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Research examining the joint role of serial acquisitions and subsidiary autonomy in holistic value provision within servitizing industrial firms is scarce. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the role of serial acquisition and subsidiary autonomy in providing value within servitizing industrial networks.

A conceptual framework is developed based on the case study of a large Swedish industrial group specializing in selling industrial products and providing industrial solutions to business customers through its numerous subsidiaries.

The analysis of 14 interviews with the five subsidiaries and seven customer firms and secondary data reveals interesting findings concerning the role of serial niche acquisition strategy and subsidiary autonomy in customer value provision in servitizing organizations. In particular, the authors find that the role of acquisitions in industrial firms extends beyond growth to customer sensing and proximity. Likewise, the authors find that subsidiary autonomy facilitates value provision to customers in industrial networks.

The paper provides a more nuanced understanding of how serial acquisitions and subsidiary autonomy are intertwined and jointly affect industrial firms’ value provision activities amidst the servitization transition in an intraorganizational network.

The Minnesota State University System's Project for Automated Library Systems (MSUS/PALS) is a fully integrated library system that serves over 150,000 patrons on a network of 53 state university, community college, private college, and state agency libraries throughout Minnesota.

Proposes the creation of a co‐operative acquisition centre that would permit improved use of serials to academic users in university libraries. Supported by the latest telecommunications technology the system would permit reception of requests for journal articles in a simple and rapid manner. Outlines economic feasibility and concludes that the creation of a centre is technically and economically feasible.

Inconsistency and/or a lack of a clear understanding of the criteria for serial selection and evaluation have been observed to characterise the presentation of requests for approval of serials at the University of Botswana Library (UBL). This, on a number of occasions, has made decision taking difficult and sometimes inconclusive. The paper provides a case study of the examination of guidelines in use in other academic libraries. It also describes the process and procedure currently in use at the UBL. The study identified some anomalies and suggests modifications to ensure consistency in the presentation of submissions to guide better decision making by the Serials Selection Committee of the Library.

This is the concluding article in a series of three, describing the automation system used in the Department of Printed Books at the National Library of Wales. The procedures for Serials Control are described, together with some of the ancillary tasks. Conclusions on the use of the McDonnell Douglas URICANLW software are outlined and a future development strategy suggested.

The acquisitions policies of the Division are based on a consideration of a number of criteria—academic level, demand, availability and speed of supply from elsewhere, and country of publication. Only ‘worthwhile’ literature is collected, and apart from the serials area where a comprehensive collection is maintained, low demand categories of literature are collected only if availability elsewhere is non‐existent, restricted or slow. Among its 51,500 current serials are conventional journals, directories, yearbooks, report series, a few technical newspapers, some standards series and many official publications (particularly British). Including secondhand material, over 100,000 books are acquired each year. Most of these are in English but many foreign language items are brought in response to demand. Other categories of literature acquired are dissertations, research reports, research series in microform and music. The preferred method of obtaining serials is through a subscription agency. Although British books are selected in house, the majority of books are obtained by means of approval programmes. In addition, the Division has many exchange arrangements.

Several years ago, North Carolina State (NC State) University Libraries technical services department, Acquisitions & Discovery (A&D), merged acquisitions, cataloging, and electronic resources management functions and staff. One intended outcome for the merger included integrating and distributing electronic resources management across all staff positions whereby staff would be trained to manage a larger portion of the life cycle for print and electronic resources. The benefits of a life cycle approach for both print and electronic resources included better staff understanding of resources; staff ownership of packages; and improved staff follow-through, consistency, and ability to troubleshoot. Key positions were reimagined to support this effort. This included the creation of a staff package manager role in the serials unit to provide oversight of e-journal packages, distribute work to staff, and create and maintain an information dashboard (the Electronic Resources Hub) for staff as well as for other stakeholder departments across the libraries. The monographs unit has recently adopted a similar integrated approach to manage NC State's growing collection of e-books. This chapter will outline A&D implementation of two package management models, one for serials and one for monographs; describe the associated tools and technologies used for support; and discuss lessons learned. Benefits will be discussed to illustrate how other libraries might transform their electronic resource management operations by using a package management strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to manage the pace of international expansion through acquisitions based on a case study of a Chinese conglomerate, Wanda Group.

The paper is a qualitative study based on the analyses of the series of international acquisitions made by Wanda Group in the global cinema and film studio markets from 2012 through the middle 2017. Comprehensive qualitative data have been collected from public sources, including company press releases, media reports and interviews, for each and every major acquisition made by Wanda during this period. The collected materials are then analyzed to reveal the patterns of Wanda’s serial acquisitions.

When expanding globally through acquisitions, firms need to carefully pace their different types of acquisitions; managing the speed of post-acquisition integration can be critical; and managing public relations and communications in host countries is also important.

The research is limited to one single case, so the generalizability of its findings needs further validation. The research contributes to cross-border acquisition studies by discussing the pacing of acquisitions and their affiliated activities.

The research offers an example of how firms pace their series of international acquisitions, whose lessons are potentially transferrable to other global acquirers.

The research takes a rarely used angle by studying serial acquisitions as a whole and focuses on the pacing of them. It is one of the very few in the acquisition literature to highlight the temporal patterns among serial acquisition moves.

Discusses briefly the implementation of acquisitions and serials check‐in modules for a newly acquired Innovative Interfaces INNOPAC system at the University of Arkansas libraries. Stresses the dramatic reduction in time and resources spent using the CAT ME micro enhancer software for downloading OCLC records in large batches.