Search results

The environmental management literature has focussed on the analysis of the variety of strategic options with regards to environment protection, without providing an interesting detail of the transformation and change process between the different alternatives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study pro-environmental change processes in firms, focussing on the width and the intensity of environmental measures implemented in a three-year period in different areas (productive process, product, management and supply chains).

Performing a cluster analysis based on a sample of 303 Spanish firms, the study finds four categories of pro-environmental change.

The comparative analysis of these categories leads the authors to describe the pro-environmental change process as one with four stages that firms can go through. The first pro-environmental stage focusses on process measures. The second stage focusses on the adoption of management measures together with process measures. In the third stage, the firm moves after including measures in the product and in the supply chains. Companies that wish to advance further in this process, reaching the fourth stage of pro-environmental change, do so by increasing the intensity of the different measures adopted in previous stages, and through eco-innovation.

The main contribution of this paper relative to the previous literature is a more detailed vision of the strategic possibilities in environmental protection, providing information about the process of change and about how firms evolve to more advanced environmental strategy stages. Knowledge of this evolution process, little studied in the previous literature, helps us to understand the complexity and strategic significance of adopting environmental protection measures. This knowledge is useful for academics and for public and private managers responsible for designing and developing environmental strategy.

One of the most original findings of this paper points out that it is possible to identify a pattern of environmental change through which firms can evolve. In this change process, firms start by adopting process measures, while they adopt eco-innovation behaviour only in the most advanced stage of environmental proactivity.

To succeed in an industry an organization must select a mode of strategic behaviour which matches the levels of environmental turbulence, and develop a resource capability which complements the chosen mode. Investigates UK building societies and identifies three distinct modes of strategic behaviour. One group of societies are reactive and driven by their environment. A second group are pre‐emptive and seek to anticipate future events and prepare for them while the third group exhibit the most aggressive stance; not only do they seek to identify future scenarios, they actually work to bring these about. The groups are compared across a range of marketing and strategy variables to establish the extent to which these approaches are supportive of the selected mode of behaviour. Clear differences are apparent between the reactive and proactive groups although, surprisingly, few differences of substance are evident between the two proactive groups.

Firms need to develop absorptive capacities to effectively source and exploit knowledge relevant to environmental behaviour for their own innovation activity. Business-to-business interactions can represent a significant route through which knowledge and resources about environmental innovations are transferred along the supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to explore how firms exploit business partnerships in order to build capacity for environmental innovation. In order to do so, it investigates two elements of B2B interactions – partner alignment and compatibility – and their influence on absorptive capacity-building.

This paper is based on a qualitative interview study of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) operating in the environmental goods and services sector and their clients involved in adopting environmental innovations. Matched pairs of engineering consulting firms and their clients – tourism accommodation establishments – were selected as a sampling frame in order to study the influence of partner alignment and compatibility on the exchange of environmentally relevant knowledge and competencies.

The findings show that the synergistic attributes of business partners influence absorptive capacity-building and give rise to different patterns of interaction of KIBS with their client. The B2B interactions investigated are characterised by alignment along multiple objectives about the relevance of environmental behaviour. Furthermore, the compatibility of the partners’ competences is a key determinant of environmental innovation outcome.

The study highlights the role of managers in identifying and selecting those business partnerships that accrue greater potential benefit for accessing resources and competencies for eco-innovation.

The study contributes to the literature on absorptive capacity and innovation by demonstrating how B2B interactions – in this study, the interaction of KIBS with their clients – influence the capacity of firms to adopt environmental innovations which is an area of study that deserves further attention.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit Igor Ansoff's work and how it interfaces with the various schools of strategic management.

Ansoff's work of 40 years is reviewed and related to other schools of thought in strategic management.

Ansoff's work is much more comprehensive than the literature suggests. His later work (after 1990) is largely unnoticed by academics, nevertheless, it is the empirical findings of his theoretical postulations. Moreover, his work interfaces with virtually all schools of thought in strategic management.

It will provide a broader view of Ansoff's work and perhaps trigger additional research as a result of his later work. Most researchers continue to associate Ansoff with his early thoughts.

Ansoff's work has found wide applications in a variety of industries. His work was mostly with industries that used his propositions in order to better strategies.

Ansoff's later research and empirical findings could provide a launchpad for re‐examining the method by which organizations assess their environment, strategic behaviour, and internal capability. Therefore, organizations may have an alternative method to develop strategy.

This is the first attempt to provide a historical view of Ansoff's work and perhaps his timeliness. The recent economic crisis only further supports Ansoff's basic position that companies must create custom strategies to fit their environment, culture, and capabilities.

Environmental issues are rapidly emerging as one of the most important topics in strategic manufacturing decisions. Growing public awareness and increasing government interest in the environment have induced many companies to adopt programmes aimed at improving the environmental performance of their operations. State of the art literature has proposed many models to support executives in the assessment of a company’s environmental performance. Unfortunately, none of these identifies operating guidelines on how the systems should be adapted to support the deployment of different types of “green” manufacturing strategies. The present paper seeks to illustrate techniques and architecture for performance measurement systems (PMSs) to support the implementation of feasible “green” manufacturing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to discover factors of new ventures performance in Russia and to combine them in a model which describes the influence of these factors on the performance of a new venture.

A cross‐sectional study of new ventures was conducted by a field survey in six regions in Russia. One‐factor variance analysis and regression analysis were used to identify significant factors.

Three groups of factors were identified as significantly influencing performance of new ventures in Russia: environmental factors, style of management and type of strategic behaviour. For environmental factors the following variables were included: crisis in industry, increase in product demand, predictability of regulatory authorities behaviour, predictability of financial markets, and environmental hostility. For company management style, several variables were statistically significant: level of centralization, concentration of management in the hands of the founder, and role of the middle management. For strategic behaviour, only the strategy of prospector in terms of Miles and Snow was found to have significant influence on the new venture performance (NVP).

The research ignores industry specifics that may be reflected in different new ventures performance factors.

Entrepreneurs starting new ventures in Russia should take into account the identified factors which can influence their companies’ performance.

Although there have been many studies on NVP factors, no such research has been performed in Russia.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a student participatory approach and assessment to achieve an environmentally friendly behaviour and change strategy.

Three time-phase studies employed a participatory and experiential case in the form of ecotourism experiential learning and assessment using a sample of 100 higher education students.

The findings suggest that students’ participations through the development, implementation and maintenance of nature-based experiences, combined with professional guides in educating students about sustainable practices has significant and positive effects on pro-environmental behaviour (PEB). The study reveals that social-psychological constructs (except environmental awareness) and socio-demographic variables account for variances in PEB intentions and provides managerial implications for marketers on the use of student participation to enhance behaviour.

Experiential and guided learning adds value to PEB through performance accomplishments and instrumental support.

The guiding principles of moral norms and acting in favour of the community (general social pressure and the underlying normative beliefs) lead to a higher tendency to perform according to the ideal behaviour.

This study is the first to use student participation, guided learning, tour guides and experiences to transfer the knowledge of PEB to individuals.

School trips to Outdoor Residential Centres can represent a significant and formative childhood tourism experience that can potentially influence adult tourism and leisure choices. Commonly located in ‘green spaces’ which range from peri-urban through to wild and natural landscapes, these centres offer adventurous outdoor activities. Alongside developmental and educational learning, children are immersed in nature experiences that can enable emotional connections with local environments. This chapter is based on a UK context, in which current policymaking is concerned with increasing inclusivity of access to British landscapes, in which many of these centres are located. It is argued here that Outdoor Residential Centres enable childhood experiences that can influence future consumer choices, alongside shaping support for the future protection of natural landscapes.

As a markedly under-explored area of the literature in the United Kingdom, this conceptual review of the literature sets out the imperative for understanding the vital role of Outdoor Residential Centres in shaping tourism futures. Through bringing together environmental education and psychology with tourism management literature, the chapter identifies the imperative for further research to enable nature connections through Outdoor Residential Centre experiences. This responds to the UK policy agenda to increase nature connections and support conservation. The application of a ‘sustainable children typology’ to a Welsh case study demonstrates how Residential Outdoor Centres enable children's empowerment through outdoor learning experiences that shape them as ‘sustainability thinkers’ and to potentially influence pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours as ‘sustainability transformers’ – and ultimately, eco-literate tourists.

This study argues that strategic information systems (SISs) are necessary for organizations’ survival and corporate performance in turbulent economic environments. Applying Miles and Snow’s strategy typology, the purpose of this paper is to explore how SIS supports business strategy and corporate performance.

This study uses quantitative survey data from 389 Brazilian companies during economic crises and analyzes them using structural equation modeling.

There is strong evidence that SIS promotes capacity and flexibility to create competitive strategies in response to environmental changes. SIS significantly and positively predicts firms’ use of prospector strategies, reducing the need to sacrifice efficiency for innovation. SIS can predict corporate performance more strongly than firms’ strategic orientations can.

The results provide organizations insights on how SIS enables strategic planning processes to create competitive strategy and improve performance during economic turbulence.

This research demonstrates SIS’s positive effects during economic turbulence on competitive strategy and performance, revealing that corporate performance is influenced more by SIS (strategic process) than strategic orientation (content). Hence, this study fills a research gap in the information systems strategy literature by contributing new insights about SIS.

This paper aims to examine the impact of environmental scanning (ES) on competitive advantage (CA) through the mediation of organizational resilience dimensions within manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt.

This study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data. This study used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 249 Egyptian SMEs. This study employed the Smart partial least square structural equation modeling technique to test the hypotheses.

ES positively affects CA both directly and indirectly through the mediation of organizational resilience dimensions, namely, robustness and agility. However, ES does not affect integrity; therefore, integrity does not mediate the ES–CA relationship. These results indicate that organizational resilience partially mediates the relationship between ES and CA.

The sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may be different in the service sector and other countries. The study was cross-sectional which could not trace the long-term effects of ES and organizational resilience on CA. Therefore, a longitudinal study should be conducted, based on resource availability.

Managers in Egyptian SMEs should scan their environments to build organizational resilience and, in turn, enhance their CA.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first endeavors to investigate the role of ES in building CA through organizational resilience in the context of Egyptian SMEs.