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While the concept of partnerships has received much attention in the literature, the focus has primarily been on the manufacturing firm. This paper explores the similarities and differences in partnerships from the perspectives of manufacturing and non‐manufacturing firms. Findings indicate that non‐manufacturing firms have had longer relationships with their partners than manufacturing firms. In addition, non‐manufacturing firms considered a reduction of procurement and administrative costs, in addition to price and reliability, as important reasons to enter partnerships, while manufacturing firms emphasized the price, quality, and delivery of products.

The purpose of this article is to analyze both the opportunity recognition and product development management processes not only among technology firms, but among non‐technology firms as well at two points in time, 1998 and 2003.

The current study included two data sets: a 1998 survey of technology‐based and non‐technology firms located in US incubators; and a new 2003 study of technology and non‐technology based firms in the Inland Northwest. All respondents indicated they considered themselves entrepreneurs.

Findings suggest that the opportunity recognition process changed between 1998 and 2003. Some of the authors' prior work suggested that the process, at least for technology‐based firms, had been similar between 1989 and 1998. Industry changes over time, perhaps different firm types, and insufficient data could be rational reasons for the changes. Thus, as far as the opportunity recognition process then, there is evidence that suggests that the process is different for manufacturing and non‐manufacturing firms.

The study of management and marketing processes should be performed by industry or business type over time. The researcher should consider that if the opportunity recognition or product development management processes reflect the changing nature of entrepreneurship over time, then characterizing those processes as constant models is inappropriate.

The overall results are consistent with other research studies and serve to further substantiate the use of single industry data. An “equation of state” for an opportunity recognition model or a product development management model is suggested by the empirical results reported on in the current paper as well as the diversity of other researchers' work.

Despite the fact that much has been published about Six Sigma in the business and academic press and on the Internet in recent years, there is still confusion among many people, particularly those who work in the transactional and service environments, about the nature of Six Sigma. It is true that Six Sigma like other process improvement programs before was first applied to manufacturing processes; however, many corporations including General Electric and sony have successfully applied Six Sigma to their transactional and service processes as well. Six Sigma is used by many companies not only to improve the quality of their products and services but also to achieve quantifiable financial results, improve management style and communication, and achieve customer and employee satisfaction. Whether in manufacturing on non‐manufacturing environments, the application of Six Sigma differs from organisation to organisation. Although there are many common elements between these applications, however, special care must be taken when customizing Six Sigma to suite the organisation’s needs. In this paper, the author provides some practical and useful guidelines for Six Sigma deployment. This paper is not about the use of numerous statistical tools and techniques that can be found in a typical Six Sigma toolbox. The main emphasis has been placed both on the concept and the implementation of Six Sigma, particularly within the non‐manufacturing areas of business.

The objective of this article is to explore the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) of firms in Taiwan, as the empirical evidence of Taiwan firms is scarce.

This paper studies the empirical relation between CSP and CFP using a sample of 71 Taiwan-based companies during 2005-2011. CSP data are a composite of two Taiwan’s CSP ratings, and CFP data are retrieved from Taiwan Economic Journal database. Two control variables, R&D investment (R&D) and industry type (IND), are included in our models. The multiple regression is used as a statistical analysis tool.

Our findings indicate a significantly positive CSP–CFP relationship of firms in Taiwan. Furthermore, our study reveals that the CSP in the non-manufacturing sector is more highly related with CFP than the case in the manufacturing sector in Taiwan.

First, Our findings are consistent with the majority of recent research and are supported by the stakeholder theory. The paper argues that Taiwan firms should incorporate CSP into their business strategies for improving their competitive advantages. Second, our findings argue that Taiwan firms in the manufacturing sector should learn the best CSP practices from firms in the non-manufacturing sector to maintain and enhance their sustainability. Third, this paper extends the subject study of Taiwan scenario, and it is the first paper combining two CSP local ratings as the proxy for the CSP measure.

As program managers seek to improve the quality, speed and financial benefits of the programs they manage, many are turning to process improvement methodologies, such as Lean Six Sigma (LSS). However, although existing literature includes multiple studies that apply the methodology to non-manufacturing environments, there is no specific framework for applying LSS within program management (PM). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between LSS tools, project scope, program phase and functional area and project outputs, in PM organizations.

The study uses archival data from 511 LSS projects completed from 2006 to 2015 by a large government agency in the USA composed of 13 PM organizations. The study focuses on four types of input factors: LSS tools, project scope, program phase and functional area; and two output variables: LSS project average financial benefits and percentage of improvement. Multiple regressions are applied to determine what relationships exist between the input and output variables, as well as the nature of such relationships.

The results of this study show LSS is beneficial to PM and also indicate which tools and organizational contexts have positive and negative associations with project outcomes, serving as guide for future applications. In addition, this study can provide clarity and confidence to program managers who are currently skeptical of LSS, by showing that it can provide cost, schedule and performance improvements beneficial to their programs.

Limitations of this research include the use of a single government agency in the USA, the non-experimental design of the study and limitations associated with the nature and data collection process of the archival data. Future studies should include additional PM organizations, input variables and research designs.

There is no specific framework formalizing the concept of LSS application within PM. The literature includes several studies that apply the methodology to non-manufacturing environments, but not to PM specifically. Furthermore, the existing literature on PM does not explicitly cite any continuous improvement methodology as a critical success factor or provide any detailed guidelines for the application of LSS in PM. This paper contributes by studying the relationships between LSS tools, project scope, program phase and functional area, and project outputs, in a PM environment.

This research paper aims to: explore areas of weakness in six sigma implementations that may require enhancements in the methodology; to investigate implementation differences between manufacturing and services; and to investigate critical success factors.

Exploratory empirical evidence is presented from nine case study companies in Thailand, including manufacturers, sales and service companies and a national airline.

Key findings include: six sigma is more appropriate for high risk, complicated, large‐scale and cross functional projects; the six sigma methodology could be enhanced to ensure that projects are aligned to company goals; the evidence questions standard text book advice that a “Black Belt” (BB) should have a full time role, as a part‐time BB role can be more realistic particularly in a small company and the training materials available need to be improved to be more appropriate for service operations.

The main research limitation is in the number of companies studied and the restriction to companies located in Thailand. In addition, the research is exploratory and future research is needed to look at the issues raised in depth.

All of the findings have practical implications. For example, the conclusion on the nature of the BB role is seen as a key issue for successful use of six sigma in small businesses.

Six sigma has been widely used in industry, but there has been limited rigorous academic research. This paper seeks to identify a series of issues worthy of further attention from the academic community using a rigorous research approach.

The article is concerned with company demand for broad money in the post‐Competition and Credit Control period. Equations are estimated for (a) all industrial and commercial companies and (b) a sample of large manufacturing and non‐manufacturing companies. The main findings are (1) that economies of scale in money holdings are only evident for large companies, (2) that only the large manufacturing companies respond significantly to changes in long‐term interest rates and (3) that adjustment of money holdings to changes in income and interest rates is completed within six months.

It is demonstrated that entropy is a useful measure for examining industrial diversity either among regions or for a particular region over time. Using the entropy method, employment diversity indices are computed for the 50 states and the district of Columbia for the ten‐year period from 1972 to 1981. Of the 51 study areas, roughly half show high to moderate diversification, and none are distinguished as either highly diversified or highly specialised. Furthermore, the entropy measure is disaggregated into its between‐set and within‐set elements to express the extent and pattern of dispersal between and within different groups and subsets of industries in the United States for the 28‐year period from 1960 to 1987. The US economy is found to be relatively diversified in terms of employment over the period of study. However, there is a decreasing contribution of manufacturing and an increasing contribution of non‐manufacturing to the degree of economic diversification within the total economy.

Sustainability is an accepted measure of business performance, with reductions in energy demand a commonly practised sustainability initiative by multinational corporations (MNCs). Traditional energy models have limited scope when applied to the entire MNC as the models exhibit high data and time intensity, high technical proficiency, specificity of application and omission of non-manufacturing activities. The purpose of this paper is to propose a process centric energy model (PCEM), which adopts a novel approach of applying business processes for business energy assessment and optimisation. Business processes are a fundamental requirement of MNCs across all sectors. The defining features of the proposed model are genericity, reproducibility, minimum user input data, reduced modelling time and energy evaluation of non-manufacturing activities. The approach forwards the adoption of Industry 4.0, a subset of which focuses on business process automation or part thereof.

A quantitative approach is applied in development of the PCEM. The methodology is demonstrated by application to the procure to pay and electroplating business processes.

The PCEM quantifies and optimises the business energy demand and associated carbon dioxide emissions of the procure to pay and electroplating business processes, validating the application of business processes. The application demonstrates minimum user inputs as only equipment operational parameters are required and minimum modelling time as business process models and optimisation options are pre-defined requiring only user modification. As MNCs have common business processes across multiple sites, once a business process energy demand is quantified, its inputs are applied as the default in the proceeding sites, only requiring updating. The model has no specialist skills requirement enabling business wide use and eliminating costs associated with training and expert’s services. The business processes applied in the evaluation are developed by the researchers and are not as comprehensive as those in actual MNCs, but is sufficiently detailed to accurately calculate an MNC energy demand. The model databases are not exhaustive of all resources found in MNCs.

This paper provides a new approach to MNC business energy assessment and optimisation. The model can be applied to MNEs across all sectors. The model allows the integration of manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities, as it occurs in practice, providing holistic business energy assessment and optimisation. The model analyses the impacts of the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies on business energy demand, CO₂ emission and personnel hours.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way in which CEOs are shielded or rewarded for incurring R&D expenses. Strategic expenses such as R&D yield returns over a long period of time even though GAAP requires them to be written off in the period they are incurred. Going beyond the existing shielding paradigm, the paper investigates whether compensation committees actively reward CEOs for incurring strategic expenses.

The paper uses empirical analysis by using regression analysis with CEO compensation (both cash and equity) as the dependent variable and firm size, firm performance, earnings risk, market‐to‐book ratio, R&D expenses, advertising expenses and governance variables as control, independent and test variables.

The paper shows that CEOs are not only shielded but are actively rewarded for incurring R&D expenses. The paper also shows that the shield/reward effects are stronger in manufacturing firms. Finally, the paper shows that independent compensation committees increase rewards for R&D expenses.

Given the small sample of firms with advertising expense data, a larger sample, possibly using hand‐collected data will be required to arrive at definitive conclusions regarding shielding/rewarding for advertising. Furthermore, the shielding of both R&D and advertising expenses should be looked at in conjunction with the duration of the persistence of benefits of such strategic expenses.

This paper shows how compensation committees can use compensation to induce executives to undertake strategic expenses on behalf of the firm.