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The purpose of this paper is to examine the range of realignment strategies employed by retailers in the USA in response to the 2008 economic recession.

Following the grounded theory approach, National Retail Federation News Briefs published between 2008 and 2011 were analyzed by sorting them into thematic categories and comparing trends in strategic decisions during the recession (2008-2009) and after the recession (2010-2011). Based on the emergent categories, propositions were developed to provide theoretical explanations of the findings.

The authors found five thematic categories of realignment strategies: promotional, organizational, price, operational, and product realignments. In line with contingency theories, retailers used these strategies to achieve a greater fit with the altered business environment and consumer consumption patterns. While promotional realignment was most prevalent, followed by organizational realignment, different realignment strategies were pursued based on the strategic focus and long-term vs short-term orientation of the retailers.

The contribution of the findings is twofold: filling a critical gap in the literature examining the range of realignment decisions of the US retail industry in response to the recent economic recession; and enhancing the theoretical understanding of underlying factors or mechanisms of specific realignment decisions in the context of a turbulent economic environment.

The purpose of this article is to communicate how an academic library can establish and implement a realignment process to prepare itself to serve users in the 21^st century.

The authors employed a case study approach to present the challenges of realigning an academic library. They describe the collaborative and interactive process that OSU Libraries undertook to envision what a 21^st century academy library might demand and to realign its units to support this vision. They summarize the positive outcomes of this process and provide an overview of what next steps might be.

A combination of visioning exercises and collaborative study of the appropriate LIS literature were key to establishing the direction that the libraries' realignment would take and the eventual organizational structure the libraries implemented. The realignment activities not only emphasized collaboration among unit heads, but also emphasized the importance of clear communication, ongoing assessment, and connection to the university's overall strategic goals and realignment in order to guarantee eventual success.

This article describes a process that most academic libraries could emulate to shift the focus of legacy operations and departments to those that successfully meet the challenges of the twenty‐first century academic library.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the association between shift schedule realignment and patient safety culture.

Using difference in differences model, BIMC Hospitals and Siloam Hospital Bali were compared before and after shift schedule realignment to test the association between shift schedule realignment and patient safety culture.

Shift schedule realignment was associated with a significant improvement in staffing (coefficient 1.272; 95% CI 0.842 – 1.702; p<0.001), teamwork within units (coefficient 1.689; 95% CI 1.206 – 2.171; p<0.001), teamwork across units (coefficient 1.862; 95% CI 1.415 – 2.308; p<0.001), handoffs and transitions (coefficient 0.999; 95% CI 0.616 – 1.382; p<0.001), frequency of error reported (coefficient 1.037; 95% CI 0.581 – 1.493; p<0.001), feedback and communication about error (coefficient 1.412; 95% CI 0.982 – 1.841; p<0.001) and communication openness (coefficient 1.393; 95% CI 0.968 – 1.818; p<0.001).

With positive impact on patient safety culture, shift schedule realignment should be considered as quality improvement initiative. It stretches the compressed workload suffered by staff while maintaining 40 h per week in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Shift schedule realignment, designed to improve patient safety culture, has never been implemented in any Indonesian private hospital. Other hospital managers might also appreciate knowing about the shift schedule realignment to improve the patient safety culture.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to study the determinants of realignment expectations (as a measure of the exchange rate credibility).

Methodology/approach – To investigate this aspect, we apply a fixed effects model over the period 2001:01–2009:12 for a set of 14 European countries.

Findings – Using monthly data since the introduction of the euro, the chapter finds that standard macroeconomic phenomena and financial crisis over the selected period exerted a significant and positive impact on European realignment expectations. We also provide evidence that the 2008 global financial crisis has a significant effect on realignment expectations.

Originality/value of chapter – At our best knowledge, the single paper that studied a similar problem since the inception of the European Monetary System (EMS) in early 1979 was the research paper of Rose and Svensson (1993). Our findings are original in the sense that we find meaningful relationships between realignment expectations and financial crisis (systemic and nonsystemic crisis) and macroeconomic variables. Our research also wishes to contribute to the emergence of the recent studies on European exchange rate credibility.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute knowledge regarding the nature of successful and unsuccessful value co-creation processes between firms and brand communities and the strategies used to address the latter.

The paper draws on a netnographic study of the online collaborative platform known as Alfisti.com, which carmaker Alfa Romeo launched to enhance co-creation with its most devoted consumers, the “Alfisti”.

The findings identify three groups of collaborative practices: interacting, identity and organizing practices. The paper details how firm and brand community members enact the elements – procedures, understandings and engagements – of collaborative practices and how the alignment of these enactments impacts value co-creation.

The paper suggests that co-creation of value succeeds when the enactment of collaborative practices aligns, i.e. when firm and brand community members enact practices in a similar way, and that co-creation fails when the enactment of practices misaligns. Firms and brand communities use three realignment strategies – compliance, interpretation and orientation – to address the misalignment and failure of co-creation. The fact that the research draws on a single qualitative case study is a limitation.

Managerial implications include using realignment strategies to manage firm-brand community co-creation.

Creating an empirical-based framework regarding successful and failing co-creation and how the latter is addressed in the context of brand community makes the paper original.

The literature on organizational change has long acknowledged the need to balance stability and economic efficiency with the need to be flexible and to change. Authors, certainly in the dynamic capabilities tradition but also in other perspectives, have stressed the importance of more open and loosely coupled systems to promote adaption. However, many organizations do not operate on such premises but rather rely on creating efficient business units through tight coupling, building strict social and administrative control, and jointly relying on common systems. In this study, we conduct 46 interviews with employees from three different retail organizations to investigate how units in such tightly coupled systems change within the framework of the set standards. Through contrasting the characteristics of high and low functioning units, we identify three mechanisms that seem to enable the units to successfully and repeatedly realign and establish new configurations. We conclude that the orchestrator of all three realignment mechanisms is the middle manager, and we discuss the middle manager's role and the different activities that enable a successful realignment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effect of busy season resource constraints on the selection of a new auditor, conditioned upon the status of the prior auditor.

The paper employs multivariate logistic regressions for a sample of firms that changed auditors between 1979 and 2005 to explore the empirical correlations between having a December fiscal year-end (FYE) and non-lateral switches.

The paper finds that non-BigN clients with December FYEs are less likely to switch to BigN auditors than those with non-December FYEs prior to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). This trend subsides after SOX. For firms with BigN predecessor auditors, fiscal year-end appears to have insignificant influence on auditor switching.

The findings suggest that upwardly mobile clients face greater audit supply constraints compared to clients already being audited by a BigN firm during the traditional busy season. However, the curbing influence on switching upwards erodes after SOX.

This study is to show the impact of supplier capacity constraints on audit production and structural changes within the auditing profession.

The findings can further the understanding of the determinants of auditor-client realignment, given that the paper identifies and explores the effects of having a December FYE on subsequent auditor appointments, conditioned upon the status of the prior auditor.

This paper aims to suggest a procedure for successfully transforming a firm’s innovation processes in a systematic way.

This is a conceptual paper, which draws on prior academic and practitioner papers.

Changes in a firm’s environment, such as new technological trends or customer needs, regularly call for the dynamic renewal of a firm’s innovation processes. Nonetheless, most firms proceed in a surprisingly unsystematic way if they transform their innovation processes. This approach contrasts with the systematic innovation processes that many firms have established to manage their product development from initial idea to final market launch.

To overcome this discrepancy, this paper distinguishes reconfiguration and realignment challenges in the transformation of a firm’s innovation processes. These different activities are illustrated with the example of transforming firms’ innovation processes towards open innovation. Furthermore, a five-step procedure is suggested to ease implementation. On this basis, implications for managers are discussed with respect to proficiently adapting their firms’ innovation processes over time.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the variables that influence corporate real estate (CRE) decision-making and gauge their relative importance to each other, thereby understanding the consequent challenges/implications for CRE managers (CREM’s).

Interviews were undertaken with experienced CREM’s using the causal network elicitation technique to create decision networks for the variables they considered for the specifically defined scenario: dealing with surplus property from a change of business strategy. These networks illustrate the complexity of the mental representations required for the realignment of the CRE portfolio. The key variables are more extensive than alignment theory suggests, namely, financial stakeholders. Additional variables identified include risk, lease accounting, costs, financial analysis, business metrics and motivational drivers. The latter indicates the importance of self-esteem and peer recognition for CREM’s and financial benefits for the C-suite. Accordingly strategy alignment needs to incorporate CRE both in terms of strategy creation and implementation.

These networks illustrate the complexity of the mental representations required for the realignment of the CRE portfolio. The key variables are more extensive than alignment theory suggests, namely, financial stakeholders. Additional variables identified include risk, lease accounting, costs, financial analysis, business metrics and motivational drivers. The latter indicates the importance of self-esteem and peer recognition for CREM’s and financial benefits for the C-suite. Accordingly, strategy alignment needs to incorporate CRE both in terms of strategy creation and implementation.

This research appears to be the first that looks in detail at the mental representations used by decision-makers while making CRE decisions.

The US Government adopted the base realignment and closure (BRAC) to resolve the military, economic and political issue of excess base capacity. There have been five rounds of BRAC since 1988, and more are expected to come in the years ahead. The complexity of the closure and realignment decisions and the plethora of factors that are often involved necessitate the need for a sound theoretical framework to structure and model the decision‐making process. This paper aims to address the issues.

The paper presents a multiple criteria benchmarking system that integrates the employment, environmental, financial, strategic, and tactical impacts of the closure and realignment decisions into a weighted‐sum measure called the “survivability index.” The proposed index is used to determine whether the returns generated by each military base on the Department of Defense (DoD) hit list meet a sufficient target benchmark.

There is a significant amount of evidence that intuitive decision making is far from optimal and it deteriorates exponentially with problem complexity. The benchmarking system presented in this study helps decision makers (DMs) crystallize their thoughts and reduce the environmental complexities inherent in the BRAC decisions. The presented model is intended to create an even playing field for benchmarking and pursuing consensus not to imply a deterministic approach to BRAC decisions.

An iterative process is used to consistently analyze the objective and subjective judgments of multiple DMs within a structured framework based on the analytic network process and fuzzy logic. This iterative and interactive preference modeling procedure is the basic distinguishing feature of the presented model as opposed to statistical and optimization decision‐making approaches.