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Article
Publication date: 1 February 2001

J. Tomás Gómez Arias and Laurentino Bello Acebrón

Most conventional research methodologies both in consumer and business‐to‐business marketing are modernist in nature, but their applicability in an increasingly postmodern…

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Abstract

Most conventional research methodologies both in consumer and business‐to‐business marketing are modernist in nature, but their applicability in an increasingly postmodern business setting is decaying. Postmodern conditions are particularly prevalent in the business‐to‐business arena but, although new postmodern research methods are slowly growing in popularity in consumer markets, their use by business‐to‐business market researchers is still almost nonexistent. The article contributes to filling the existing vacuum in the business‐to‐business marketing literature and provides a framework for the use of postmodern research methods in industrial markets. A short case is used as illustration of this use.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 16 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

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Article
Publication date: 13 May 2014

Senthil Muthusamy and Parshotam Dass

The purpose of this paper is to trace the emergence of knowledge-centric innovative enterprises that function in a disaggregated and dispersed form and further contemplate the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to trace the emergence of knowledge-centric innovative enterprises that function in a disaggregated and dispersed form and further contemplate the economic and managerial rationale behind this strategy. A constant challenge to large organizations as well as those pursuing the intent to grow bigger is how to sustain the innovative dynamism.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors review the evolution of disaggregated and dispersed enterprises and discuss the changing cost structures for transactions, integration and coordination in the global knowledge economy. They elaborate the benefits of scale reduction and dispersed operations with examples.

Findings

Their review of the extant practices suggests that managers are finding value in disaggregating the firm operations. Disaggregation enhances the firm agility and responsiveness and helps the firm exploit the fleeting opportunities without incurring the opportunity cost or risking high investment.

Practical implications

Corporations need to become nimble, and their structure should be networked and permeable with significant industry actors. Integration would be imprudent if there is huge sunk cost due to uncertainty in business. Scale reduction and disaggregation, and operating in a dispersed mode – like a shoaling form – would help the companies exploit the fleeting opportunities without incurring the opportunity cost and risking high investment.

Originality/value

In addition to reviewing the rise of disaggregated enterprises, we explore the economic and managerial rationale of the disaggregation strategy, and discuss the learning and innovation, investment and cost-related advantages that stem from the disaggregated form of organization.

Details

Competitiveness Review, vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1059-5422

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Book part
Publication date: 29 July 2019

Marina L. Alpidovskaya and Dmitry P. Sokolov

The postindustrial economy did not take the place of previous types of economy. More than that, by definition, it hasn't become “post”-industrial in point of fact: relations with…

Abstract

The postindustrial economy did not take the place of previous types of economy. More than that, by definition, it hasn't become “post”-industrial in point of fact: relations with regard to the production of tangible goods define the imperative of industrialism, yet with a modern science and technology stage of development. The present-day production becomes increasingly automated, leading to the absence of demand for psychophysiological properties of man and labor in general. At the same time, highly qualified personnel who are able to control complex information management systems come to the fore. New types of energy and manmade materials appear; socioeconomic human living environment becomes more complicated. These processes are an objective phenomenon. However, the technological revolution is manifested differently in the “central” and “peripheral” countries. In the Russian Federation, formation of the innovational takes place in the conditions of integration of the resource model and opposition of the institutes that fund it. The crisis stimulates the conceptual search and does not deny the scientifically based classics.

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2011

Caleb Wellum

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the scholarly historical literature about Wal‐Mart and its relationship to the emergence of a retail service economy in the USA.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the scholarly historical literature about Wal‐Mart and its relationship to the emergence of a retail service economy in the USA.

Design/methodology/approach

The review examines book‐length studies or collections of essays on Wal‐Mart. It highlights the developments that historians have linked to Wal‐Mart, and seeks to demonstrate both the progression of this historiography and the value of studying Wal‐Mart.

Findings

This young and relatively small historiography has developed quickly in recent years. Work in the last five years suggests that when historians use Wal‐Mart as a case study or template corporation, they can learn much about the development, nature, and trajectory of the postindustrial service economy and American political culture.

Originality/value

This is the first review essay of historical writing about Wal‐Mart. It will be useful to scholars curious about what has been written and what remains to be written about America's largest private employer and retailer, and the potential of such analysis for further insight into post‐1945 American society, economy, and culture.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

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Abstract

Details

Knowledge Economies and Knowledge Work
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-778-3

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2023

Manfred Stock, Alexander Mitterle and David P. Baker

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula…

Abstract

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula aimed at training future workers with specific new skills. Presented here is comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities, with their global growth in numbers and enrollments, in concert with expanding research capacity, create and privilege knowledge and skills, legitimate new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies. A process referred to as academization of occupations has far-reaching implications for understanding the transformation of capitalism, new dimensions of social inequality, and resulting stratification among occupations. Academization is also eclipsing the more limited professionalization processes in occupations. Additionally, it fuels further expansion of advanced education and contributes to a new culture of work in the 21st century. Commissioned detailed German and US case studies of the university origins and influence on workplace consequences of seven selected occupations and associated knowledge, skills, and degrees investigate the academization process. And to demonstrate how universal this could become, the cases contrast the more open and less-restrictive education and occupation system in the US with the centralized and state-controlled education system in Germany. With expected variation, both economies and their occupational systems show evidence of robust academization. Importantly too is evidence of academic transformations of understandings about approaches to job tasks and use of authoritative knowledge in occupational activities.

Details

How Universities Transform Occupations and Work in the 21st Century: The Academization of German and American Economies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-849-2

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Book part
Publication date: 19 June 2011

Duane Swank

Purpose – Since the mid-1980s, unemployment policy reforms in Europe and throughout the rich democracies have stressed publicly supported activation of the unemployed through both…

Abstract

Purpose – Since the mid-1980s, unemployment policy reforms in Europe and throughout the rich democracies have stressed publicly supported activation of the unemployed through both reductions in perceived disincentives to work as well as commitments for improved training, employment services, and related policies. In this chapter, I systematically explore the domestic and international political economic sources of these policy changes.

Methodology/approach – I test a set of hypotheses – original and derivative – about the domestic and international determinants of labor market policy change through pooled time-series cross-section analysis of 1980-to-2002 annual data from 18 capitalist democracies. The dependent variables consist of national spending on active labor market policy, measures of passive unemployment compensation benefits, and the ratio of active to passive unemployment program spending. Causal models account for spatial diffusion of policy reforms as well as core political and economic determinants of policy change.

Findings – I find that Left party governments and coordinated market institutions buoy resources for active labor market programs, maintain relatively generous passive unemployment supports and entitlements, and, at the same time, foster a shift to more active social policy. International trade openness promotes generous active labor market policies while more left-leaning voters and veto points within the polity significantly constrain reductions in unemployment benefits and entitlement rights. De-industrialization reinforces policy reforms toward activation while high unemployment rates engender cuts in passive unemployment benefits and eligibility conditions.

Originality/value – Overall, the chapter demonstrates that the economic effects on policy change notwithstanding, politics fundamentally matters: domestic political dynamics and variations in institutions explain the preponderance of the change (or lack thereof) in unemployment policy.

Details

Comparing European Workers Part B: Policies and Institutions
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-931-9

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Book part
Publication date: 14 February 2008

Rebeca Raijman, Gila Menahem and Adriana Kemp

In recent decades, processes of postindustrialization, economic restructuring, and globalization have been transforming the landscape of social and economic inequalities in…

Abstract

In recent decades, processes of postindustrialization, economic restructuring, and globalization have been transforming the landscape of social and economic inequalities in general (Wade, 2003), and in urban settings in particular (Baum, 1997; Fainstein, 1990; Sassen, 1990a, 1991, 1998; Waldinger, 1996). The role of cities as strategic sites in the globalization process and as arenas of economic transformation is central in the literature of globalization and economic restructuring (Fainstein, 2000; Sassen, 1988, 1998).

Details

Gender in an Urban World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1477-5

Book part
Publication date: 16 December 2003

Terry Nichols Clark, Richard Lloyd, Kenneth K Wong and Pushpam Jain

Studies of the city traditionally posit a division between a city’s economy and its culture, with culture subordinate in explanatory power to “work.” However, post-industrial and…

Abstract

Studies of the city traditionally posit a division between a city’s economy and its culture, with culture subordinate in explanatory power to “work.” However, post-industrial and globalizing trends are dramatically elevating the importance of culture. Cultural activities are increasingly crucial to urban economic vitality. Models to explain the growth of cities from the era of industrial manufacturing are outmoded. Loss of heavy industry impacts the dynamics of urban growth, increasing the relative importance of the city both as a space of consumption and as a site for “production” which is distinctly symbolic/expressive. Some have seen globalization, the wired city, and electronic communication as destroying cities as proximity should decline in importance. This may be correct for some production concerns, but this in turn raises questions about consumption versus production decisions affecting urban growth and dynamics. Even in a former industrial power like Chicago, the number one industry has become entertainment, which city officials define to include tourism, conventions, restaurants, hotels, and related economic activities. Citizens in the postindustrial city increasingly make “quality of life” demands, treating their own urban location as if tourists, emphasizing aesthetic concerns. These practices impact considerations about the proper nature of amenities that post-industrial cities can sustain. The city increasingly becomes an Entertainment Machine, leveraging culture to enhance its economic well being. The entertainment components of cities are actively and strategically produced through political and economic processes. Entertainment becomes the work of many urban participants. We elaborate this theme in general and illustrate its force with case study materials from Chicago and a national study of U.S. mayors in cities over 25,000 in population.

Details

The City as an Entertainment Machine
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-060-9

Book part
Publication date: 16 February 2012

Andrea Schäfer, Ingrid Tucci and Karin Gottschall

Starting with a comparative assessment of different welfare regimes and political economies from the perspective of gender awareness and “pro-women” policies, this chapter…

Abstract

Starting with a comparative assessment of different welfare regimes and political economies from the perspective of gender awareness and “pro-women” policies, this chapter identifies the determinants of cross-national variation in women's chances of being in a high-status occupation in 12 West European countries. Special emphasis is given to size and structure of the service sector, including share of women in public employment and structural factors such as trade union density and employment protection. The first level of comparison between men and women concentrates on gender representation in the higher echelons of the job hierarchy, while the second section extends the scope of analysis, comparing women in high-status occupations and low-wage employment in order to allow for a more nuanced study of gender and class interaction. The first analysis is based on European Social Survey data for the years 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, capturing recent trends in occupational dynamics. Results indicate that in general a large service sector and a high trade union density enhance women's chances of being in high-status occupations, while more specifically a large public sector helps to reduce channeling women into low-wage employment. Thus, equality at the top can well be paired with inequality at the bottom, as postindustrial countries with a highly polarized occupational hierarchy such as the UK show.

Details

Firms, Boards and Gender Quotas: Comparative Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-672-0

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