Search results

The purpose of this paper is to describe how one company built and sustained market leadership by implementing a market‐oriented business strategy involving defensive and offensive management.

With an historical approach, this article examines how L'Oréal's Consumer Products Division increased its dominance in its domestic cosmetics industry. Data were extracted from the IRI Census Database (retail panel data). Some data, as they remain confidential, were not included in the paper.

The transition from an offensive to a defensive management style (and vice versa) is part of the dialectic in relations between the company and its environment, including consumers (demand), competitors (their behaviour in the market) and market conditions (growth, stability, decline) in an extended sense (see Kohli and Jaworski).

The joint management of offensive and defensive market‐oriented strategies leads to enhanced competitive positioning and increased market share of a portfolio of brands and products.

The trade‐off between offensive and defensive management, involving whether managers are influenced by or influence the structure and the behaviour of market players, depends on their mental disposition toward challenges in increasingly competitive mass markets.

Prior discussions of offensive and defensive management approaches have remained mainly theoretical. Through the illustration of the undisputable leader of the cosmetics sector, this study offers a practical example that can help companies reconsider how they differentiate themselves from competitors with respect to market conditions. This case offers an initial investigation of offensive and defensive management.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Companies operating in mass markets have to ask themselves lots of questions about the importance of innovation. Innovation is a key factor in encouraging growth but this always has to be balanced with the importance of satisfying existing consumer needs. In other words, a firm sometimes has to concentrate on adapting to market conditions, but sometimes it will seek to change those conditions.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Since recent research has found that offensively oriented players receive a salary premium, the current study recognizes this observed premium might exist because offense is worth more in terms of revenue generation. Given the popular sports saying, “Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships,” the authors quantify whether offense really does sell more “tickets” than defense in the NBA.

Using NBA team revenue data as well as team offensive and defensive win shares, the authors estimate several econometric specifications to test if teams generate more revenue for offensive wins compared to defensive wins. The authors also employ a multi-year free agency study to identify if NBA players receive more compensation for offensive production than they do for defensive production.

The authors find no statistical difference in revenue generation from offense compared to defense. The authors confirm these findings both before and after revenue sharing. These results are also robust to alternative specifications. Therefore, the authors conclude that fans do not prefer offense to defense in terms of their spending. Contrary to previous research, the authors find no evidence of an offensive premium paid to NBA players.

Based on their findings, offensively oriented players should not receive a salary premium. The clear implication for team decision makers is that offensive production should be compensated at a similar rate as defensive production. Since the authors do not find evidence of an offensive premium for offensive production, their research suggests a likely labor market equilibrium in the NBA for both profit-maximizing and win-maximizing teams.

In the age of analytical competition, business models and gaining competitive advantage (CA) are directly related to organizations’ data strategy. Incorporating data strategy enables the organization to unlock the potential value of big data analytics. Therefore, this study aims to analyze how data strategy affects the achievement of CA.

Through survey research, data were collected from 103 respondents. Model testing and evaluation, partial least squares structural equation modeling and analysis of mediating effects were performed.

The supported hypotheses confirm the direct effects between the defensive and offensive positioning of the data strategy on CA, as well as the mediating effect of the offensive data strategy (ODS).

This study is groundbreaking in terms of empirically analyzing how defensive data strategy (DDS) or ODS affects CA. In conclusion, to extract value from their data, organizations need to establish their data strategy based on their strategic positioning, the potential of their resources and their analytical capabilities.

The defensive and offensive positioning of the data strategy are closely related to each other and both, in isolation, directly and positively, impact CA. It is also noted that the role of defensive positioning is to strengthen the offensive positioning of the data strategy, which in turn, plays a central role in achieving CA.

The results can assist managers in effectively incorporating analytical resources and capabilities, as well as helping them understand the dynamics and advantages of data strategy, so they can drive strategic objectives according to the organization’s positioning.

This study is groundbreaking in terms of empirically analyzing how DDS or ODS affects CA. In conclusion, to extract value from their data, organizations need to establish their data strategy based on their strategic positioning, the potential of their resources and their analytical capabilities.

Central to the celebrity creation process is mass media communication and impression management (IM) behaviors of social actors. The emergence of social network sites (SNSs) such as Twitter offers a platform for social actors to engage both of these means in efforts to manage their celebrity. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how celebrity athletes manage their celebrity status by investigating IM tactics employed by National Basketball Association (NBA) celebrities on Twitter.

A content analytic design was employed to examine the Twitter posts of the top ten most popular and influential NBA celebrity athletes (past and present) at the time of tweet acquisition.

The findings revealed the celebrity athletes used a variety of IM tactics to manage their celebrity. Defensive IM tactics (i.e. reactive measures taken) were used sparingly when compared to offensive IM tactics (i.e. proactive measures taken). Also, consistent with extant IM literature, the celebrity athletes utilized IM tactics in isolation as well as in combination.

The extant literature suggests that celebrities cultivate their relationships with the various media outlets with the potential to create (or even damage) one’s celebrity. This study offers celebrity athletes and their managers with useful insight on celebrity management.

This study is the first to examine IM in a sport business context, particularly the use of IM of athletes on SNSs.

This paper aims to identify strategies used by companies during the recent global recession and to investigate the effectiveness of offensive and defensive strategies. It also investigates how these different types of strategies are sequenced.

The paper draws on cases from seven publicly listed Indian information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITESs) companies. This longitudinal study draws on 32 semi-structured interviews with top management. The data were triangulated using annual and quarterly reports, emails, organization profiles and customer satisfaction reports.

Offensive and defensive strategic responses were deployed concurrently, not sequentially. Offensive responses were crucial in turning around a firm. Identical strategies can yield different results in product and service companies.

The findings of this paper should be generalized with care because of the sampling scope. Future studies should include quantitative research over different recession periods.

The paper provides insights for practitioners on how to respond to economic recession and prepare for recovery.

The paper enriches the corporate turnaround and business cycle management literature by analyzing the behavior of firms from India and from the high-tech industry.

This paper aims to investigate the law and logic mechanism of management control matching pattern and company strategy aggressiveness under different strategies by textual analysis, based on the empirical data of Chinese A-share listed companies during the period from 2010 to 2018. Additional analyses further investigate the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty and R&D intensity on the relationship between management control matching type and strategy aggressiveness. The conclusion can help relevant departments to develop management control theory and method system with Chinese characteristics and provide theoretical reference for the matching mode of dual control.

This paper uses the text analysis method. The main explanatory variables are analyzed using the computer SQL Server database software through the relevant text of the board of directors report in the company annual report. Other financial data came from the CSMAR database, excluding ST and PT and companies with missing data, and 16,902 samples were finally obtained. This paper conducted statistical analysis through Stata12.

This paper shows that the matching pattern between formal and informal control is divided into three types. They have different impacts on strategy aggressiveness. Specifically, consistent matching type II significantly positively influences the aggressiveness of offensive strategy. Consistent matching type I significantly positively influences the aggressiveness of defensive strategy. Complementary matching type I significantly positively influences the aggressiveness of analytical strategy. Additional analyses find that compared with non-high-tech companies, high-tech companies have more significant influence on the relationship between management control matching pattern and company strategic aggressiveness. And compared with other two “strategy-control” matching patterns, both environmental uncertainty and product innovation have more significant influence on the relationship between consistent matching II and offensive strategy aggressiveness.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper divides the formal and informal control matching patterns of management control into three categories for the first time. It examines the relationship between the formal and informal control matching of management accounting and the degree of strategy aggressiveness. The conclusion provides new empirical evidence to promote the effective implementation of development strategies for companies. It can help relevant departments to develop management control theory and method systems with Chinese characteristics and provide theoretical references for the matching mode of dual control.

Managers have traditionally concentrated on the offensive aspects of strategic planning. With a few important exceptions, the strategic planning literature is also heavily weighted toward offensive considerations. Yet two fields to which business is frequently compared, the military and sports, often give defensive considerations as much emphasis as offensive ones. The purpose of this article is to stress the importance of defensive considerations in strategic planning. A risk‐threat matrix is developed which managers can use as a guide to formulating defensive strategies to counter the full range of potentially detrimental situations their firms may face.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between a CEO's ability and authority with firm performance. The authors used a sample of 127 Iranian listed firms for over seven years, from 2011 to 2017.

The authors used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate managers' abilities, and the authors used business strategies to gauge authorities. Also, the methods of Fama–French and Herfindal–Hirschman were used for 889 firm-year observations.

The results show that managers' ability based on return on assets can affect firm performance, and skilled managers can improve performance.

In Iran, managers' abilities and other variables can impact it has been studied. Still, no study has been conducted on managers' strength and their level of authority with the presence of supervision on them.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the interactive effect of turnover and task interdependence on performance in work teams. Based on pervious research, the authors contend that turnover will have a negative effect on team performance and this effect will be more pronounced as teams perform highly interdependent tasks.

Using longitudinal data from the National Football League (NFL), the authors empirically examine the effect of player turnover on NFL team performance (i.e. wins and losses in the subsequent year), and the difference in team performance based on the high/low task interdependence of the work team.

Findings suggest a negative impact of turnover on organizational performance, regardless of the interdependent nature of work team tasks. In addition, the negative influence of turnover is enhanced by the task interdependence within a team.

This is one of the few studies that examine task interdependence as a moderating variable of the turnover – team performance relationship. More specifically, by examining an industry with high team member turnover (i.e. The NFL), the findings from this study give practicing managers a guide as to which work teams managers should attempt to minimize turnover.