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This paper investigates the effect of state-society relations on the industrially-related growth paths of developed countries.

It introduces a novel theoretical framework, the state-business-labor relations (SBLR) framework, where four main actors are identified: the state, big businesspersons or tycoons, owners and managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or Entrepreneurs and labor. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the studied actors. The paper then investigates how these SBLR modes, through adopting various policies targeting the industrial sector, lead to different growth paths. Rather than focusing only on economic growth, this research regards a growth path as a matrix of the performance in long-run growth and equality of distribution.

Using regression analysis and statistical data, the results suggest that the Co-Balanced mode, having higher levels of coordination and lower favoritism, leads to the best growth path among the four introduced modes, especially with its emphasis on high levels of venture capital availability and easiness of starting business. while the Lib-Capture mode, characterized by lower coordination and higher favoritism, seems to have the worst growth path and the best implemented policy for this mode is suggested to be high profit taxes that seem to counter the negative impact of the existing high levels of favoritism.

Despite the important findings that this research has reached, this paper is mainly meant to open a further investigation into this topic and open this dimension that the research on VoC and political economy have under-researched. A deeper investigation of SBLR typologies that could only be possible by having richer datasets with more data on coordination for the whole world, rather than only the advanced economies, would further our understanding of the dynamics that shape the growth paths of different countries of the world.

To realize the best industrial growth path, fighting favoritism should be an important objective. The negative impact of favoritism on innovation could not be disregarded in the eve of the fourth industrial revolution, where innovation is increasingly pivotal to future industrial development. Actively engaging societal groups in the policymaking process is important in addressing their concerns and balancing them at the same time. This should lead to the double benefit of formulating better policies that should foster growth as well as provide better distribution of this growth. High levels of coordination should help in realizing this objective. Yet, this could only be possible if societal groups are free to associate and aggregate their power and when there are means of preventing one actor from gaining more favorite treatment and exclusive influence over policymakers. The presence of both powerful and broadly represented business associations and labor unions and the existence of a government interested in coordinating their efforts-rather than letting itself be controlled by one group at the expense of the others-should help in the realization of the best growth path. Thus, institutional reform that empowers societal groups and enables them to defend their interests as well as fights all forms of corruption should lead to the realization of a more prosperous and equitable industrial development, with the “re-industrialization” of the developed world being no exception. The technological and social challenges of intensive automation and digitalization accompanying the fourth industrial revolution make the envisaged institutional reform more urgent.

This paper is introducing a novel theoretical framework for studying the effect of state-society relations, particularly SBLR, on the industrial growth paths of developed countries. It integrates three important bodies of literature in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of state-society relations and their economic consequences. These are the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC), State-Business Relations (SBR) and Industrial Relations. The SBLR framework differentiates between tycoons and entrepreneurs, an important distinction that often goes unnoticed. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced, depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the actors. It is proposed in this research that the effect on growth paths goes beyond the simple dichotomy between CMEs and LMEs usually present in the literature of VoC and that power relations provide an essential complementary dimension in explaining this causality.

The build-up of large-scale COVID-19 testing required an unprecedented effort of coordination within decentralized healthcare systems around the world. The aim of the study was to elucidate the challenges of vertical policy coordination between non-political actors at the national and regional levels regarding this policy issue, using Sweden as our case.

Interviews with key actors at the national and regional levels were analyzed using an adapted version of a conceptualization by Adam et al. (2019), depicting barriers to vertical policy coordination.

Our results show that the main issues in the Swedish context were related to parallel sovereignty and a vagueness regarding responsibilities and mandates as well as complex governmental structures and that this was exacerbated by the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of the policy issue. We conclude that understanding the interaction between the comprehensiveness and complexity of the policy issue and the institutional context is crucial to achieving effective vertical policy coordination.

Many studies have focused on countries’ overall pandemic responses, but in order to improve the outcome of future pandemics, it is also important to learn from more specific response measures.

This study aims to further the understanding of multi-level analysis in inter-organisational relationships by investigating the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination in inter-organisational projects (IOPs) on sub-system and project levels.

The authors use the Viable Systems Model as a framework to analyse inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination by adopting a multiple-case study.

The findings illustrate how governance and coordination mechanisms exhibit a filter-down effect on lower sub-systems while cooperation influence is confined within each sub-system. While remarking the importance of specific sub-systems on the overall project performance, the interplay of governance, cooperation and coordination across sub-systems appears to be complex, with governance influencing cooperation and coordination, whereas cooperation and coordination influence each other with an incremental effect.

This study defines two propositions that explain how multiple levels of analysis (project and sub-systems) can support the governance of large inter-organisational projects. The authors elaborate theory on the interplay of inter-organisational project governance, cooperation and coordination.

This paper aims to empirically investigate how knowledge coordination is carried out within and across expert teams in the outsourcing service desk context from the standpoint of the information and communication technologies (ICT) provider.

The authors draw on an embedded case study to unravel the mechanisms used by expert teams to achieve knowledge coordination. Data collection included semi-structured interviews and document analysis over eight months.

Four groups of coordination mechanisms were found according to their nature and role in helping MESA achieve its organizational goals. The authors also identified how this set of mechanisms responds to the task-resource dependency and how it evolves over time to provide reliable ICT services. Furthermore, the analysis of four knowledge coordination dimensions inside each group uncovers the complexity of coordination in the studied context, with the “who” dimension being predominant across the groups. The analysis further reveals that the content (what) and mode of coordination (how) of each group respond to elements in the knowledge coordination process relevant for the different stages of the ICT service delivery process.

The case study addresses how people in outsourced services coordinate their knowledge to manage the interdependencies among the involved organizations and thus, achieving their goals. This study extends previous research that had analyzed the consequences of knowledge coordination for providers and customers by delving into the mechanisms used in this process from the provider’s point of view.

The paper attempts to discuss the optimal pricing decisions under the decentralized and centralized decision and analyze the influence of online reviews and in-sale service on dual-channel supply chain. Finally, the authors design a two-part tariff coordination mechanism.

To deal with this pricing conflict problems of dual-channel supply chain consisting of dominant manufacturer and a retailer, considering the fact that online reviews and in-sale service are important factors on consumers’ purchase decisions, the authors establish some basic models and exploit them to discuss the optimal pricing decisions under the decentralized and centralized decision and analyze the influence of online reviews and in-sale service on dual-channel supply chain. Finally, the authors design a profit-sharing coordination mechanism.

The results show that the optimal online direct selling price is positively correlated with product perceived quality obtained from online reviews and negatively correlated with the in-sale service. The traditional retail price is positively correlated with the in-sale service and weakly correlated with online reviews. For the manufacturer and retailer, whether decentralized decision or coordination contract, their profits increase with the increase of the in-sale service in a certain range and quality perceived from spontaneous online reviews. Online reviews and in-sale service are important factors on consumers’ purchase decisions. Positive in-sale services and online reviews can provide consumers with a better shopping experience, thereby promoting their enthusiasm for shopping and improving their quality of life. The two-part tariff coordination mechanism improves the profits of the manufacturer and the traditional retailer, respectively, through the transfer fee.

The proposed approach can well analyze the channel conflicts and pricing problems between retailers and manufacturers with respect to product offline price and online price. The analysis and results can inform decision-making for manufacturers and retailers.

This study aims to propose an analytical tool based on the activities–resources–actors (ARA) model to understand the coordination mechanisms in humanitarian action. The tool identifies the phases of humanitarian action and analyzes the underlying mechanisms that facilitate coordination among organizations.

This study uses a literature review to develop analytical grids and theoretical propositions based on the ARA model.

The ARA model is a useful tool for understanding coordination mechanisms in humanitarian action. The study identifies key elements of interaction systems and characterizes the phases of humanitarian action. Effective coordination among organizations is essential for successful aid delivery. The study provides four theoretical propositions.

Future research could validate the propositions formulated in this study through case studies.

The analytical grids proposed in this study can be used by humanitarian organizations to improve their coordination mechanisms and aid delivery processes.

Effective humanitarian action can help alleviate the suffering of individuals affected by crises and contribute to the overall well-being of communities. The analytical tool proposed in this study can improve the effectiveness of humanitarian action and ultimately benefit society.

This paper presents an original approach by leveraging the ARA model to develop an analytical tool for humanitarian action, which is useful for both practitioners and researchers. In addition, the paper attempts to overcome the siloed vision of humanitarian action by highlighting “emergency-development” aspect.

Strategy implementation is a critical component of firm performance and middle managers play a key role in the implementation process. This study was conducted to enhance the authors’ understanding of how middle managers influence strategy implementation (SI) effectiveness by investigating the impact of leadership and work team coordination.

A field study was conducted using interviews and survey data gathered from executive managers, middle managers and work team members within a large municipal organization undergoing a major strategic change.

Middle manager transformational and instrumental leadership have a direct positive impact on work team SI effectiveness. Additionally, middle manager transformational leadership has an indirect positive effect on work team SI effectiveness through coordination.

The study offers insights into managers and practitioners seeking to improve SI effectiveness by highlighting the importance of middle manager leadership development and the coordination of interdependent tasks within work teams.

The study provides valuable insight into an important but previously unstudied relationship between middle manager leadership and SI effectiveness. The work also helps bridge the chasm between leadership research and strategy research by linking leadership behavior to SI effectiveness – a key ingredient of firm performance.

To study these issues, the authors chose a GFSC with one producer and one material supplier as research object, the supplier will offer green material to the producer and the producer will make green food using green production technology. Then, the authors proposed that consumers' perceived value was determined by the trustworthiness levels of the related green and quality-safety information provided by the supplier and the producer. Then, considering the trustworthiness levels of the green and quality information provided by the supplier and the producer, the authors improved the demand function. Afterwards, we constructed four investment models and their income models are built and then a cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contract (hereafter, CSRS) was adopted to coordinate the GFSC.

With the growth of consumers environmental awareness and life level, consumers' requirements for green and high quality food are growing. In recently years, to increase consumers' perceived trustworthiness on the product greenness and quality levels, stakeholders in green food supply chain (hereafter, GFSC) start to adopt the blockchain-based traceability system (hereafter, BLTS). For investors, they need to know the investment conditions and how to coordinate the GFSC.

(1) When the revenue-sharing coefficient is less than three-fourths and higher then a certain vaule, the cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contract can make the GFSC coordinate. (2) The investment cost threshold of the BLTS has a positive relationship with the trustworthiness improvement levels of the green and quality information, the green degree of food products and the quality of food products. (3) In the proposed four investment situations, as the growth of consumers perceived credibility coefficient about the greenness information and the quality information, chain members' revenues will increase. In addition, comparing with co-investing the BLTS, benefits of chain members are lower than them in the sole investment model.

(1) The demand function we proposed can help chain members forecast market demand to support production or ordering decisions. (2) The investment decision policies can offer a theoretical reference for chain members to use the BLTS. (3) The CSRS will offer the theoretical reference for coordinating the supply chain after using the BLTS. Furthermore, our study method can be referenced by other scholars. (4) The study method can offer a method reference for researchers who do a similar discussion in a manufacturing supply chain. Although, our research cannot guide the industrial practices, it can serve as a reference of the similar research in industry.

This paper studies the optimal decision-making and coordination problem of a dual-channel fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain. The purpose is to analyze the impact of information sharing on optimal decisions and propose a coordination mechanism to encourage supply chain members to share information.

The two-echelon dual-channel FAP supply chain includes a manufacturer and a retailer. By using the Stackelberg game theory and the backward induction method, the optimal decisions are obtained under information symmetry and asymmetry and the coordination contract is designed.

The results show that supply chain members should comprehensively evaluate the specific situation of product attributes, coefficient of freshness-keeping cost and network operating costs to make decisions. Asymmetric information can exacerbate the deviation of optimal decisions among supply chain members and information sharing is always beneficial to manufacturers but not to retailers. The improved revenue-sharing and cost-sharing contract is an effective coordination mechanism.

The conclusions can provide theoretical guidance for supply chain managers to deal with information asymmetry and improve the competitiveness of the supply chain.

This paper combines the three characteristics that are most closely related to the reality of supply chains, including horizontal and vertical competition of different channels, the perishable characteristics of FAPs and the uncertainty generated by asymmetric demand information.

This study investigates into how organizations enable the compatibility between intermediary role of conventional systems with disintermediary potentials of blockchain toward the coordination of multiple actors in operations management.

The data were collected from 31 interviewees of the case organizations. We conduct an in-depth case study of successful BC implementation in operations management, by using affordance-actualization (A-A) theory as the theoretical lens.

This study identifies the incompatibility between the affordances of conventional systems and blockchain in coordination/operations management and offers a process model in which a fusion phase enables the affordances to be compatible and then to be actualized. The fusion phase extends A-A theory by transposing and connecting in the context of operations management. The result also shows that blockchain technology has decentralized potentials to address the issues caused by centralized organizations or information systems, while not to replace the intermediary roles of centralized organizations or information systems.

This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on blockchain used in operations management, the roles of blockchain enablement and affordance-actualization theory. The findings can also help IT practitioners to implement BC-based applications effectively.