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As a company that has continuously achieved business innovation, Apple in the United States has successfully applied strategic knowledge creation to produce a series of products that integrate various digital devices as well as diverse contents and applications, such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, based on a corporate vision of a digital hub concept. At the same time, the redefining of corporate boundaries that expanded Apple’s business in a horizontal direction from the Macintosh PC business to the delivery of music, smartphones, and tablets is also an indication of the evolution of a corporate vision involving Apple’s strategic transformation. This chapter presents the strategic and creative processes that enabled practitioners, including the late Steve Jobs, to demonstrate “strategic innovation capability” by “holistic leadership” at every level of management at Apple and successfully achieve a business ecosystem strategy through “creative collaboration” across diverse boundaries within and outside the company.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Company Dynamic Response Map (CDRM) risk management model that uses the dynamic capabilities concept. The study examines risks associated with strategic decision-making in construction projects and evaluates proposed methods that connect the dynamic capabilities of project-based organisations with risk management.

This preliminary study examines risks associated with strategic decision-making in construction projects and evaluates a proposed model that connects the dynamic capabilities of project-based organisations with risk management. Specifically, the CDRM model is evaluated, a risk management model developed by Arena et al. (2013) to better respond to risks and opportunities based on the concept of dynamic capabilities.

We argue that although the CDRM presents a promising development in that it uses dynamic capabilities prospectively in a risk management model to produce tangible results, there are, nonetheless, impediments to the CDRM being used by construction clients. The primary impediment relates to the issue of categorisation, the difficulty in assigning a specific identified risk to a particular category of dynamic capabilities.

A conceptual argument is made and not an empirical one.

The CDRM model was developed to be used in practice and this paper evaluates that model.

Contributes to both the dynamic capabilities literature as well as risk management literature. The paper ends with a discussion on the possible merits of the CDRM, and an evaluation on potential impediments to its use by construction clients.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the capability map that addresses the potential of transactional Shared Service Centers (SSCs). The mapping approach represents a heuristic logic that provides means for analyzing SSC operation, connects SSCs capabilities with their value, and supports academics and practitioners in developing a transactional SSC that is of strategic importance.

This chapter reports on findings from a longitudinal case study within an organization that has implemented a transactional Human Resource (HR) SSC. Over a period of three years, several formal and informal meetings were attended, more than 20 interviews were conducted with SSC MT and customers, over 500 pages of project documentation and memos were studied, which allowed after integration for an in-depth analysis of how resources are bundled to build different types of capabilities.

We uncovered and mapped the operational and dynamic capabilities of a transactional SSC, their role in value creation, and their interdependencies. While the operational capabilities enable the HR SSC to provide day-to-day services to take care of individual end-users and support the business, the dynamic capabilities enable transformation of HR delivery throughout the organization and increase HR’s strategic contribution.

One limitation of this study is the extent to which the capabilities and their role in value creation are generalizable to transactional non-HR SSCs. SSCs providing services that cover other business functions might develop and deploy different capabilities. The use of a capability map is not limited to the capabilities uncovered in this study, however.

In the literature, the primary focus regarding transactional services is limited to cost savings and efficiency. This chapter addresses the potential of the transactional SSC and introduces the capability map as a tool to leverage its potential.

This research explores perceptions of knowledge management processes held by managers and employees in a service industry. To date, empirical research on knowledge management in the service industry is sparse. This research seeks to examine absorptive capacity and its four capabilities of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation and their impact on effective knowledge management. All of these capabilities are strategies that enable external knowledge to be recognized, imported and integrated into, and further developed within the organization effectively. The research tests the relationships between absorptive capacity and effective knowledge management through analysis of quantitative data (n = 549) drawn from managers and employees in 35 residential aged care organizations in Western Australia. Responses were analysed using Partial Least Square-based Structural Equation Modelling. Additional analysis was conducted to assess if the job role (of manager or employee) and three industry context variables of profit motive, size of business and length of time the organization has been in business, impacted on the hypothesized relationships.

Structural model analysis examines the relationships between variables as hypothesized in the research framework. Analysis found that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities correlated significantly with effective knowledge management, with absorptive capacity explaining 56% of the total variability for effective knowledge management. Findings from this research also show that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities provide a useful framework for examining knowledge management in the service industry. Additionally, there were no significant differences in the perceptions held between managers and employees, nor between respondents in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Furthermore, the size of the organization and length of time the organization has been in business did not impact on absorptive capacity, the four capabilities and effective knowledge management.

The research considers implications for business in light of these findings. The role of managers in providing leadership across the knowledge management process was confirmed, as well as the importance of guiding routines and knowledge sharing throughout the organization. Further, the results indicate that within the participating organizations there are discernible differences in the way that some organizations manage their knowledge, compared to others. To achieve effective knowledge management, managers need to provide a supportive workplace culture, facilitate strong employee relationships, encourage employees to seek out new knowledge, continually engage in two-way communication with employees and provide up-to-date policies and procedures that guide employees in doing their work. The implementation of knowledge management strategies has also been shown in this research to enhance the delivery and quality of residential aged care.

This chapter examines the possibilities of economic growth in Russia from the perspective of the development of organizational capability, namely through the study of best managerial practices of multinational companies (MNCs) doing business in Russia, and their use by Russian companies. With tightening competition, companies are forced to focus on the development of organizational capabilities. Our large-scale empirical research into the managerial capabilities and management practices of MNCs and Russian companies employs a comprehensive sample of 1,530 companies and 1,245 companies in 2016 and 2017, respectively, covering the 10 main sectors of economic activity in Moscow and the Moscow region. The analysis was performed across five managerial capabilities: communication, leadership, problem-solving and decision-making, conflict resolution, and motivation, each subdivided into five management practices. Using statistical methods, we identified the major statistically significant differences in and between the managerial practices of MNCs and Russian companies operating in the Russian market, and their dynamics from 2016 to 2017. Taking MNCs operating in the Russian market as a benchmark, we discover that Russian companies need to close the gap in 17 out of the 25 managerial practices in order to maintain competitiveness in the Russian market and be able to influence their economic growth in Russia.

While earlier research discussed networking and alliance strategies of born globals on a strategic level, this paper investigates and analyses the specific organizational skills that enable the firms to successfully initiate, manage and finish their R&D alliances with Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). It is discussed how the specific aspects of the alliance capability can help born globals to counteract the challenges and risks of collaborating with MNEs. A longitudinal process study of a Danish technology born global with three embedded cases of its R&D and marketing alliances with Asian MNEs is discussed. The organizational skills comprising the alliance capability are defined to be internal and external assessment skills, need detection and coupling skills, asset protection skills, project management skills, termination skills and the learning processes to build the alliance capability further. A set of propositions is developed to tie these organizational skills to alliance performance.

Part I of this chapter applies the principles of the philosophy of science and the derived scientific method to analyze the foundational concepts and core proposition of the Resource-Base View (RBV) as popularized by Barney (1986, 1991, 1997). This analysis identifies seven fundamental conceptual deficiencies and logic problems in Barney's conceptualization of “strategically valuable resources” and in Barney's VRIO framework for identifying strategically valuable resources that can be sources of sustained competitive advantage. Three problems – the Value Conundrum, the Tautology Problem in the Identification of Resources, and the Absence of a Chain of Causality – relate to the RBV's and VRIO's failure to provide an adequate conceptual basis for identifying strategically valuable resources. The Uniqueness Dilemma, the Cognitive Impossibility Dilemma, and an Asymmetry in Assumptions about Resource Factor Markets result in an inability of the VRIO framework to support identification of resources that can be sources of sustained competitive advantage. More fundamentally, the core proposition of the RBV – that resources that are strategically valuable, rare, inimitable, and organizationally embedded are sources of sustainable competitive advantage – is argued to result directly in the Epistemological Impossibility Problem that precludes use of the scientific method in RBV research. This chapter argues that until these conceptual deficiencies and logic problems are recognized and remedied, the RBV – in spite of its current popularity – is and will remain theoretically sterile and incapable of contributing in any systematic way to the development of strategy theory.

Part II of this chapter then suggests how foundational concepts developed within the competence perspective on strategy provide essential remedies for the identified deficiencies and problems in the RBV – and thereby provide a more conceptually adequate basis for representing the nature of firms in the scientific study of their interactions and competitive outcomes.

This paper has a threefold purpose. First, we offer a literature review on alliance capability based on strategic and competence-based management literature. Second, we extend existing literature on alliance capability by breaking this concept down into five subcapabilities, each of which is linked to a stage of the alliance life cycle. Finally, we suggest how firms can support these capabilities through structural, technological, and people-related tools and techniques. We argue that current literature has focused mainly on organization-wide characteristics, the general alliance function, and alliance experience to explain the level of alliance capability. Although we acknowledge the importance of these elements, we stress that more attention needs to be given to the various stage-specific components, actions, and supportive mechanisms that can result in an improved alliance capability.