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This chapter addresses a practical industrial relations problem, namely the absence of a monitoring framework to assess and improve labor–management relations in organizations. The authors argue that assessing and improving organizational labor relations requires attention to both vertical and horizontal alignments of labor relations institutions and practices. Vertical alignment refers to the internal consistency across the strategic, functional, and workplace levels noted by Kochan, Katz, and McKersie in their strategic choice framework (1986). Drawing on two “best practice” labor relations cases, Saturn and Kaiser Permanente as well as two original case studies of healthcare organizations, the authors develop the notion of horizontal alignment, i.e., the internal consistency across labor relations processes, substantive issues, and outcomes.

In this research, collaboration attributes related to the firm's intrinsic and extrinsic facets at pertinent levels (i.e. enterprise, strategic, operational, and tactical levels) for construction equipment OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) operating in India have been quantified and modeled.

For modeling the intra-firm collaboration at respective organizational levels, relevant attributes have been populated employing literature review followed by subsequent validation from pertinent focus groups. The focus groups comprising professionals working in the construction and mining equipment industry in India aided us in estimating the extent of interdependencies and influences within/amongst collaboration attributes. The collaboration attributes and respective interdependencies/influences are modeled employing the concept of graph theory wherein the individual attributes are represented using vertices and influences/interdependencies are represented using edges. The collaboration indices resulting from the variable permanent matrix have been derived as well.

Scenario and subsequent sensitivity analysis are performed. This research discusses the significance and aspects related to various collaborative attributes and the interrelations amongst them. Further, the research also evolves quantitative measures of collaboration indices at enterprise, strategic, tactical and operational levels by employing a graph-theoretic approach (GTA). The authors have also extricated and discussed a number of meaningful implications from both the perspectives of interorganizational relationships (IORs) and the normative theory of organizations using a cross-case analysis of five firms having operations in India.

The research would aid organizations (particularly those belonging to the construction equipment sector) measure the efficacy of collaboration in respective value-chains at strategic, tactical and operational levels. From the theoretical perspective, the integration of the IORs and normative theory of organizations enables looking at the intra-firm collaboration problem from a multi-dimensional standpoint involving activities, performance measures, action initiation, communication, shades of top management, level of activity, etc.

Using information systems via data mining and cluster analysis technologies, consumers' strategic behaviour can be measured, and their patience levels can be accurately described. This paper investigates the retailer's pricing and ordering policies when facing strategic consumers with different levels of patience and discusses the impacts of consumers' patience levels and proportions on retailers' maximum expected profits.

By cluster analysing transaction data on the number of websites visited, browsing time and purchase decision time, consumers' patience levels can be obtained. The authors formulate a newsvendor model considering customers' different patience levels. Three scenarios are investigated: two segments of consumers with two different levels of patience (Scenario I), multiple segments of consumers with different levels of patience (Scenario II) and a continuum of consumers whose levels of patience follow a continuous distribution (Scenario III). Then, general formulas are deduced for retailers' optimal prices, ordering quantities and profits.

Under Scenario I, if the proportion of less patient consumers is greater (less) than a threshold, the retailer's optimal price is equal to the less (more) patient consumers' reserve price. Under Scenario II, once the proportion of fully strategic consumers exceeds a certain threshold, the retailers' optimal price is equal to the fully strategic consumers' reserve price regardless of consumers' patience levels and proportions. Under Scenario III, the retailer's pricing and ordering policies depend on the distribution of their patience level.

Few studies have considered consumers' different levels of patience when making retailer pricing and ordering decisions. In this paper, strategic consumer behaviour is measured, and consumers' patience levels and proportions are obtained by cluster analysing consumer transaction data recorded by an information system. Three scenarios in which strategic consumers may be heterogeneous and have different patience levels are investigated. The results can guide retailer decision-making.

Involvement in the effective design and use of computer‐based information systems is essential for the manager of the 1990s. To be most effective, systems must be designed for the requirements of the manager‐user. Too often there is a communication gap between managers who are too busy, uninterested or unwilling to become directly involved, on the one hand, and on the other, the consultant who is more usually engrossed in the special nature of the system. The author aims to provide an up‐to‐date and integrated treatment of organisation and management, as well as to emphasise the utilisation of management information systems to improve the art of managing.

This monograph reports on the strategic and operational roles of learning and development (L&D) professionals in Irish, UK European and US organisations including multinational corporations, small to medium enterprises, the public sector and not for profit organisations. This paper aims to investigate the contextual factors influencing L&D roles in organisations, the strategic and operational roles that L&D professionals play in organisations, the competencies and career trajectories of L&D professionals, the perceptions of multiple internal stakeholders of the effectiveness of L&D roles and the relationships between context, L&D roles, competencies/expertise and perceived organisational effectiveness.

The study findings are based on the use of multiple methods. The authors gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D professionals using multiple methods: a survey (n = 440), Delphi study (n = 125) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30).

The analysis revealed that L&D professionals increasingly respond to a multiplicity of external and internal contextual influences and internal stakeholders perceived the effectiveness of L&D professionals differently with significant gaps in perceptions of what L&D contributes to organisational effectiveness. L&D professionals perform both strategic and operational roles in organisations and they progress through four career levels. Each L&D role and career level requires a distinct and unique set of foundational competencies and L&D expertise. The authors found that different contextual predictors were important in explaining the perceived effectiveness of L&D roles and the importance attached to different foundational competencies and areas of L&D expertise.

This is one of the few studies to have investigated the L&D professional role in organisations from the perspective of multiple stakeholders using multiple research methods.

Drawing upon prior work in cognition, organizational learning, strategy, and organization theory, a multi-level, longitudinal account of change in core competence is presented. The central concern addressed is how knowledge passes from “individual” to “organizational,” and how insight present in one part of the organization comes into broader currency. Data from a mature industry firm form the foundation for a depiction of change as a cognitive process involving multiple individuals, groups, and levels within the organization. Speculative propositions and a process model are presented.

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm focuses on how firm-level assets and capabilities influence firm performance. Scholars have noted the need for studies grounded in the RBV to account for the role of the strategic group level, but uncertainty remains about how to do so. Random coefficients modeling (RCM) provide an appropriate technique to integrate these two levels of analysis, but its use has been limited in strategic management research to date. I review research integrating firm and strategic group levels and provide a roadmap for future research seeking to integrate these two levels’ influences on firm performance, and use RCM to illustrate the effects of firm resources on performance under three depictions of the strategic group level culled from strategic management research. Findings suggest that interpretations about the efficacy of resources’ influence on performance vary considerably across methodological specification. Next, I use RCM to illustrate how strategic management researchers can further integrate the firm and group levels by demonstrating how variables at the group level of analysis may interact with firm-level characteristics. I conclude with suggestions for future research using RCM to integrate the strategic group into multilevel studies predicting firm performance.

The aim of this paper is to explore the tactical role of the business excellence model (BEM) and the significance for quality training and development, in relation to strategy and operations within organisations. There are conflicting accounts in the literature and praxis in relation to the role of the BEM. Some consider it to be a strategic model while others consider it to be of use solely at an operational level. This paper explores this dichotomy by considering the tactical role of the BEM in organisations and the implications for quality training and development in organisations. A grounded theory research methodology is used. Based on the research a grounded model of the BEM application in organisations is presented and discussed, showing the current role of the BEM for managers in relation to operations and strategy. The need for a resultant shift in emphasis in quality training and development is shown.

The purpose of this paper is to understand differences between the strategic level and the operational level of corporate responsibility within an organization.

The research was conducted as a single case study of one of the more noteworthy Finnish firms with respect to corporate responsibility reporting.

The results show that strategic and operational levels differ in terms of their developmental stage of corporate responsibility. The strategic level is more focused on responsibility issues concerning external stakeholders, on reporting, on corporate image and on quantitative measures. The operational level emphasizes internal stakeholders, acting, daily existence, and qualitative criteria.

A well‐known corporate responsibility model was useful for identifying how perspectives concerning corporate social responsibility vary within the corporation. However, to explore the reasons for this variation, the actors, actions, outcomes and drivers of corporate responsibility need to be examined. The single case study method limits the generalizability of the results.

The research presents a unique case study with novel empirical data. The study contributes to the corporate responsibility research by discussing the differences between words and deeds of corporate responsibility, by testing the usefulness of a corporate responsibility framework and by trying to understand the reasons why different functions of an organization are at different developmental stages regarding corporate responsibility.