Search results
1 – 10 of over 55000Ayberk Soyer, Sezi Çevik Onar and Ron Sanchez
Competence-Based Management (CBM) theory and research suggest that a firm’s competence building and leveraging processes are key factors influencing its competitive success. To…
Abstract
Competence-Based Management (CBM) theory and research suggest that a firm’s competence building and leveraging processes are key factors influencing its competitive success. To achieve sustained competitive success, a firm’s competence building processes must continuously renew and extend the competences a firm has and can leverage. However, the ability of a firm to sustain strategically adequate levels of competence building – while also maintaining strategically successful competence leveraging – may be limited by various self-reinforcing managerial and organizational mechanisms that can arise from competence leveraging processes. In this paper we focus on certain managerial behaviors that may create path dependencies that lead an organization to become “locked-in” to its current competence leveraging processes and to neglect essential competence building, resulting in an inability to renew competences at a strategically adequate level and eventually in competitive failure.
In order to avoid such consequences, the management literature suggests that organizations must cultivate dynamic capabilities to overcome tendencies toward lock-in and to sustain ongoing competence building. This study investigates ways in which firms can maintain healthy competence building processes by avoiding lock-ins, especially those resulting from self-reinforcing managerial behaviors. A case study of successful competence-renewing processes in a home improvement retailing company helps to amplify the components of dynamic capabilities and to illustrate the insights that emerge from our study.
Details
Keywords
Sezi Çevik Onar and Seçkin Polat
The objectives of this study are to reveal the relationship between strategic options and competence building processes and to investigate the effect of environmental and…
Abstract
The objectives of this study are to reveal the relationship between strategic options and competence building processes and to investigate the effect of environmental and firm-related factors on competence building. Competence building is defined as the qualitative change in firms' existing assets and capabilities; exercising strategic options may trigger this process. In this study an empirical model is developed and tested using structural equation modeling techniques. Many researchers have examined the relationship between strategic options and competence building theoretically, and this study aims to support these theoretical efforts with empirical research.
Pierre-Xavier Meschi and Eric Cremer
Which courses of action and levers are used by companies in the quest for renewal? Do renewal initiatives create value for the company? Can successful renewal initiatives provide…
Abstract
Which courses of action and levers are used by companies in the quest for renewal? Do renewal initiatives create value for the company? Can successful renewal initiatives provide models for managers committed to change, enabling them to identify certain levers that can be exploited in their own drives for renewal? This paper aims at providing answers to these questions by describing different aspects (implementation and corporate value creation perspectives) of the renewal experience conducted in 1993 by a large French electrical engineering company, Spie-Trindel. In this company, a competence building process was identified and analyzed as a driving force behind renewal. Thanks to an analysis of different performance measures (return on investment, return on equity and stock market prices) of Spie-Trindel, the competence building process was studied as a transformational leverage and its impact on the resulting value creation of the company was put into light. Moreover, this paper provides a concrete and detailed description of a specific competence building process which led the company to both alter the hierarchy of competences (see “reordering mechanisms”) and institutionalize new competences (see “institutionalization and routinization mechanisms”) within its core competence portfolio.
Ji-Ren Lee, Jen-Shyang Chen and Ming-Je Tang
Employing the notion of balanced growth postulated by competence-based literature, the present study submits that a firm’s growth strategy can be understood as its ability to…
Abstract
Employing the notion of balanced growth postulated by competence-based literature, the present study submits that a firm’s growth strategy can be understood as its ability to manage the interplay of building and leveraging existing competence within the business context. The synergistic effects resulting from the creation of a self-reinforcing cycle of competence building and leveraging initiatives then drive the achievement of superior performance. To examine the validity and usefulness of this conception, we conduct a systematic investigation on the strategy-performance link of contract electronics manufacturers based in Taiwan, who have emerged as the competitive global supply base in electronics and computer industries. Empirical results based on a panel of business-level operating data show that while building product-related competence is essential to the contract manufacturer’s achievement of higher profitability, leveraging competence between subcontracting services and own-brand business will significantly enhance both profitability and sale growth. The implications of formulating a sustainable growth strategy for contract manufacturers in the context of horizontally configured industries, and suggestions for future research endeavors on competence-based management are discussed.
Marc G. Baaij, Frans A.J. Van den Bosch and Henk W. Volberda
The “resources, dynamic capabilities and competences perspective” (Sanchez, 2001) has challenged firms to apply these concepts to improve their competitive position. Management…
Abstract
The “resources, dynamic capabilities and competences perspective” (Sanchez, 2001) has challenged firms to apply these concepts to improve their competitive position. Management consulting firms may assist clients in these efforts. However, the roles that management consulting firms fulfill in these processes can differ considerably and are under-researched. Therefore, insight in these different roles and the impact of these roles on clients’ competitive positioning in their industries is required. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that highlights the importance of distinguishing both roles and the implications for management consulting firms and for their clients. We illustrate the framework by elaborating on the relationship between both roles and the strategic renewal context of client firms. We conclude by pointing out the increasing importance of the competence leverage role of management consulting firms and how this development might contribute to a more hypercompetitive context for their clients.
Ralph Williams, W. Randy Clark, Deana M. Raffo and Leigh Anne Clark
Leader credibility is often discussed in literature. Although the literature discusses many facts related to building leader credibility, organized and structured knowledge of how…
Abstract
Purpose
Leader credibility is often discussed in literature. Although the literature discusses many facts related to building leader credibility, organized and structured knowledge of how leaders build leader credibility is missing. The present study's purpose is to begin closing that gap by drawing concepts from the literature related to building leader credibility, categorizing them into relevant constructs and building a model. The present study provides a foundation, built from items drawn from peer-reviewed literature, for future research on how leaders build credibility.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors reviewed 66 articles discussing or exploring building leader credibility. From those articles, they drew potential leader credibility antecedents. They analyzed the antecedents, seeking to group them into understandable constructs that provide a building leader credibility model. Seeking nomological validity (evidence that our building leader credibility constructs reflect real-world thinking), they conducted an open-ended survey to compare what practitioners say builds leader credibility to our model.
Findings
The leader credibility antecedents the authors drew from the literature fell into two dimensions: competence and character. The competence antecedents fell into three subdivisions: interpersonal competence, technical competence and leader competence. The character antecedents fell into two subdivisions: character behaviors and character attributes. Responses from our open-ended survey fit our five subdimensions for building leader credibility, providing some nomological validity for our model.
Practical implications
The authors’ model may help practitioners see the big picture of building leader credibility, develop specific tactics for building leader credibility and provide a basis for assessing their building leader credibility approach.
Originality/value
Although leader credibility is vastly researched and leader credibility antecedents are discussed or explored, a big-picture model of building leader credibility is lacking. This study pursues a path previously not taken, developing a credibility-building model drawn from concepts presented in the literature.
Details
Keywords
Bert Flier, Frans A.J. van den Bosch, Henk W. Volberda and Charles Baden-Fuller
How do large well-established firms renew themselves in an increasing turbulent environment? Is there a generic pattern of change or is each change journey rather idiosyncratic…
Abstract
How do large well-established firms renew themselves in an increasing turbulent environment? Is there a generic pattern of change or is each change journey rather idiosyncratic? We posed five questions about the nature of renewal patterns. First, how do firms combine external versus internal initiatives in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Second, how does the balance of competence building and competence leveraging evolve in a trajectory of strategic renewal? Third, what are the sequences of action in a strategic renewal process? Fourth, do firms differ regarding speed of their renewal processes? Finally, do different strategic renewal trajectories give rise to different or similar outcomes? Using a simple framework and new metrics we described and analyzed the strategic renewal journeys of the five largest financial service firms in the Netherlands during the period 1990–1997. We found equifinality in viable trajectories of strategic renewal. In four out of five firms, they result in similar outcomes due to mimetic behavior. Nonetheless, one firm showed deviant strategic behavior.
Alain Guiette and Koen Vandenbempt
This paper seeks to develop a mid-range theory of how change recipient sensemaking processes affect the realization of strategic flexibility during simultaneous change in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to develop a mid-range theory of how change recipient sensemaking processes affect the realization of strategic flexibility during simultaneous change in professional service firms.
Methodology/approach
The research presented is based on an exploratory embedded case study adopting a qualitative interpretive methodology, conducted at a professional service organization. A sensemaking lens was adopted in order to study organizational change processes. Data was collected through semi-structured open-ended in-depth interviews, and analyzed using first and second order analysis, inspired by the methodology used by Corley and Gioia (2004).
Findings
We identified four determinants of change recipient sensemaking: professional identification, dominant organizational discourse, equivocality of expectations, and cross-understanding between thought worlds. Case findings indicate that cognitive and affective dimensions of change recipient sensemaking are strongly interwoven in their effect on realizing strategic flexibility.
Research implications
We contribute to the competence-based strategic management literature by introducing the concept of change recipient sensemaking in understanding the realization of strategic flexibility; by identifying four major determinants in a context of simultaneous change in a professional service organization; and by highlighting the interwoven and mutually reinforcing cognitive and affective dimensions of professional’s process of constructing meaning.
Details
Keywords
Kaidong Feng, Qunhong Shen and Shuming Zhao
This paper aims to explore the relationship between the role of entrepreneurs and the innovation investment propensity of Chinese firms. This study is expected to enhance our…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between the role of entrepreneurs and the innovation investment propensity of Chinese firms. This study is expected to enhance our understanding about the competence building of top management team for innovative development.
Design/methodology/approach
The analytical framework draws upon the recent theoretical progress about innovative firms, cognition and competence building of top managers. A horizontal data comparison and four longitudinal case studies of representative firms in the Chinese power equipment industry are implemented.
Findings
The cognitive backgrounds of top managers, which have a significant role in directing strategic resource allocation, are found to be influenced by institutional environments. Because the institutional environments which are under the Chinese transition impact different groups of firms in different ways, the relevant practices of these firms lead to dissimilar competence building of top managers.
Originality/value
This paper establishes a nexus of “institutional influence–cognition–resource allocation”. Such a nexus highlights the role of cognition of top managers in influencing the strategy-making of firms. So it helps in explaining the conditions for competence building in firms.
Details
Keywords
This paper examines competence development as a facet of a firm’s dynamics. Proceeding from a “model of competence building” developed in an earlier study, a theory of competence…
Abstract
This paper examines competence development as a facet of a firm’s dynamics. Proceeding from a “model of competence building” developed in an earlier study, a theory of competence development is outlined, which recommends that competence development should cyclically alternate between competence upgrading and competence renewal. This cycle is subject to various influences, including the firm-specific resource base, the way in which managers perceive competence to create customer value, the level of undesired knowledge diffusion, and changes in the environmental dynamics specific to the firm. Inevitably, the theory of competence development involves some simplifications; yet it’s relevance is underlined by the fact that it stands up to empirical analysis.