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Understanding when entrants might have an advantage over an industry’s incumbent firms in developing and adopting new technologies is a question which several scholars have explained in terms of technological capabilities or organizational dynamics. This paper proposes that the value network—the context within which a firm competes and solves customers’ problems—is an important factor affecting whether incumbent or entrant firms will most successfully innovate. In a study of technology development in the disk drive industry, the authors found that incumbents led the industry in developing and adopting new technologies of every sort identified by earlier scholars—at component and architectural levels; competency-enhancing and competency-destroying; incremental and radical—as long as the technology addressed customers’ needs within the value network in which the incumbents competed. Entrants led in developing and adopting technologies which addressed user needs in different, emerging value networks. It is in these innovations, which disrupted established trajectories of technological progress in established markets, that attackers proved to have an advantage. The rate of improvement in product performance which technologists provide may exceed the rate of improvement demanded in established markets. This mismatch between trajectories enables firms entering emerging value networks subsequently to attack the industry’s established markets as well.

To innovate the company business model, executives must first understand what it is, and then examine what paths exist for them to improve on it. This article aims to examine this issue.

The article provides a practical definition of business models and offers a Business Model Framework (BMF) that illuminates the opportunities for business model innovation.

The article finds that BMF sequences possible business models from very basic (and not very valuable) models to far more advanced (and very valuable) models. Using the BMF, companies can assess where their current business model stands in relation to its potential and then define appropriate next steps for the further advancement of it.

An organization must give a senior manager the resources and authority to define and launch business‐model experiments.

The article provides a cogent model for assessing the potential for new business model innovation, a framework for carrying it out and a management plan for decision making.

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked, which may be consulted in the Library.

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked *, which may be consulted in the Library.

This chapter argues that the dead are stakeholders and that they should be regarded as such. In making that argument I will be exploring the claims of the philosopher Bob Brecher (2002) that we have real obligations to the dead because they made us what we are, if they were a part of our community. Indeed, Brecher (2002) argues that the dead never ceased ‘to be members of a particular community’ and therefore ‘the dead can be said to have interests’. This chapter explores the validity of their interests as stakeholders. Indeed, I argue that if they are not regarded as stakeholders, corporate management will overlook their interests. Admittedly, corporate managers might seem mindful of their interests. However, if they are not conceived of as stakeholders, such managers will not be primarily concerned with their interests, but with how other stakeholders might perceive those interests. In attempting to satisfy these other stakeholders’ perceptions of those interests, the actual interests of the dead could be overlooked. But that relies on the dead being legitimate stakeholders. To substantiate that status I therefore argue in this chapter that the dead are stakeholders, but also that their status as a stakeholder now that they are dead is dependent on their behaviour when they were alive, given Brecher's (2002) insistence as to them being a part of that community.

In arguing this, I utilize a recent article by Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010). I argue that the interest of the dead they mention in their article would best be served if they are considered as stakeholders. Indeed, that because Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010) do not consider those dead as stakeholders, their interests are never considered. I acknowledge though that being stakeholders relies on them remaining a part of that community (Brecher, 2002), which I argue they were a part of. If they do not remain a part of that community, I cannot argue that they are stakeholders. I therefore consider a historical argument which if accepted would prove that the dead which Rosenbloom and Althaus (2010) consider had not remained a part of that community and therefore cannot be accepted as stakeholders. This chapter rigorously examines the validity of that historical argument as to the behaviour of those dead when they were living, and whether their behaviour negates any claims as to them being stakeholders. This chapter completely refutes any arguments as to these dead being involved in such activities which would have removed them from their community and thus from being stakeholders. It furthermore argues that successfully rebutting such arguments is essential to my argument that the dead I am considering are stakeholders.

The objective of this article is to empirically study the influence of the characteristics of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the processes of knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and innovation in conjunction with the utilisation of private and public knowledge (KM) in accordance with the “spinner innovation model” (SIM).

The article deploys a sample of primary data generated by a questionnaire applied to the managers of hotel SMEs in Portugal. This involved the application of the covariance and multiple regression analytical methods.

The results demonstrate that some of the SME characteristics return significant impacts on private and public KM: the processes of knowledge creation, transfers of knowledge and innovation. The results also identify how private KM statistically predicts the processes of knowledge creation and transfer and innovation while public KM shapes and influences the creation of knowledge.

As with any other such study, the key limitation stems from the sample made up of 82 hotel directors, which represents only a low rate of response even though the project deployed all of the procedures available to avoid such an outcome.

The SIM approach to the innovation process may assist strategic decision-makers to improve their tools and relations, avoid repeated working overlaps in existing processes as well as enabling more competitive approaches in terms of innovation.

Furthermore, the responses ascertained reflect only the universe of study, conditioned by the context that produced them; hence, any generalisation of the results requires due caution.

This is the first study to empirically analyse the influence of the characteristics of SMEs over the processes of creating and transferring knowledge and innovation based upon applying the SIM and observing the extent of public and private knowledge in the hotel sector of Europe, more specifically, Portugal.

This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative argument that exemplifies the dialectical struggle between domination and democracy. Social relations are characterized by agon (struggle), domination, and contradictions brought about by learning through suffering. These social realities reflect the primary theoretical claim of radical interactionism (RI) that domination and conflict are profound, pervasive, and perennial. On the interpersonal level, the plays dramatize structure, agency, role-taking, and the Thomas Axiom. As the first drama to interrogate an inchoate polity as an object of the public’s gaze, the Oresteia anticipates the sociological importance of critical consciousness, collective decision-making, political institutions, moral and, ultimately, cultural transformation. Despite a social context of slavery, imperialism, xenophobia, ostracism, misogyny, exclusivity, and constant warfare, the Oresteia foreshadows Western civilization’s ideals of legal-rational domination, citizenship, human rights, persuasion, and justice that have been imperfectly institutionalized to reduce surplus domination. The West still struggles to realize those ideals.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.