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The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationship patterns between competitive advantage and superior performance.

This study empirically investigates the aforementioned relationship patterns using a cross-sectional, self-administered survey methodology.

The results indicate that there are four relationship patterns between competitive advantage and superior performance. In addition, this study provides empirical evidence of the reasons, underpinning the relationship pattern of competitive advantage without superior performance as well as the relationship pattern of superior performance without competitive advantage.

This study contributes to our knowledge that competitive advantage is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for superior performance.

In finding support that there can be cases of underperformance despite competitive advantage and superior performance despite the absence of competitive advantage, the study’s findings are useful to practicing managers involved in the strategic management process of their firms.

This study fills an important gap in the empirical research, by responding to the literature call to test the possible relationship patterns between competitive advantage and superior performance. In addition, this study formally introduces the relationship pattern of competitive advantage without superior performance, and the relationship pattern of superior performance without competitive advantage that until now were largely ignored by the existing literature in the field of strategic management.

Because of short life cycle and fluctuating greatly in total sales volumes (TSV), it is difficult to accumulate enough sales data and mine an attribute set reflecting the common needs of all consumers for a kind of experiential product with short life cycle (EPSLC). Methods for predicting TSV of long-life-cycle products may not be suitable for EPSLC. Furthermore, point prediction cannot obtain satisfactory prediction results because information available before production is inadequate. Thus, this paper aims at proposing and verifying a novel interval prediction method (IPM).

Because interval prediction may satisfy requirements of preproduction investment decision-making, interval prediction was adopted, and then the prediction difficult was converted into a classification problem. The classification was designed by comparing similarities in attribute relationship patterns between a new EPSLC and existing product groups. The product introduction may be written or obtained before production and thus was designed as primary source information. IPM was verified by using data of crime movies released in China from 2013 to 2017.

The IPM is valid, which uses product introduction as input, classifies existing products into three groups with different TSV intervals, mines attribute relationship patterns using content and association analyses and compares similarities in attribute relationship patterns – to predict TSV interval of a new EPSLC before production.

Different from other studies, the IPM uses product introduction to mine attribute relationship patterns and compares similarities in attribute relationship patterns to predict the interval values. It has a strong applicability in data content and structure and may realize rolling prediction.

The purpose of this article is to link the associative learning process of the human brain to the relationship and emergence of really significant ideas on the global horizon.

First, learning is explored from the viewpoint of the brain/mind, with a focus on the creation of patterns and their relationships to our personal frames of reference. Second, the associations of three really significant ideas are explored, and a pattern of patterns is surfaced.

The paper finds that in concert with the functioning of the brain, significant ideas emerge in relationship with other ideas that have personal historical significance, i.e. external patterns from the environment are detected, recognized, made sense of and have meaning in relationship with our internal patterns of significance.

The paper creates an appreciation of the role of patterns in thinking and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the grey‐weighted relationship prediction pattern of the soil organic matter content spectral inversion under the uncertainties between soil organic matter contents and spectral characteristics and the theory of grey system.

At first, according to grey‐weighted distance, a new grey relationship model is presented. Second, in order to make full use of the information of grey relationship sequences, the maximum grey relationship discrimination principle is improved and then the soil organic matter content spectral inversion pattern is put forward based on weighted grey recognition theory. A numeric example of Hengshan County in Shanxi Province is also computed in the last part of the paper.

The results are convincing: not only that soil organic matter content spectral inversion pattern based on the weighted grey recognition theory is valid, but also the model's prediction accuracy is higher; the sample's average prediction accuracy is 94.917 per cent.

The method exposed in the paper can be used at soil organic matter content hyper‐spectral inversion and even for other similar forecast problems.

The paper succeeds in realising both prediction pattern and application of soil organic matter content hyper‐spectral inversion by using the newest developed theories: weighted grey recognition theory.

To develop a model in which alternative patterns of management control are confronted with situational and institutional features in the context of transactional relationships. The model could be of use to managers in making rational decisions regarding the boundaries of the organization.

The model is developed by drawing on transaction cost economics extended with systems theoretical notions on trust.

Three patterns of management control are identified: a market pattern, a bureaucratic pattern and a trust pattern. Furthermore, the transactional and institutional factors that determine the choice of a control pattern or elements therein are identified and confronted with the three management control patterns.

An extended transaction cost economics approach is rather static of nature and, therefore, could be criticized for its lack of attention to processes of gradual development. In practice, adoption and design of management control structures are only part of the story; there also is gradual development or evolution in management control. However, the implications of the model are restricted to rational decision making regarding the adoption/design of management control patterns.

The paper provides a relevant and usable model for the adoption and design of management control patterns.

The current study focused on intra‐group conflict by attempting to elucidate individual and situational factors underlying choices along two dimensions of conflict management patterns: engagement versus avoidance and constructive versus destructive. In the study, the role of two types of self‐efficacy (global and social) among group members was investigated, as was the sense of group identification in team dispute resolution preferences modes. Sixty‐seven members of volunteer community service communes in the Israeli Scouting youth movement, 48 females and 19 males, representing 13 intact teams, participated in the study. Self‐report structured questionnaires (previously used and adapted for this study) served as research instruments. Both global self‐efficacy and group identification independently predicted the conflict engagement‐destructive pattern of domination. Social self‐efficacy served as the sole predictor of the preference to manage intra‐team conflict by means of integrating—the engagement‐constructive mode. In contrast, the choice of compromising was also fostered by the joint contribution of social self‐efficacy and group‐identification, beyond the direct effect of social self‐efficacy. The study corroborates the assumption that conflict management patterns within an intact team are related to dispositional variables on the individual level, i.e., global and social self‐efficacy, and to the team‐related variable of group identification.

Information system projects often go awry and when they do internal auditors are often in a position to bring the problems to management’s attention. However, managers are not always receptive to risk warnings, even when internal auditors who are role prescribed to carry out this function deliver such warnings. This phenomenon is known as the deaf effect. This paper aims to examine the actions that internal auditors take to resolve the deaf effect and how these actions affect the auditor–manager relationship.

Based on a multiple case study approach, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with auditors and examined ten cases of the deaf effect from the auditor’s perspective.

The findings revealed three categories of actions that auditors took in response to the deaf effect and how these actions immediately affected the auditor–manager relationship. Further, by analyzing the subsequent sequence of actions taken by the auditor in each case, the authors identified three distinct patterns that capture the dynamics of the auditor–manager relationship over time until the deaf effect was, ultimately, resolved.

Several practitioner studies have shown that internal auditors and managers struggle to build effective relationships, even under the most favorable circumstances and the authors suggest that deaf effect situations are likely to pose an even greater challenge to the auditor–manager relationship. The study contributes to the discourse on internal audit effectiveness in several ways. First, the authors identified three categories of actions that internal auditors took in response to the deaf effect. The authors found that two of these categories of action are related to the two distinct roles that internal auditors can play (inspector or consultant). Second, the authors examined how these categories of actions played out over time, influencing the auditor–manager relationship dynamics.

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether negotiators stick to one single negotiation style or whether their styles vary during the negotiation process. The paper seeks to identify different combinations of phase-specific negotiation styles and investigates the relationship between these combinations and negotiation performance and satisfaction.

The study is based on a large online negotiation simulation that allows a phase-specific analysis of negotiation styles via an elaborate coding scheme.

The findings reveal that negotiators generally do not limit themselves to a single negotiation style. Instead, they vary their style in the course of different negotiation phases. The authors distinguish between five distinct phase-specific negotiation style patterns that differ with regard to their impact on negotiation performance but not negotiation satisfaction.

The study demonstrates that a phase-specific analysis of negotiation styles allows deeper insights into a negotiator’s style behavior. For future studies, the authors recommend taking a phase-specific view when analyzing negotiation styles.

Negotiation practitioners get to know different phase-specific negotiation style patterns and get insights into which pattern is the most promising for negotiation performance. As a result, they can acquire this phase-specific negotiation style pattern to enhance their performance.

The paper contributes to existing negotiation style literature, because it is the first to analyze negotiation styles from a phase-specific point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to provide methodological guidelines and examples of how social network analysis (SNA) can be used in public management network research. SNA describes network structures formed by the patterns of relationships between different actors. Exchange relationships between government, market and society, which conceptualize public sector policies and goals, can be analyzed as a means to highlight underlying governance structures, coordination and management mechanisms, organizational capabilities and strategies of government activities.

Drawing from key aspects and concepts of network management, structuring, and modes of governance, research strategies are presented for the analysis of public networks through an illustrative study of relational patterns between providers and receivers of training in the public sector.

SNA highlights prevalent modes of organizing – bureaucratic, market or collaborative (networked) – key actors, roles and strategies that influence network structure, and collective and individual results. Network data can provide information on the relationship between context, organizations' roles and characteristics, and the effectiveness of public policies.

Information regarding patterns of exchange relationships such as services, resources, influence, knowledge and personnel, are relevant for policymaking processes and may subsidize new approaches and policy instruments that seek to optimize, develop and prescribe structural arrangements for better coordination and effective provision of public services.

The paper advances current literature by presenting a general methodological approach to large interorganizational networks, useful for the consistent theoretical development of governance network theory in the public administration field.

Most studies of conflict handling styles in organizations analyze these styles separately. These studies assume that individuals are oriented towards the use of one of the styles of conflict management. As a result, different styles are compared one by one as if they were independent. In contrast, from a more all‐embracing perspective people are seen as adopting configurations of styles. The interest in this alternative perspective lies in exploring the relations between these styles, how they combine and form patterns of conflict styles. This article presents an exploratory study that seeks to identify empirically the specific combinations of conflict handling styles that result in differentiated patterns within groups of managers. By using hierarchical and non‐hierarchical cluster analyses of a sample of managers, different patterns of conflict management were identified. The effectiveness of each of the resulting patterns was analyzed in terms of its influence on the parties' joint substantive outcomes and their mutual relationship. Results show that patterns using multiple conflict handling styles were more effective than patterns based on a single style.