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The contingency approach and its relevance to theory building and research in marketing is described. The approach is delineated and its theoretical foundations traced. Several established contingency theories within the management discipline are outlined and the research they have stimulated on related topics in marketing are highlighted. An assessment of the current state of the contingency approach in marketing literature is then provided.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a contingency perspective that describes the relative importance of person‐job (PJ) fit and person‐organization (PO) fit as selection criteria for hiring various types of employees.

Drawing on the theories of psychological contracts, human capital and cosmopolitan‐local perspective, propositions are developed regarding the relative importance of PJ fit and PO fit in specific hiring situations.

The propositions developed in this paper suggest that PJ fit will be more important than PO fit when organizations hire employees to form transactional psychological contracts, to obtain general human capital, and/or who are categorized as cosmopolitans. On the other hand, it is suggested that PO fit will be more important than PJ fit when organizations hire employees to form relational psychological contracts, to develop firm‐specific human capital, and/or who are likely to become locals.

Further empirical and theoretical work should be conducted to elaborate the contingency perspective. A more comprehensive contingency theory of person‐environment (PE) fit could include other types of PE fit, other contingency variables, and cover a wider range of management practices.

Organizations should be aware of the trade‐off between PJ fit and PO fit in the selection process, and carefully examine what type of employees they will hire in order to determine the relative weights of PJ fit and PO fit as selection criteria.

This paper is the first attempt to consider the different types of employees and employment relationships that determine the relative importance of PJ fit and PO fit in selecting employees. It is done through incorporating different theoretical perspectives.

Blockchain is increasingly being considered for applications in operations and supply chain management. However, evidence from practice is still scarce on why, where and how organizations seek to apply the technology in the supply chain across different industries. The study develops a comprehensive framework to enhance understanding of the application areas of blockchain technology in the supply chain, as well as organizations' motivations in seeking blockchain solutions and relevant contingency factors influencing applications.

The authors investigate 50 use cases of blockchain applications in the supply chain, covering six industries. Contingency theory is applied in conducting a qualitative textual and correlation analysis to identify and compare blockchain adoption motivations, application areas and contingency factors across different industries.

The analysis develops an evidence-based framework that captures ten principal motivations in seeking blockchain solutions, three main blockchain application areas along with important application sub-categories and five clusters of contingency factors that influence blockchain deployment and its uses in different industrial sectors.

The study expands the limited cross-sectoral research on blockchain applications and motivations in the supply chain. Using contingency theory, it presents a comprehensive framework that captures the drivers and factors relating to blockchain adoption in the supply chain in a nomological network. The study lays the foundation for further theoretical perspectives and empirical research to investigate relevant sectoral characteristics and their importance for different types of blockchain application in the supply chain.

The study informs practitioners about potential supply chain application areas that can be enhanced through blockchain technology, taking account of the specific characteristics of their products, business and manufacturing processes, supply network configurations, industry standards, regulations and market demand.

The study is the first to provide cross-sectoral evidence on the relevance of organizations' motivations and numerous contingency factors on blockchain application areas in the supply chain.

While the choices available for project management methodologies have increased significantly, questions remain on whether project managers fully consider their alternatives. When project categorization systems and criteria are not logically matched with project objectives, characteristics and environment, this may provide the key reason for why many software projects are reported to fail to deliver on time, budget or do not give value to the client. The purpose of this paper is to identify and categorize critical success factors (CSFs) and develop a contingency fit model contrasting perspectives of traditional plan-based and agile methodologies.

By systematically reviewing the previous literature, a total of 37 CSFs for software development projects are identified from 148 articles, and then categorized into three major CSFs: organizational, team and customer factors. A contingency fit model augments this by highlighting the necessity to match project characteristics and project management methodology to these CSFs.

Within the three major categories of CSFs, individual factors are ranked based on how frequently they have been cited in previous studies, overall as well as across the two main project management methodologies (traditional, agile). Differences in these rankings as well as mixed empirical support suggest that previous research may not have adequately theorized when particular CSFs will affect project success and lend support for the hypothesized contingency model between CSFs, project characteristics and project success criteria.

This research is conceptual and meta-analytic in its focus. A crucial task for future research should be to test the contingency fit model developed using empirical data. There is no broad consensus among researchers and practitioners in categorizing CSFs for software development projects. However, through an extensive search and analysis of the literature on CSFs for software development projects, the research provides greater clarity on the categories of CSFs and how their direct, indirect and moderated effects on project success can be modelled.

This study proposes a contingency fit model and contributes towards developing a theory for assessing the role of CSFs for project success. While future empirical testing of this conceptual model is essential, it provides an initial step for guiding quantitative data collection, specifies detailed empirical analysis for comparative studies, and is likely to improve clarity in debate. Since previous studies have not rigorously assessed the impact of fit between project characteristics, project environment and project management methodology on project success, additional empirically robust studies will help to clarify contradictory findings that have limited theory development for CSFs of software development projects to date.

Previous research for software development projects has frequently not fully incorporated contingency as moderation or contingency as fit (traditional vs agile). This research sets out to develop fully a contingency fit perspective on software development project success, through contrasting traditional plan-driven and agile methodologies. To do this, the paper systematically identifies and ranks 37 CSFs for software projects from 148 journal publications and holistically categorizes them as organizational, team, customer and project factors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of different antecedent factors (contingencies) on the design of a service recovery system (SRS).

A conceptual model was framed and a series of hypotheses generated and tested using data from 158 practicing managers using a multivariate general linear modeling technique.

The analyses indicated that firms, by and large, mainly considered environmental factors in the SRS design. Additional evidence suggests that managers do consider other contingencies but may do so in a fragmented manner. The results presented herein indicate that firms design back-office aspects of SRS in response to external factors (i.e. the environmental contingency). In contrast, the front-office components appear to have more diverse antecedents but are strongly influenced by the firm’s recovery orientation. The specific recovery practices appear to be implemented per industry standards. In sum, evidence indicates that there are diverse driving factors to total SRS design.

Limitations are based primarily on the methodology as data were obtained from a single person who represented the entire SRS. Care was taken in the study design in order not to compromise the validity of the findings.

The results indicated that managers responsible for system design need to be holistic in SRS design to more tightly link decisions across multiple contingencies so as to more fully integrate total service system design. This is potentially accomplished through the inclusion of aspects of all relevant contingencies when designing recovery systems.

This paper’s main contribution is that it employs established theory to develop and test a model to show that firms consider multiple contingencies while designing SRS. It contributes to the emerging body of work on SRS design by providing insights that can be considered as driving forces behind the design of SRS.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations manage and integrate exploration and exploitation across the innovation project portfolio. Such ambidextrous capabilities are required for organizations to innovate and succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Understanding how exploration and exploitation projects are integrated can illustrate ways to enhance ambidexterity and boost learning for the benefit of both approaches.

A multiple-case study approach was used to explore innovation portfolio management in six large organizations that emphasize innovation in their strategies.

The findings draw upon concepts of paradox and contingency to reveal that the inherent tension between formality and flexibility in managing innovation project portfolios is aligned with the need for organizational ambidexterity that maintains effective exploitative innovation while supporting explorative innovation capabilities. Four integration mechanisms are identified that enhance ambidexterity across the innovation portfolio by embedding processes for transition from exploration to exploitation and cross-fertilizing knowledge to build innovation capability across both exploration and exploitation.

Managers may find inspiration on ways to enhance learning by bridging exploration and exploitation projects from the four types of integration mechanisms. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of the tension between formality and flexibility in project and portfolio management may also help guide organizations to effectively develop ambidextrous approaches to enhance overall innovation outcomes.

In contrast to perspectives which suggest that paradox and contingency approaches represent disparate perspectives, the authors demonstrate how they can complement each other and work together through innovation portfolio management to support ambidexterity at the portfolio and project levels.

This paper provides a five-step Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) approach to systematically guide the development and implementation of contextualised Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) designs.

A case study is conducted at a European chemical manufacturer. The research applies the five-step approach, embracing the descriptive and prescriptive EAM functions combined with the lens of contingency theory.

The research findings demonstrate the suitability of the proposed EAM approach for the contextualisation of S&OP designs from a contingency theory perspective. Its descriptive EAM function serves to assess context-specific S&OP challenges and enables to analyse the contextual fit of S&OP designs. Its prescriptive EAM function guides the development and implementation of context-specific S&OP designs towards increasing the S&OP effectiveness. EAM's integrated view onto people, process and information technology served to analyse current practices on the dynamics of S&OP contextualisation in innovation- and quality-driven contexts. Thereby, the paper contributes to a better S&OP contingency understanding.

The EAM approach offered in this paper provides a concrete and practically applicable guidance to support managers to face their context-specific challenges and guide the contextualisation of their S&OP designs to increase the S&OP effectiveness. Moreover, practitioners can improve their understanding regarding the need for S&OP design adjustments to reflect changes in their companies' contingencies.

The research introduces a novel EAM approach for S&OP contextualisation, particularly reflecting contingency theory's dynamic view of structural adjustments to regain fit (SARFIT).

The purpose of this paper is to identify, characterize, classify and conceptualize different perspectives on strategic alignment still in use, propose a taxonomy and definitions that allow understanding the various coexisting concepts, as well as investigate the implications of strategic alignment for data-driven sustainable performance of firms and supply chains.

Bibliographic review was used.

The taxonomy proposes two classes of strategic alignment: (1) Align – more rigorous types of alignment: structure alignment, strategic congruence and strategy alignment; (2) Fit – less rigorous types of alignment: contingency strategic adjustment, strategic coalignment and strategic consistency. Companies are accumulating large amounts of data, which relevance varies widely. The strategic alignment can define criteria to select only the data that have strategic value, which restricts the amount of data to be analyzed. Each of the six types of strategic alignment is appropriate for a given situation in companies and/or supply chains.

The limitations stem from the exclusive use of the taxonomy of strategic alignment, without considering the most diverse perspectives of strategy.

Decision makers will be able to identify more objectively which classes of data should be explored in each situation.

Theoretical implications – The taxonomy proposal and the definition of each of the strategic alignment perspectives solve generalized misunderstandings resulting from the lack of a clear delimitation between the perspectives and the conceptual divergence between authors, who use them as equivalent or synonymous.

From 1961 to 2019, no paper was found proposing taxonomy, typology, systematization, ranking, distribution or classification of strategic alignment. The strategic alignment can define criteria to select, within the large amount of data accumulated by the company, only those that have strategic value, what restricts the quantity of data to be analyzed and facilitates the decision of the leaders.

Following the contingency perspective, this paper aims to examine if a good corporate governance structure is able to reduce earnings management made through related party transactions. The authors expect that a high-quality corporate governance influences private benefit acquisition and reduces the positive association between related party transactions and earnings management.

A two-stage least squares instrumental variable approach is used to further address endogeneity concerns in this study. The model is organized into three parts: the construction of the corporate governance indicator, the first stage regression to compute the predicted corporate governance indicator and the second stage regression (ordinary least squares multivariate regressions) to analyze the relationship between related party transactions and earnings management. The analysis focuses on a sample of Italian listed companies over the period 2007-2012.

The study finds that the interaction between sales-related party transactions and corporate governance is negatively associated with abnormal accruals, signaling that corporate governance quality reduces the positive association between sales-related party transactions and earnings management, consistently with the contingency perspective.

The research contributes to literature by empirically testing the assumption of contingency perspective. In particular, the results provide new insights to the academic community, underlying that good corporate governance mechanism helps to reduce earnings management behavior through related party transactions.

Drawing on configuration theory and adopting a holistic perspective, the authors aim to explore strategic supply chain elements' interaction with internal and external contextual conditions. Specifically, they evaluate multivariate co-alignment of supply chain's capabilities (agility, adaptability, alignment), adhocracy organizational structure and environmental uncertainty (dynamism, munificence and complexity) that lead to superior performance outcomes (supply chain cycle time, financial performance, market performance).

A survey research design is adopted to collect primary and secondary data from 182 international firms. Cluster analysis and profile deviation techniques are employed first to derive a taxonomy of strategic supply chains and then examine multivariate co-alignment.

The analysis reveals that four groups of triple-A supply chains could emerge. It is found that strategic supply chains exhibit a flexible/organic/fluid organizational structure and a high level of triple-As in their processes. These supply chains perform superior to a higher level of environmental complexity, munificence and dynamism.

This study's results provide insights for practitioners by informing their investment decisions for developing strategic supply chains. Specifically, this research highlights the contextuality of triple-A supply chains and offers best practices to capitalize on strategic supply chains.

Executives in organizations require a holistic understanding of various elements to ensure that the organizational system as a whole performs effectively. This research offers insights into the interdependencies of triple-A supply chains with other organizational and external environmental elements. Noteworthy implications for scholarship in operations/supply chain management and supply chain practitioners are presented.