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This study addresses foreign markets selection decisions by Russian mobile telecommunications operators and the impact of top management team composition on the degree of firms’ internationalization.

The qualitative exploratory study analyzed 24 foreign market entry decisions and the composition of the top management team of the two leading Russian mobile telecommunications operators, VimpelCom and Mobile Telesystems (MTS/AFK Sistema).

Russian mobile telecommunications operators adopted a gradual approach to foreign market selection, as the study revealed the positive impact of the target market’s geographic proximity to Russia on the investment decision. The international background of the top management team was positively related to the increasing distance of the selected foreign markets.

Further studies may include quantitative evaluation of investment decisions by mobile telecommunications operators from other emerging-market firms, as well as a longer observation period and investment decisions by firms operating in other industries.

Russian and other emerging-market firms should evaluate the importance of the top management team composition and international experience prior to initiation of the internationalization process.

Russian multinationals represent a relatively understudied phenomenon, despite the importance of outward foreign direct investments from Russia among other emerging-market firms.

The purpose of this paper to analyse Hutchison Whampoa's involvement in the telecommunication industry.

A brief overview of Hutchison Whampoa is provided before a timeline of the company's involvement in the telecommunications industry is presented. This is followed by the recounting of the company's performance in three areas, namely geographical footprint, mobile subscribers and financial returns. After discussing these three areas, an assessment of the company's exposure to 3G markets is made.

One finding is that Hutchison Whampoa has actively engaged in the telecommunications industry through buying and selling businesses, often through complex organisational structures. A second finding is that the company has been very successful in the past at building and selling mobile operations, though it is unlikely to be as successful with its current series of 3G investments.

Some of the data used in the paper are hard to establish with certainty.

The ownership of service providers and the services available may change as Hutchison Whampoa manages its portfolio of telecommunication investments.

As a late entrant in many markets, Hutchison Whampoa has aggressively sought to capture market share, resulting in new services and lower prices. Whether this will continue in the future is uncertain.

There are no other case studies of Hutchison Whampoa's involvement in the telecommunications industry in the public domain.

Unravels the main points of the mobile telecoms industry that are likeliest to change, discussing prospects for diffusion of third generation technology. Illustrates the main factors likely to change in the mobile telecoms industry in the next few years and looks at its evolution. Uses figures to aid in explanation and concludes that predictions of how the industry will proceed are difficult to make at the present time.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers in the special issue on “Next generation mobile telecommunications networks challenges to the Nordic ICT industries”.

This introductory paper summarises the key points of each paper.

The competitive environment of the Nordic ICT industries has changed and is far more complex now compared to the previous single‐standard environment of 2G. The avenues for influencing competition between basic technology platforms and standards are much narrower and involve interaction with a much greater number of stakeholders and technologies on a global level.

The six papers of this Special Issue highlight interesting viewpoints both on the possible future evolution of the mobile telecommunications industry in general, as well as on the past development and present challenges that the Nordic countries face.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to show how yield management and dynamic pricing, which originated in the airline industry, are now diffusing in other service industries. The aim is to demonstrate that these techniques can be profitably applied to telecommunications and similar sectors and to examine the particular conditions of their implementation, development and efficiency.

The main concepts of yield management, dynamic pricing and CRM are carefully scrutinized. Also discussed is the concept of natural demand curve that aims at reaching a better compromise between the capacity of a company and the demand in an environment where services cannot be sold in advance. In order to sustain the analysis and demonstrate its managerial implications, five case studies are presented that exemplify some aspects of yield management techniques in the telecommunication sector.

Since the telecommunications are undergoing a process of increased competition and dynamic convergence, yield management techniques can help telecom operators to optimize the benefits they can derive from a subtle management of information networks and partnerships. However, such an approach is more difficult to implement in the telecommunication industry than in the airlines sector because of the difficulty to control (and sometimes refuse) network access to customers.

Capacity and revenue management become critical differentiation factors in improving service quality, loyalty and profitability. Given the increase in competitive pressure, the main objective of operators to sell customer access database to potential partners represents a radical change in the nature of financial and information flows and leads to a “customized management of services supply”.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of service quality, perceived usefulness and users’ cognitive satisfaction to determine the third-generation (3G) mobile phone users’ behavioural retention in using 3G telecommunications services.

A total of 243 valid questionnaires were collected from 3G users in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. The combination of partial least squares (PLS) path modelling approach and structural equation modelling (SEM; PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyze the measurement and structural model.

Our empirical assessment supports the proposed research hypotheses and further suggests that service quality is a second-order reflective construct comprising navigation and visual design, management and customer service and system reliability and connection quality.

Prior studies have examined the impact of service quality, perceived usefulness, overall users’ satisfaction and behavioural intention on an information system in general. This study is among the few studies that have attempted to gain insights into 3G users’ post-adoption experience with telecommunications services.

This study aims to recognize the growing importance of Open Innovation (OI) theory and practice in the broader fields of Management and Information Systems, and focuse on the relationship existing between OI and a firm’s Business Strategy. Hence, the study aims at investigating the multifaceted OI – Strategy nexus at a business level, assessing how OI initiatives influence Strategy within the Mobile Telecommunications Industry and thus contributing to framing and classifying such inherent relationship.

A data-driven research approach is used, based on 45 qualitative interviews on firms operating in the Mobile Industry and involved in OI initiatives.

Six cross-themes the OI–Strategy relationship in the Mobile Industry revolves around are identified, i.e. OI and Competitive Advantage; OI and Strategic Positioning; OI and Business Models; OI in Networks; OI and Co-opetition; and OI and Resilient Business Advantages. For each theme, examples from the sample of interviewed Mobile firms are organized and reported. The key managerial issues emerging in the attempt to relate OI initiatives and the firm’s overarching Strategy are also underscored and organized in three streams, namely, designing an open business model; achieving competitive advantage through value capture; and nurturing OI as a dynamic capability.

The proposed reorganization of real-world OI and strategic initiatives in the Mobile Industry, together with the underscoring of key managerial issues, constitutes a comprehensive research agenda or roadmap, with value for both academics and practitioners.