious research agenda based on dozens of questions to drive further examination of the IDSR from a sales-ecosystem perspective.

This study aims to understand the impacts of Covid-19 on the progression of digitalization of banks in an emerging market. For this purpose, business model canvas (BMC) is used as a theoretical framework to explore these effects on each business elements of Turkish Banks’ business strategies.

Data are collected through structured interviews with the top managers of seven diversified banks. Interview questions are designed based on BMC.

The results show that the onset of the Covid-19 is a shock that has made digitalization a strategic issue that necessitates an urgent change in many business elements of banks such as customer relationships, communication channels, resource allocation, partnerships and financing. Further, it has stimulated redefining value proposition and collaboration/interaction among all financial institutions through digital platforms.

BMC can be used to explain decision-making and business processes of banks for exploring the effect of recent and/or unexpected developments in the business environment of an emerging economy. The results provide insights and recommendations to managers of financial institutions into the impacts of Covid-19 on banks’ operational and strategic processes. That allows financial institutions, including Fintechs, to use this information for taking precautions and proactive actions against shocks.

This study is an initial attempt to explore the impacts of the Covid-19 on banks in an emerging economy by using BMC. With that, this study contributes to the literature by explaining the effect of progression of digitalization in banking from a strategic business model perspective using a qualitative research method.

This study examines factors that influence organizations’ choices of an internal human capital development strategy and an external human capital acquisition strategy. The human resource architecture indicates that organizations will use different human capital acquisition strategies. Following the resource-based view, human capital theory and the human resource architecture, we examine factors that impact the choices of different human capital acquisition strategies.

We examine these important human capital decisions in the context of Major League Soccer. Data to test the hypotheses were collected from a variety of publicly available sources. We tested the hypotheses with regression analyses.

We find that while organizations employ both internal and external human capital strategies, organizations may have one dominant human capital strategy and the other strategy may be used to supplement the human capital needs of organizations. Additionally, our results indicate that organizations with an older workforce tend to use an internal human capital development strategy, while higher performing organizations are less likely to use an internal human capital development strategy.

This study makes contributions by examining the choices between internal and external human capital strategies and factors that influence the choice of an internal or external human capital strategy.

The metaverse, through artificial intelligence (AI) systems and capabilities, allows considerable data analysis in the workplace, largely exceeding traditional people analytics data collection. While concerns over surveillance and issues associated with privacy and discrimination have been raised, the metaverse has the potential to offer opportunities associated with fairer assessment of employee performance and enhancement of the employee experience, especially with respect to gender and race, inclusiveness and workplace equity. This paper aims at shedding light on the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) opportunities and challenges of implementing the metaverse in the workplace, and the role played by AI.

This paper draws on our past research on AI and the metaverse and provides insights addressed to human resources (HR) scholars and practitioners.

Our analysis of AI applications to the metaverse in the workplace sheds light on the ambivalent role of and potential trade-offs that may arise with this emerging technology. If used responsibly, the metaverse can enable positive changes concerning the future of work, which can promote DEI. Yet, the same technology can lead to negative DEI outcomes if implementations occur quickly, unsupervised and with a sole focus on efficiencies and productivity (i.e. collecting metrics, models etc.).

Managers and HR leaders should try to be first movers rather than followers when deciding if (or, better, when) to implement metaverse capabilities in their organizations. But how the metaverse is implemented will be strategic. This involves choices concerning the degree of invasive/pervasive monitoring (internal) as well as make or buy decisions concerning outsourcing AI capabilities.

Our paper is one among few (to date) that discusses AI capabilities in the metaverse at the intersection of the HR and information systems(IS) literature and that specifically tackles DEI issues. Also, we take a “balanced” approach when evaluating the metaverse from a DEI perspective. While most studies either demonize or celebrate these technologies from an ethical and DEI standpoint, we aim to highlight challenges and opportunities, with the goal to guide scholars and practitioners towards a responsible use of the metaverse in organizations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if a firm's exchange complexity profile (that is, the linkages between the firm and its environment) influences investor behavior at the negotiation table where a firm valuation is derived.

The authors utilize Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Specifically, the authors utilize fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), a QCA variant that allows the researcher to assign graduated membership in sets.

When the authors dichotomize their positions as either higher stakes that favor the seller (high capital, low equity, high valuation) or lower stakes that favor the buyer (low capital, high equity, low valuation), and when the authors focus primarily on the equity outcome, the authors find that investors adopt a reductionist stance that adheres to a transaction cost economics logic under conditions of lower stakes and higher complexity as well as higher stakes and lower complexity conditions. The authors interpret this to mean that equity serves as a counter-balancing lever for a firm's exchange complexity configuration.

On a theoretical level, the authors showcase the exchange complexity framework and differentiate its position within the extant frameworks that address a firm's competitive advantage. More generally, the authors note that this framework brings the discipline of micro-economics and the field of strategic management closer together, providing scholars with a new tool enabling research across industries for the portfolio level of analysis.

This study delves into how corporations make decisions about influencer marketing. Specifically, it examines the differences between human influencers, who carry the risk of scandals, and virtual influencers, a new and unpredictable realm, regarding their integration with social media platforms.

Using game theory and empirical data, the study explores crucial factors in influencer marketing, including influencer quality, reputation repair costs and the probability of R&D failures.

This study suggests that companies favor human influencers when the risk of scandal is low. However, competing companies switch to virtual influencers at different intervals as this risk increases. The costs, likelihood of scandals and competition intensity all play a role in a company's decision-making regarding technology management. Additionally, a higher chance of R&D failure can motivate a company to invest more in R&D to gain a competitive advantage over rivals that may suffer failures.

This study provides insights into how corporations manage social media influencer marketing in the digital age. It contributes to marketing theory and technology management decisions by offering a fresh perspective on the relationship between corporate reputation and influencer marketing strategy.

This study offers valuable perspectives into a relatively uncharted area of marketing strategy. It employs game theory and empirical analysis to introduce a fresh method of comprehending the dynamics of influencer marketing, its impact on corporate reputation management and its interaction with social media.

To co-create value through dynamic collaborations, enterprises and their suppliers need to orchestrate the integration of complementary resources when providing business services. As such enterprises' strategic decision to apply a plural sourcing strategy to establish dynamic collaborations with their suppliers implies that both in-house and outsourced business services should be bundled into a business services portfolio. However, the antecedents that affect a business services portfolio have rarely conceptually been identified.

Drawing on resource orchestration theory, the authors theoretically developed and empirically validated a business services portfolio conceptual model. The model aims at explaining the critical antecedents to a business services portfolio based on a unique data set, comprising 121 international enterprises with variation in the degree of outsourcing, size, geographies and maturity. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to examine the relationships among the antecedents and a business services portfolio.

The findings show that the antecedent, i.e. plural sourcing strategy, modularised business processes and customer orientation have a direct and significant effect on the enterprises' business services portfolio orchestration. The results of the mediation test indicate that modularised business processes fully mediate the relationships between three independent variables with the orchestration of business services portfolio.

This study is the first to analyse the impact of plural sourcing strategy, modularised business processes and customer orientation on the business services portfolio orchestration from a plural sourcing context. Additionally, it examines the mediating role of modularised business processes in the relationship between the antecedents and business services portfolio orchestration.

This study aims to analyse how multinational corporations (MNCs) organise value chain activities to penetrate new market segments. It contributes by expanding traditional decisions regarding the vertical fine-slicing of value chain activities (whether performed internally or externally) and the consideration of resource-sharing decisions (integration or separation) for each value chain function.

The authors draw on primary data collected from two case study firms operating in the large emerging Chinese market: Volvo Construction Equipment AB and Epiroc AB. In-depth cases illustrate how foreign MNCs expand into new market segments and simultaneously target both the lower-priced mid-market and the premium segments in the Chinese mining and construction industry.

The results reveal that product diversification creates challenges for managers who must oversee new (vertical) value chains, often simultaneously. Beyond geography and modes of governance, managers must decide whether to integrate or separate value chain activities for the new product lines. The study identifies four main strategic choices for firms to address this complexity, focusing on the decision to internalise or externalise (i.e. within or across organisational boundaries) and integrate or separate value chain activities between different product lines.

This study builds upon the internalisation theory and recent international business contributions that focus on value chain configurations to explain MNCs’ product diversification as a growth strategy in a host emerging market. It also sheds light on the choice of conducting new activities in-house or externally and elucidates firms’ managerial decisions to operationally integrate or separate individual value chain activities. The study provides insights into the drivers explaining managerial decisions to configure value chain activities across product lines and contributes to the growing body of literature on MNC activities in emerging economies by highlighting that product diversification impacts entry mode diversity and resource sharing across units.