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Firms at the center of an organizational network may benefit from educating and building up competencies of their partners. For that reason, centers often seek to transfer knowledge from the center to partner firms. They even set up systems of inter‐organizational knowledge transfer to plan, to coordinate, and to control such transfers on a firm level instead of managing single knowledge transfer projects individually. However, little systematic attention has yet been paid to such systems on a firm level. This paper seeks to analyze the managerial mechanism to decide what knowledge to transfer to what partners.

To address this gap, data were gathered on nine leading multinational center firms. An explorative approach was adopted using case study research to look at the characteristics of network centers, network partners, knowledge, transfer channels, and programmes.

It was found that center firms offered knowledge transfer products to partners and set up portfolios of knowledge transfer programmes targeted at specific partner groups. There is further elaboration on fundamental decisions on the programmes' design, communication, access, and pricing.

The research contributes to shed light on how center firms manage knowledge transfer activities from the center to partners on the firm level and how they structure it in the form of programmes. Therefore, the paper does not focus on the management of knowledge transfer in particular partnerships or networks, but also considers interdependencies between individual knowledge transfer initiatives.

Developments in UK grocery distribution are reviewed; namely centralised networks, composite networks and the increasing use of third party contract distributors. Issues likely to affect the future development of physical distribution are also discussed, such as the quality of operations, customer service improvements through utilisation of information technology, the “greening” demands likely to be encountered and the opportunity for UK distribution companies to expand their services throughout Europe. The major conclusions are found to be that UK grocery distribution is highly developed; centralised, composite systems are in place either operated in‐house by the user or contracted out to third party distribution companies. Quality, service and greening issues are likely to become the tools operators will use to gain competitive advantage in this highly competitive marketplace both in the UK and throughout Europe.

The term “strategic thinking” is a relatively recent addition to the lexicon of marketing concepts. Its popularity arises from increasing discontent with highly formalized marketing planning approaches that replace creativity with paperwork and Jock executives into a dangerously predictable repertoire of strategic options. Despite the frequent call for strategic thinking to augment the marketing planning process, there is woefully little written on the subject. It would seem that the admonition to THINK emphasized by the late Thomas Watson at IBM is not enough. Rather, strategic thinking requires a perspective on what to think about. The properties of games, which we will describe, provide a valuable insight into what an executive should consider when asked to think strategically regarding a marketing problem or opportunity. These properties form the basis for the game theory approaches in decision analysis where mathematics is the dominant feature. Unfortunately, the impenetrable language of mathematics has obscured the fundamental properties of games so that marketing executives cannot readily use them in a corporate setting. We will look here at these fundamental game properties and see what insights they offer for strategic marketing thinking and formulating competitive strategy.

Transformations in the context of higher education urge educational institutions to (re)position and (re)organize themselves to counter the challenges these transformations bring. Especially regarding universities and business schools, organizations that encompass a broad range of communities, operations, and activities, these transformations result in the radicalization of what Kerr has called the multiversity. The rationale of this radicalization is to be found in the trends and developments in the contemporary context of higher education. This article presents the networked business school as a response to this radicalization within the field of management education and management learning, since network organization seems to offer a lot of possibilities and benefits to the organization of business schools.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative study with a twofold focus: on highly escalated family business (FB) conflicts and on the interactions between conflicts and the failure of the company as FB. The authors devoted this paper to the question of how family-related conflicts are connected with the demise of FB. Conflicts constitute an essential part of every FB and may definitely have the power to superimpose the performance of the FB as well as the family life in a destructive way. Especially, highly escalated so called relationship conflicts can be seen as one reason for the failure of FB.

The research aims at analysing the meaning of conflict in FB with respect to the failure of the FB. Therefore, the authors use an explorative case study approach. The study is based on a total of five case studies. As the authors use theory of social systems as a theoretical background, the authors focused in the analysis in all cases on patterns rather than on individual characteristics.

As an essential part of the study the authors formulated eight hypotheses describing specific patterns of the conflict process as a communicative system. These hypotheses convey a comprehensible impression of the effects conflicts may have within FB and present a number of new facets of conflict dynamics and patterns of escalation in FB.

In particular, the authors provide new insights into the dynamics of highly destructive forms of conflicts in FB and the relationship between family-related conflicts and the failure of FB. The authors also pave the way for future research that aim to develop a more holistic understanding about when and why the outcomes from family and business systems will conflict or be harmonious.

Process management is a managerial approach characterised by the focus on business processes that can provide an important contribution to the management of public sector organisations. The significance of this approach for the management of inter‐organisational relations in the public sector is highlighted. A model for the analysis of the factors enabling the implementation of process management in the public sector is proposed. The Italian experience of the one‐stop shops for businesses is studied; the relevance of process management approaches for the success of this reform is shown. Implications for public managers at all levels of government are discussed.