Search results

This paper seeks to describe a methodology for intellectual capital reporting which was successfully tested in Germany. Special focus is on developing a short list of IC drivers for urgent management intervention.

Building on established self‐assessment methodologies from quality management and concepts of system dynamics, an action research design was applied to develop an intellectual capital reporting framework.

It is possible to identify and to assess intellectual capital drivers for corporate results and to prioritize them according to marginal economic contribution. Based on concepts from system dynamics, group learning processes and organizational learning processes are stimulated. Investing scarce resources in specific drivers of intellectual capital with high impact on the organization and additional high levels of managerial control supports long‐term performance.

The research builds on self‐organizing principles; the quality of intellectual capital assessment thus depends massively on the rigour of the team involved. Comparability of assessments is limited, as the standard reference is the organization's strategy.

The suggested methodology builds heavily on methods already established in SMEs and is compatible with general management approaches. It is economical by design and delivers insight into the functioning of the organization as well as insights on future fields for management intervention.

This methodology combines two established concepts of self‐assessment and system analysis and applies them to intellectual capital in order to resolve the decision problem of allocating funds based on economic efficiency and impact.

To describe the process of customer segmentation by data mining and expert judgment in a real‐world setting.

Data collected in four case studies of on‐line enquiries via one web‐based intermediary and customer profiling were used as the input to K‐means clustering calculations relating to four tourist destinations in Thailand, two already familiar internationally and two less so.

The case study illustrates the use of data mining techniques to unravel the basic pattern of customer enquiries across various attributes, as an input to actionable strategies.

The methodology limits inferences to the single organization studied across the four destinations.

The findings suggest a practical planning strategy for customer segmentation in similar on‐line situations. The methodology incorporates both qualitative and quantitative phases, and can be easily be applied in practice.

The paper, focusing on Thailand, presents an application of data mining techniques in the on‐line travel industry.

THE Fifty‐First Conference of the Library Association takes place in the most modern type of British town. Blackpool is a typical growth of the past fifty years or so, rising from the greater value placed upon the recreations of the people in recent decades. It has the name of the pleasure city of the north, a huge caravansary into which the large industrial cities empty themselves at the holiday seasons. But Blackpool is more than that; it is a town with a vibrating local life of its own; it has its intellectual side even if the casual visitor does not always see it as readily as he does the attractions of the front. A week can be spent profitably there even by the mere intellectualist.

Small business enterprises (SBEs) are a very critical element of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector especially in the underdeveloped locations of the country. SBEs not only provide employment but also support the local economy by way of their products and services. In modern times, their presence on the digital platform is becoming essential and thus, these types of studies are required to bring to the table the issues and practices from the less represented sections of the sector. This study attempts to understand the responsiveness of the SBEs in Sikkim, India, and Bhutan in terms of their frequency of digital marketing (DM) usage. This study also attempts to understand the relationship between the factors affecting the practice or adoption of DM among the SBEs of Bhutan and Sikkim, India. For this purpose, empirical data were gathered from 320 SBEs from Sikkim and Bhutan representing the various sectors as defined by the national governments of the two countries. The SBEs of Bhutan and Sikkim are not found to be very active on the front of DM. The SBEs in these two locations need to become more active in using the digital platforms and tools to promote their products and services. The industry trends and government support in the form of infrastructural development are expected to play a vital role in orienting the SBEs into the adoption of DM in a better way. This study is crucial for the MSME sector, the government, telecom services providers, and local entrepreneurs.

Indian higher education (HE) is arguably “in the doldrums.” Conformity to minimum standards and requirements combined with ever-eroding quality is the serious threats. Many researchers have suggested adopting a functional approach in universities and developing greater autonomy and accountability to improve the situation. The purpose of this paper is to deliberate on the introduction of an integrated way of making teachers more involved in their profession with the intention of enhancing the quality of education and research.

The paper’s argument conceptualizes the possibilities of the Indian HE system benchmarking the concept of high-performance teams (HTPs) as practiced in the industry.

Taking the support from the extant literature, it is proposed that working in HTPs have the potential to elevate the involvement level of the faculty. Furthermore, it is suggested that through the implementation of HTPs in educational settings, teachers would also be able to develop their competencies in relation to research activities.

The model presented in the study has the potential to be empirically tested for its validity and reliability, which opens vistas for future research.

In this paper the authors investigate precarious value creation in English football clubs. They examine strategic, economic, cultural and social capital to analyse the orientations of legal owners of football clubs (entrepreneurs) and the implications for moral owners (the fans). Their research question is not if entrepreneurs create value – but whether the value created is productive or destructive.

The research design is a case study of the professional football industry, specifically 44 football clubs in the top two professional divisions in England, namely the English Premier League and the English Football League Championship. The authors’ methodology is secondary textual data. Their approach is to examine official club statements, triangulated with regional and national press reports, fan accounts and narratives from published artefacts; fan blogs and websites.

The “opening up” of the professional football industry in England to market forces in 1983 has subsequently attracted entrepreneurs that use football clubs as artefacts to pursue other business interests. Over-grazing on strategic and economic capital at the expense and exploitation of social and cultural capital exists. As entrepreneurial opportunities to exploit a football club's assets becomes more apparent, the unique relationship between club and fan is being strained. The authors observe detachment, disenchantment and protest.

The data sought for this study design was necessarily in the public domain and therefore drawn from secondary sources. The scope was English football and the top two divisions, thus the findings are context specific to that region and level.

For policy, the authors call for a new government inquiry into football ownership in English football, re-examining heritage, purpose and value creation.

Football fans are the majority stakeholder in the football industry but are under-represented in English football because of the private ownership of football clubs. Fans are, however, a barometer for how their owners are acting as custodians of their clubs and if the value created by entrepreneurs is productive or exploitative.

This paper has value in drawing attention to this unique and ignored industry from an entrepreneurship perspective, provoking a call for further research to explore this phenomenon. Sustainable value creation may be a useful framework for further research in this and other industries.

This paper aims to improve customer knowledge management practices in industrial firms by examining the role of knowledge integration mechanisms (KIMs) and customer-oriented reward systems in non-marketing managers’ use of customer information.

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 221 R & D and manufacturing managers from large, Finnish industrial companies. Ordinary least squares regression with bootstrap procedures was used to test the hypotheses.

The use of KIMs mediates the positive effect of customer-oriented reward systems on non-marketing managers’ use of customer information. However, non-marketing managers’ previous work experience in sales and marketing negatively moderates the effect of customer-oriented reward systems on the use of customer information. The use of knowledge integration systems mediates this moderation effect.

This paper provides empirical evidence concerning the antecedents of successful customer knowledge transfer from sales and marketing to R & D and manufacturing. The findings imply that non-marketing managers with T-shaped skills (previous work experience also in sales and marketing) are unlikely to increase their use of KIMs if they are exposed to customer-oriented reward systems. Hence, broadening employees’ knowledge base substitutes for using customer-oriented reward systems as a tool for improving customer information use.

Building on the research on customer knowledge management, marketing’s cross-functional relationships and the motivation for knowledge transfer, this paper increases our understanding of how to develop organizational support for customer knowledge transfer. The authors consider both the impact of reward systems and their interaction with employees’ knowledge and skills.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of green strategies as a combination of energy-efficiency measures and solutions towards environmental impact reduction for improving environmental sustainability at logistics sites. Such measures are examined by discussing the related impacts, motivations and barriers that could influence the measures' adoption. Starting from the framework, directions for future research in this field are outlined.

The proposed framework was developed starting from a systematic literature review (SLR) approach on 60 papers published from 2008 to 2022 in international peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings.

The framework identifies six main areas of intervention (“green strategies”) towards green warehousing, namely Building, Utilities, Lighting, Material Handling and Automation, Materials and Operational Practices. For each strategy, specific energy-efficiency measures and solutions towards environmental impact reduction are further pinpointed. In most cases, “green-gold” measures emerge as the most appealing, entailing environmental and economic benefits at the same time. Finally, for each measure the relationship with the measures' primary impacts is discussed.

From an academic viewpoint, the framework fills a major gap in the scientific literature since, for the first time, this study elaborates the concept of green warehousing as a result of energy-efficiency measures and solutions towards environmental impact reduction. A classification of the main areas of intervention (“green strategies”) is proposed by adopting a holistic approach. From a managerial perspective, the paper addresses a compelling need of practitioners – e.g. logistics service providers (LSPs), manufacturers and retailers – for practices and solutions towards greener warehousing processes to increase energy efficiency and decrease the environmental impact of the practitioners' logistics facilities. In this sense, the proposed framework can provide valuable support for logistics managers that are about to approach the challenge of turning the managers' warehouses into greener nodes of the managers' supply chains.

The purpose of this study is to introduce a unified framework, which integrates knowledge management (KM) (knowledge acquisition, diffusion and application, knowledge from a customer, knowledge about customers and knowledge for customers), customer relationship management (CRM) success (information sharing, customer involvement, long-term partnership, joint-problem solving and technology-based CRM) and innovation capabilities (ICs) (product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, service innovation and administrative innovation). Then empirically test the effect of KM on CRM success, the effect of CRM success on IC and the impact of KM on IC through the mediator.

Statistical techniques used included confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling using AMOS to test the hypotheses.

The results show that KM influences CRM success, which, in turn, affects IC and KM impacts IC through CRM success.

The study uses data provided by only one key informant per firm, which could involve a degree of subjectivity. This study is cross-sectional, which prevents us from examining the evolution over time of the phenomenon under investigation.

If organizations fully comprehend KM and CRM, they would be able to implement them successfully, creating value for their companies and fostering IC.

The existing research on CRM and KM is primarily conceptual and descriptive in nature and empirical research confirming the real impact of KM processes when developing a CRM innovation is lacking. The relationship between ICs and CRM has not been adequately studied. Hence, this study introduces a conceptual framework, which integrates KM, CRM, ICs and empirically tests the relationships among them.