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The authors argue that organization design needs to play a more active role in the explanation of differential performance and outline a set of ideas for achieving this both in theoretical and empirical research. Firms are heterogeneous in terms of (1) how well they do things, capturing persistent productivity differences, and (2) how they do things – and both reflect firms’ organization design choices. Both types of heterogeneity can be persistent, and are interdependent, although they have typically been studied separately. The authors propose a simple formal framework – the “aggregation function framework” – that aligns organization design thinking with the emphasis on performance heterogeneity among firms that is characteristic of the strategy field. This framework allows for a more precise identification of how exactly organization design may contribute to persistent performance differences, and therefore what exactly are the assumptions that strategy and organization design scholars need to be attentive to.

When many people talk about strategy, they really mean positioning. However important positioning may be, strategists who overlook performance factors are ignoring a key ingredient of company strategy and a source of advantage over competitors.

The paper describes six major approaches within strategic groups research: the industrial organization perspective (the IO-view), the strategic choice perspective, the strategy types perspective, the cognitive perspective, the customer perspective, and the business definition perspective. The two most promising perspectives to make real advances in the strategic management discipline seem to be the cognitive view and the business definition perspective. The purpose of a grouping based on business definitions is to provide an insight, as objective as possible, of the industry’s substructure which also corroborates with the cognitive maps of the industry which the CEOs have in mind. From a practical point of view, the classification of firms in groups based on commonality in business definition (buyer scope, product scope, geographical scope and degree of vertical integration), allows managers to compare their own firms with comparable firms (the firms within the same group). The research concerning strategic groups in the Belgian beer brewing sector and the Belgian electrical wholesale sector is presented. The major problems within the strategic groups research are discussed.

This paper aims to investigate the internal factors of resources and capabilities of five born globals (BGs) from Estonia. It explores quantitatively the internal factors between a medium BG and four small BGs.

The study used a survey questionnaire in collecting information from the CEOs of BGs. The questionnaire consisted of 105 questions relevant to export sales related to differences in internal factors.

The firms’ size and industrial sector play a role in export sales due to differences in internal factors. Small BGs expect financially based rewards, non-financial rewards, the job satisfaction of sales representatives with the export manager, and with work in general, and the representatives’ job satisfaction is higher in the small BGs than in the medium BG. The sales representatives’ job performance, their work performance, sales presentations, technical knowledge, adaptiveness, teamwork, planning, support, the organisational capabilities for business identification, relationship-building and innovation are all higher in medium BGs than in small BGs. Eleven sub-constructs of the model were shown to be important for small BGs.

The current study is focused on BGs from Estonia, i.e. small BGs and medium BGs. The study contributes to the internal factors of resources and capabilities of BGs as well as to the literature review on BGs. It also provides a logical conceptual model, indicating that the export manager’s job satisfaction is the central construct influenced by antecedent factors and is related directly to the export sales performance of the BG.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the current status of strategic group theory in the light of developments over the last three decades. and then to discuss the continuing value of the concept, both to strategic management research and practising managers.

Critical review of the idea of strategic groups together with a practical strategic mapping illustration.

Strategic group theory still provides a useful approach for management research, which allows a detailed appraisal and comparison of company strategies within an industry.

Strategic group research would undoubtedly benefit from more directly comparable, industry‐specific studies, with a more careful focus on variable selection and the statistical methods used for validation. Future studies should aim to build sets of industry specific variables that describe strategic choice within that industry. The statistical methods used to identify strategic groupings need to be robust to ensure that strategic groups are not solely an artefact of method.

The paper looks specifically at an application of strategic group theory in the UK pharmaceutical industry. The practical benefits of strategic groups as a classification system and of strategic mapping as a strategy development and analysis tool are discussed.

The review of strategic group theory alongside alternative taxonomies and application of the concept to the UK pharmaceutical industry.

The paper aims at studying the effect of management practices on the extensive and intensive export margins of Egyptian manufacturing firms.

The study relies on the 2020/2021 Egyptian Industrial Firm Behavior Survey (EIFBS) which comprises 2,383 manufacturing firms representing small, medium, and large sized firms located in different regions of Egypt: Urban Governorates, Lower Egypt, and Upper Egypt. It constructs an overall management z score for each firm to estimate its effect on a firm’s probability of exporting and value of exports using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions.

Results indicate that good management is associated with a higher probability of firm exporting as well as higher export revenues conditional on exporting, robust to controlling for the level of domestic sales. These effects do not differ by firm ownership or type of sector, but rather by firm size, with managerial competence raising the probability of exporting more for large-sized firms. Additionally, good management is associated with higher firm productivity, innovation and worker training propensities which gives evidence that it is both an efficiency and a quality enhancer. Moreover, monitoring and targeting practices have significant positive effects on both margins, while incentives are only significant for the extensive margin.

Firms that aim at enhancing their export prospects and revenues should devote resources to review and upgrade their management systems to boost their product quality and production efficiency. Policy-wise, the government should create a competitive market environment that is open to both domestic and foreign firms’ entry to stimulate the adoption of better management practices.

The paper is the first to explore the link between firm management practices and export outcomes for a MENA country (Egypt). It makes use of a recent survey, the 2020/2021 Egyptian Industrial Firm Behavior Survey (EIFBS). The findings shed light on the importance of different management components (monitoring, targeting and incentives) in driving a manufacturing firm’s export performance.

The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm in an attempt to explore how a firm’s resources (i.e. assets and capabilities) such as social capital (SC) and strategic entrepreneurship (SE) relate to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and organizational performance (OP).

Data were collected by questionnaire survey from the supply chain and logistics managers of 242 manufacturing firms in Pakistan. The structural equation modeling approach was used to test the hypotheses.

The results provide support for the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that SC and SE are positively related to OP. However, the findings show a positive but weak association of SC and SE with SSCM. In a developing country context of Pakistan, organizations are more likely to employ SC and SE for achieving OP. However, relatively less emphasis is placed on linking SC and SE to SSCM. Pakistani organizations need to integrate SSCM into their business strategies. It is concluded that organizations in Pakistan though have some degree of involvement in SSCM but still face some challenges.

The current study attempts to narrow the gap in the available literature in three important aspects. First, it makes the contribution to the literature on SSCM by employing RBV and exploring the relationships of a firm’s resources (i.e. SC) and capabilities (i.e. SE) to SSCM and OP. Second, it employs a relatively more comprehensive measure of SE compared to the limited measures in existing empirical research. Third, the examination of the links of SE and SC to SSCM and OP is of particular importance in the context of a developing country such as Pakistan.

Purpose – Driver education and licensing are two mechanisms used to reduce crash rates. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of these countermeasures and consider how simulators can be used to augment more traditional approaches.

Approach – A literature review was undertaken evaluating key concepts in driver licensing including graduated driver licensing (GDL), the role of parents in licensing, compliance and enforcement, driver testing and how the driver licensing system impacts on levels of unlicensed driving. Literature regarding driver education for individuals who have and not yet obtained a licence was also reviewed.

Findings – GDL is a successful countermeasure for reducing the crash rates of young novice drivers as it limits their exposure to higher risk situations. The support for driver education initiatives is mixed. As there are big differences between education programs, there is a need to consider each program on its own merits. Driving simulators provide a safe environment for novices to gain experience. In particular, they may be bifacial for development of hazard perception and visual scanning skills.

Practical Implications – GDL systems should be introduced where appropriate. Existing systems should be strengthened where possible by including additional, best-practice and restrictions. When considering driver education as a countermeasure, the type of program is very important. Education programs that have been shown to increase crashes should not be introduced. Further research and development are necessary to ensure that driver education and licensing adequately equip novice drivers with the skills necessary to drive in the 21st century.

The field of research on resource-based competition is full of nuanced terminology and misunderstandings. This has led to confusion, and thus the authors offer a critical review, which provides a structure and clarity to this subject. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This analysis structures the literature on resources, capabilities, and competences into three distinct schools of thought: the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, the rational-equilibrium school; the dynamic capability-based view of the firm, the behavioural-evolutionary school; and the competence-based view of the firm, the social constructionist school.

The authors uncover 13 criticisms of the most widely adopted theoretical framework of the RBV of the firm – Valuable-Rare-Imperfectly imitable-Organisation (VRIO).

The misinterpretation and neglect of the classic scholarly work may help to explain why the VRIO framework has been elevated from a view to a theory and why it has received so much attention.

The authors show how the relative ease of measuring resources as compared to (dynamic) capabilities and (core) competencies has helped raise the profile of RBV.

This analysis contributes to management research by illustrating the deviation among the three schools of thought; the authors show how this has contributed to wide terminological confusion and offer a structure to help researchers situate their work within the relevant school of thought.

In this paper, the authors study the long-run determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) in three major European economies over the period 1983–2017, namely Germany, France and Italy.

The authors focus on the capital misallocation effects, scale effects and labor misallocation effects. To this end, the authors study how real interest rate shocks, real exchange rate shocks, real wage shocks and changes in labor regulation affected TFP in major European countries over the last decades. The authors employ a theoretical and an empirical model to investigate the issue. The empirical results are obtained using a VAR model for estimation.

A stripped-down model of labor market in open economy with technology progress allows to identify the relevant variables affecting TFP. On the empirical ground, the authors find a positive relationship between TFP and real interest rate in the long run. Importantly, the authors detect a positive relationship between TFP and real exchange rate. Further, the authors show that the TFP can respond positively to a stricter labor market regulation and to a higher real compensation per employee. The results provide support to the idea that TFP has a positive relation with prices in the long run, while it may be biased along the cycle because of price rigidity.

The present model is stylized and may not capture all of the details of reality. The analysis should be extended to a larger number of countries. Technology progress could be proxied using different variables, as the R&D expenditure or the number of patents. Micro data, for specific sectors and industries, can improve the quality of the empirical investigation.

Mainly the authors find that TFP has a positive relationship with price changes in the long run, while it may be biased along the cycle because of price stickiness. Capital misallocation and labor misallocation can negatively affect TFP. Thus, the observed divergences in European TFP can be traced back to the misallocation effects attributable to the decrease of real interest rate and real wages, together with the raising labor flexibility. Mainly, the authors detect a positive long-run relationship between TFP and real exchange rate. This outcome strengthens the supply-side view of the relationship between productivity and real exchange rate.

The authors believe that the present setup can be helpful to reflect critically on the nodes at the core of the productivity slowdown and asymmetries in the eurozone. The aim is to implement renewed policies in order to favor economic growth, convergence and stability in the euro area.

This research addresses the issue of asymmetries among European economies by focusing on the role played by real prices in the long run. Traditionally, the dynamics of TFP have been attributed only to technological components, human capital and knowledge. This work shows that the dynamics of prices such as the real interest rate, the real exchange rate and the real wage can also influence the technological process by pushing the production system toward choices that are not always optimal for economic growth. An interesting result of this research concerns the positive relationship between real exchange rates and TFP in the long term, evidence of an important supply-side effect on the technological process.