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Entrepreneurship, venture creation and business management.

The case is suitable for analysis in an undergraduates program specializing in entrepreneurship, business and management. The case could also be discussed in an executive development program on business ventures/business strategy/business management.

Since its inception in 1981, Abdul Rahim Al Fahim, CEO Paris Gallery decided that Paris Gallery would foray into French perfumes. At that time, he would have never thought that such a move would ever make him more than a shopkeeper. Now in 2016, Mr Abdul Rahim Al-Fahim has much to be pleased about the success that his organization Paris Gallery (Luxury stores in Dubai) has been able to achieve. He has been twice named as the Arab World’s most powerful retail sector entrepreneur. Certainly, it was his good fortune to be based in the great city, and his business venture has paralleled the exponential success of Dubai. As the concept of grand malls developed and flourished in UAE, Paris Gallery stores emerged and also prospered. Currently, Paris Gallery has 80 stores in the finest locations of the Middle East. This encourages family business owners in UAE to have ambitions for success and growth of their enterprises. This is especially true in a developing region that has rarely hosted such a high-end homegrown success story as Paris Gallery. The study of strategic positioning of Paris Gallery with a workforce of 4,000 employees and representing more than 550 international brands today shall help us in weighing the options of how businesses should proceed strategically.

The following insights could be elucidated by the case: familiarizing students with the business challenges in the retail industry in emerging markets such as the United Arab Emirates, and exploring future strategy options from the business growth perspective.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The paper seeks to focus on the management of art galleries in the context of contemporary visual art markets, viewed from the institutional and industrial network approaches. The aim is to understand the shaping of management practices. The characteristics of the visual art market, the immaterial value of products and the key role of relationships and networks, make the contemporary visual art market an insightful context to study the management practices.

A qualitative research method was chosen – altogether 80 interviews were conducted in European markets.

The contemporary art market can be seen as a network structure consisting of actors who participate in creation and change of the practices. The management practices of galleries were created and changed by imitations and through isomorphic forces. It is proposed that major changes in management practices originate mainly from financial reasons, where the driving force is to survive economically. The striking similarity of gallery management practices was interesting. The shared practices are used as means to create stability for the market.

A gallery manager should reflect the implicit norms and values of the art field in their art gallery management. The knowledge of these management practices is of importance especially for new galleries entering the market.

The theoretical contribution of the study builds on elaboration of the practices concept by combining aspects of the institutional approach and the industrial networks approach.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on value creation by examining value within the visual arts market and arguing for a broader, socio-culturally informed view of value creation.

The authors develop an original conceptual framework to model the value co-creation process through which art is legitimised. An illustrative case study of artist Damien Hirst demonstrates the application of this framework.

The findings illustrate how value is co-constructed in the visual arts market, demonstrating a need to understand social relationships as value is dispersed, situational and in-flux.

The authors problematise the view that value emerges as a result of operant resources “producing effects” through working on operand resources. Rather, adopting the socio-cultural approach, the authors demonstrate how value emerges and is co-constructed, negotiated and circulated. The authors establish the need to reconceptualise value as created collaboratively with other actors within industry sectors. The locus of control is, therefore, dispersed. Moreover, power dynamics at play mean that “consumers” are not homogenous; some are more important than others in the valuation process.

This more distributed notion of value blurs boundaries between product and service, producer and consumer, offering a more unified perspective on value co-creation, which can be used in strategic decision-making.

This paper illustrates that value co-creation must be understood in relation to understanding patterns of hierarchy that influence this process.

Who would have thought that John Davies had literary aspirations? Britain's Secretary for Trade and Industry is also, as he tells Richard Brooks, a dab‐hand in the kitchen. His sauces are quite something to behold. Picture by Dmitri Kasterine.

To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of the First World War. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of a surgeon/artist who knew first-hand the horror of industrial scale of destruction. It speculates on how his medical education and surgical knowledge in the treatment of the casualties informed his art and considers how such scientific discourses may have contributed to a new modernist language.

The double career of J.W. Power – a surgeon then an artist – provides a case study to probe such questions. The paper speculates about the connections between these different careers, and considers the implications of becoming an artist for someone who had pre-war university-training, medical expertise and experience as a war surgeon. In particular, consideration is given to how surgical knowledge and contemporary medical debates may have informed a group of later paintings.

A group of J.W. Power’s late paintings stand apart from his other subjects as they suggest states of physical or psychological damage. Indeed by the 1930s shell shock was recognised as a war-related psychological injury. These paintings then may not only be an act of remembrance, but also potentially a reflection on that new discourse.

It remains a compelling idea that by the 1930s Power had found a modern abstract language capable of revisiting the traumatic subject of his hospital sketches. The implications of the war-time surgery on his art was delayed and remains highly ambiguous, however it invites, indeed encourages, such speculation.

The paper is the first to examine the cultural impact of the medical career of the artist J.W. Power. His medical training and experience as a war-time surgeon is shown to have been significant to his later painting, for he knew the regenerative powers of modern surgery, of how such knowledge had the power to repair and to heal.

PERHAPS the outstanding current event in the library world is the appointment by the President of the Board of Education of a Departmental Committee “To inquire into the adequacy of library provision already made under the Public Libraries Acts, and the means of extending and completing such provision throughout England and Wales, regard being had to the relation of the libraries conducted under those Acts to other public libraries and to the general system of national education.” In looking over the names of the gentlemen constituting this committee it is apparent that official educationists dominate the committee and that the library side is inadequately (in point of number) represented. Only two names representing public libraries, out of 14, are to be found. This is manifestly inadequate, notwithstanding the fact that there is still one additional member to appoint which may, or may not, be a public librarian. Is the Library Association alive in the matter, and may we suggest the name of Mr. L. Stanley Jast, whose outstanding work and knowledge of library affairs should be drawn upon in an enquiry of this nature?

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Nespresso achieved competitive advantage through innovation by changing the rules of the game in its industry.

Nespresso was analyzed based on public available secondary data, in combination with related academic concepts on innovation and competitive advantage.

The company succeeded by the thorough application of a strategy that, through perfect alignment, allowed the company to reach a unique market position. However, as described in the case, it took a relatively long time and the company came close to failure several times. Before the current situation of the company, it remains challenging in the future as well. Hence, the Nespresso story provides interesting space for discussion and learning about what innovation is, how innovation emerges, and under which circumstances innovation can serve as a source for competitive advantage.

Especially given the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and long-term company success.

Especially before the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and the success of a company on the long term. The case is designed to give practitioners a better understanding on what an innovation as, and how competitive advantages can be linked to innovation.

This case of Nespresso is a unique combination of the concepts of innovation and competitive advantage. It serves as an example of an innovation, which was not successful from the scratch, but evolved over time and is still developing. As many innovations went through such a non-linear process, this case offers interesting lessons learned for academics as well as for practitioners.