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At its core, this volume tackles the contradictory views of the performance-enhancing effects of organizational flexibility and inertia head on, and in doing so, contributes to the development of theory and empirical evidence at the interface of strategic management and organizational ecology. In addition to the inertia–flexibility nexus, the volume explores a wide range of additional connections between these two perspectives across nine topical areas that both ecological and strategic management researchers have examined: (1) Entrepreneurship, (2) Top Management Teams, (3) Organizational Change, (4) Organizational Learning, (5) Technology Strategy, (6) Competitive Strategy, (7) Cooperative Strategy, (8) Scale and Scope, and (9) Industry Evolution.

This study investigates the effects of organizational factors on firms' adoption and use of internal staffing strategies. In particular, we examine the different effects of firm- and branch-level factors on the adoption of internal development programs and the selection of entry-level employees. We find that firm-level factors, such as firm size and organizational prestige, are positively associated with the adoption of development programs. Branch-level factors, such as branch size and leverage ratio, are positively associated with entry-level hiring. This study offers new insight into the dynamics between different levels of organizational factors and their relationship with human resource management practices.

This chapter reconstructs the roots of configurational analysis in organization theory and organizational economics, focusing on the elements of configurational thinking that are particularly relevant to organizational design; and outlining some future prospects for a configurational theory of organization design. We detect the presence of configurational ideas in many organization theories and organizational economics approaches. We argue that this, seldom acknowledged, continuity extends and enriches the implications of configurational analysis for organization design. In addition, we define and identify ‘structural heterogeneity’ as an organizational property that can be distinctively studied by configurational analysis, distinguishing between internal heterogeneity – diversity of organizational attributes within one configuration – and external heterogeneity – diversity of organizational configurations under the same environmental conditions. Some of the insights that can be gained through a configurational analysis of structural heterogeneity are illustrated through a fs/QCA study of a multi-industry sample of firms.

The purpose of this study is to offer an integrated literature review of shared services’ organizational structures by specifically focusing on centralization, specialization, control, and formalization mechanisms.

A sample consisting of 103 empirical and conceptual articles, identified in a structured literature search in Science Direct and Scopus, was analyzed. The focus was on exploring the structural dimensions of shared services in various fields: Supply Chains, Finance, Human Resource Management, and Information Technologies. Findings from the selected articles were codified alongside the structural dimensions drawn from contingency theory.

Most of the papers identified were concerned with the Human Resource function or with Accounting and Finance in the private sector. Purchasing was only mentioned in a few general articles and Marketing not represented at all, even though the literature suggests that shared services do exist in this field. This uneven distribution across fields, as well as the reality that many articles fail to make clear divisions between disciplines, is hardly conducive to identifying trends for individual disciplines, and only general trends for each dimension could be identified. Although centralization was one of the most discussed dimensions, there was no consensus as to whether shared services should be centralized or decentralized. Standardization and formalization were both found to be highly important, although a need for customization was also emphasized.

Future research should be oriented toward the structural dimensions of shared services in a broader range of fields as current findings are dominated by the Human Resource function. Another implication of our findings is that scholars could usefully test empirically the dimensions, especially those where opinions differed the most: centralization and specialization.

Earlier conceptualizations noted that the mixed shared service outcomes stem from the diversity in governance and several contingency factors. This work continues the exploration of the contingency factors and mechanisms that, through integration, allow shared services to respond to the environmental uncertainty. The value of this chapter is in examining the structures of different functional types of shared services that are reported as successful in the literature, thus offering an overview of best practices in organizing shared services.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

Organizations, especially youth organizations, often use media and communication tools to engage participants and achieve their goals. While these tools have the potential to benefit organizations, it is unclear whether using media tools influences effectiveness and how their use compares to traditional engagement practices. In this chapter, I examine the impact of both media tools and participant inclusion on organizational efficacy, controlling for various organizational characteristics. I use originally collected survey data from paid staff youth nonprofit civic organizations in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. I find that using Twitter increases organizational efficacy, but the effect is ameliorated by the inclusion of organizational characteristics. I also find that media tools tend to be used by organizations in a one-directional manner, which may help explain their limited impact. Using media tools is not sufficient to increase efficacy since the way they are used also matters. Including youth in daily decision-making processes, however, increases organizational efficacy and the relationship is robust to including organizational characteristics.

Despite the relevance of firm size in the analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement, there is still much to know about the specific impact of firm size on CSR formalisation. Moreover, in order to better understand such a relation, the interaction effects of development strategies on which companies may base its growth, namely diversification and internationalisation, will be also taken into account. Specifically, this work contributes to shed light on these issues by combining theories related to external and internal drivers of CSR. Using a sample of Spanish listed firms, the results show that firm size affects positively CSR formalisation, and that this effect is stronger in the case of adopting a diversification strategy, while no evidence was found for the moderating effect of internationalisation strategy.

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.

This paper argues that currently management accounting is simply too narrow and proposes how to broaden its scope to make it more relevant and useful.

The approach is to provide a critique of the extent to which management accounting sufficiently deals with three primary areas that classic management accounting has been myopic about at least to some extent: Organizational control, Organizational measurement, and Intellectual assets.

The paper argues that management accounting has not taken a “deep dive” into these areas and has placed itself at risk of being marginalized. It presents potential frameworks and tools of organizational control, organizational measurement, and intellectual assets as “add-ons” to management accounting to increase its relevance and utility.

The paper shows how management accounting must be broadened to include all organizational measurement and accountability for planning and control.

The paper describes several global applications of the proposed revised frameworks, methodologies, and tools presented as potential add-ons to management accounting. These applications demonstrate the feasibility, utility, and generalizability of the broader management accounting “tool box” presented.

The paper proposes a revised paradigm for management accounting. This paradigm is original and its value is in serving as a catalyst for academics as well as practitioners to rethink and broaden the current paradigm of management accounting in order to be more relevant and useful. It provides a potential new set of tools for management accounting.

Understanding the nature and distribution of influence within buying centres is of critical importance to researchers in organisational buying behaviour (Dawes, Lee, & Dowling, 1998). However, the effects of the Internet on organisational buying behaviour remain rather vague. The primary objective of this study is to examine the effects of the Internet on the distribution of influence within buying centres. In particular, the study aims to identify the changes in levels of influence among key players at each stage of the organisational buying process due to the introduction of the Internet as a means of gathering information. Two groups of companies, representing high-internet-usage and low-internet-usage companies are identified. Results show that there is a significant difference in the distribution of influence within buying centres between the two groups where the level of influence of general managers tend to decline while functional managers tend to enjoy increased levels of influence in high-internet-usage companies.