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Despite discussions about the universal work station, there is increasing workplace dynamics in US organisations. These dynamics include space configuration changes, space enclosure changes, changes in occupant density and increasing equipment density. At the same time, building infrastructures have not evolved to meet these demands, with little flexibility in the heating, ventilation and air‐conditioning (HVAC), lighting, or electrical/telecommunication systems of new or existing office buildings. This paper examines the effects of organisational workplace dynamics and building infrastructure flexibility on the environmental and technical quality of offices. Resulting from extensive field studies in US buildings, the authors contend that there are numerous statistically significant issues for the design and management of buildings for the dynamic organisation. The study identified numerous factors that affect thermal, air, lighting and technical quality in offices. In relation to infrastructure, for example, occupants who work in office areas provided with greater cooling capacity and more supply air volume, and combined with smaller HVAC zones, appeared to have higher levels of thermal satisfaction. Those who work in areas with higher outlet densities gave higher technical quality ratings; and those provided with relocatable outlets (raised floor and furniture based) gave significantly higher technical satisfaction ratings than those provided with least‐first‐cost ‘tombstones’. In relation to organisational dynamics, increasing occupant densities in existing buildings are related to more thermal and air quality complaints, more complaints about outlet accessibility, as well as more complaints about inadequate light levels on work surfaces. This paper will outline the major findings of a study linking organisational dynamics with building infrastructure, moving towards the definition of innovations in facility design that will more effectively support dynamic organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the understanding of apparent dichotomies such as East and West, philosophy and social sciences, and antiquity and modernity, and to continue the vibrant expansion of competitive dynamics study into the realm of East-West theoretical fusion.

The author looks to classical Chinese philosophy to discover the origins and nature of competitive dynamics. The paper develops the premise that the foundational thrusts of this contemporary Western management topic spring from ancient Eastern conceptions of duality, relativity, and time.

Research inroads are made along two paths. First, the paper traces the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of competitive dynamics to Eastern thinking. Then by bridging what have customarily been perceived as fundamentally different paradigms, it reveals, in a new light, empirical findings in this strategy subfield.

Linking Western management science, and specifically the study of competitive dynamics, to classical Eastern philosophy raises new research questions in the areas of international management and management education as well as competitive dynamics. In the latter, the paper suggests opportunities for exploring connections between traditional Chinese concepts and contemporary organizational and competition research issues, including competitive and cooperative relationships at the industry level. Future research may also investigate the fundamental differences and similarities between Eastern and Western philosophies, and their implications for competitive strategies.

From a relatively obscure corner of business academia, competitive dynamics now occupies a distinct place in strategic management research and is a topic of intense interest to scholars in a variety of disciplines. The usual view is that competitive dynamics fits squarely in the spectrum of social sciences, an organically home-grown area of Western study. This paper examines the topic from a distinctly different angle – through the lens of ancient Eastern philosophy – to discern deeper a deeper meaning and wider application.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge dynamics process based on the energy metaphor and the thermodynamics framework. Knowledge dynamics is analyzed as a transformational process that goes beyond the Newtonian logic used to date.

The research design is based on metaphorical thinking, critical analysis of the mostly used knowledge metaphors to date, and the logic of thermodynamics, which is the science of energy transformation.

Knowledge is conceived as a field, composed of three fundamental forms: rational knowledge, emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge. Each form of knowledge can be transformed into another form, thus generating an iterative and interactive dynamics. The unity of knowledge is supported by the brain’s organic structure.

Understanding knowledge dynamics as a transformational process helps managers in their problem-solving and implementation of strategies in their organizations. Knowledge dynamics is fundamental to the learning and unlearning processes, and for stimulating innovation. Knowledge dynamics, as a transformational process, is influencing both organizational behavior as well as consumers’ behavior.

The present research uses for the first time a thermodynamics approach in understanding and explaining the knowledge dynamics, which is a transformational process of three fundamental forms of knowledge: rational, emotional and spiritual.

An increase in business overheads due to the enterprise dynamics is postulated to be a cubic function of the area between the actual response of a company in the supply chain and a theoretical neutral axis, where demand equals supply. Reduction of these dynamics has become critical to the competitiveness of the company and even the whole supply chain. The impact of seven causal factors on the dynamic performance of a generic supply chain simulation with reference to the beer game is studied, guidelines for supply chain re‐engineering in order to reduce such dynamics are provided, and coordination dynamics in networking organizational structure are identified. It is then shown that reduction of coordination dynamics is an alternative solution to structural re‐engineering, e.g. shortening manufacturing and transport lead times. Explores the dynamic performance of both centralized and decentralized coordination mechanisms and proposes that there is no essential difference in performance; the latter is more flexible and allows for autonomy of different companies if it is well coordinated. Finally, proposes a decentralized coordination method by using a market mechanism.

System dynamics is a whole-system modelling and learning approach, useful for tackling non-linear problems, such as sustainable urban development. The purpose of this paper is to review system dynamics applications in the simulation of sustainable urban development over a period from 2005 to 2017.

The analysis reveals that the number of applications of system dynamics modelling in the area of urban sustainable development increased in the analysed period. Research has changed its focus from the modelling of environmental problems to more complex models, portraying the multidimensional socio-economic processes that have an impact on the sustainability of urban development. Analysed case studies most often use the behaviour reproduction test for model validation, but without a unified approach. In most cases, modelling has been done in China, Germany and the USA, while urban development in the Eastern European countries, Africa and Latin America has not often been investigated. This paper indicates the knowledge gaps and suggests future research directions.

Papers that report the use of system dynamics modelling reveal a wide range of applications in urban sustainability. The analysis shows significant emphasis on environmental problems, while the interest for modelling social problems has been increasing during the last several years. Most of the modelled problems examine the sustainability of resources (land, water) and waste management, which are used for insights into the reasons for the system behaviour, forecasting future behaviour and policy testing.

The presented models were developed in most cases for the purpose of understanding the phenomena examined, as well as the future use of the models in policy planning. This brings us back to the need for greater stakeholder involvement, not only in the initial phase, but also during the whole modelling process, which could increase understanding, use and ownership of the models in the future, and thus increase their practical application.

This paper aims to describe how organisation coaches can work at relational depth with their clients by exploring the unconscious relational dynamics of the coaching relationship and their links to unconscious dynamics in the client's organisation.

The paper draws on relational psychoanalytic theory of the individual and system psychodynamic theories of organisations to argue that unconscious dynamics that emerge between the coach and client can be understood as: a complex unconscious interaction between how the client and coach organise their relationships; a repetition of how the client participates in unconscious organisation dynamics; and shaping the coach's subjective experience in the work, including their emotional and embodied responses to the client. These propositions are explored through an in‐depth qualitative case study of the author's work with a client.

The case illustrates how unconscious organisation dynamics shaped the client's experience of his role, evoking in him feelings of powerlessness and anger. The coach initially identified with these feelings because of his own relational past. As a result, the relationship became stuck in a repetitive dynamic which could be understood as an expression of the stuck dynamics in the organisation around the unconscious management of anxieties within its management structures. A shift in the coaching relationship was brought about through the coach's disclosure of his own experience and naming of feelings and emotions that were previously implicit and out of awareness in the coaching relationship. The subsequent exploration of the dynamics of the coaching relationship helped the client to understand at a deeper level his struggle in the organisation and to take up a different position in the organisation dynamics. The case study highlights how the dynamics of the coaching relationship can be understood as a repetition of unconscious processes by the client in the organisation.

The paper highlights how coaches can understand and work with unconscious dynamics in the coaching relationship. This requires coaches not only to be self‐aware, but also to possess the emotional maturity and confidence to work with difficult emotional material.

The paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic theory of individuals and organisations can be integrated into a relational approach to coaching which facilitates the exploration of the client's experience of their work in an organisation context.

The purpose of the study is to explore how technological capability and exogenous pressure interactively influence business model (BM) dynamics over time in new technology-based ventures.

The study adopts a longitudinal case study of the BM innovations of a Chinese financial technology venture. The structural approach and temporal bracket are used to analyze and theorize the data.

The findings indicate that distinct contextual changes impel a firm to refine or abandon existing BMs over time. In different stages, the antecedents interactively influence BM dynamics with three successive patterns, namely pressure dominance, parallel influence and hybrid influence. While both antecedents trigger changes during the initiation and implementation of new BMs, they also serve as the filter and the enabler, respectively, during the ideation and integration of BMs.

The study inductively develops three propositions regarding the relationship between BM dynamics and its antecedents, which is based on the data collected from one single firm. Future research should test the propositions in other domains and take more cross-level antecedents into consideration.

The study contributes to the nascent research stream of BM dynamics by offering in-depth insights into the interaction of internal and external antecedents and by linking the differentiated roles of antecedents to the BM innovation process. The research offers some practical implications for new technology-based ventures seeking to develop BMs in a fast-changing environment.

The author invokes the concept of strategic adaptation to first specify the evolutionary as well as the strategic character of the causal mechanism (“intra-industry exit”), and second to explain its effect on the evolution of firms' within-industry geographic scope. The author reconciles the two competing logics for firm behavior – strategic choice and environmental selection – that underpin alternate explanations for the relationship between intra-industry exit and the evolution of geographic scope. This paper contributes to both theory and empirics concerning the dynamics of firms' competitive scope, in general, and within-industry geographic scope, in particular.

The US long-distance telecom services industry during the period 1984–1996, which satisfies the empirical requirements of a geographically fragmented industry characterized by demand-side heterogeneity across the submarkets, provides the research setting and panel data to test the empirical hypotheses.

The author finds that while the firms' overall performance influences their intra-industry exit decisions, it is the firm-in-market performance that influences their decision to exit a specific submarket. The author also finds that intra-industry exit decision, when influenced by firm performance, does lead to reduction in geographic scope.

This context-specific theory, which conceptualizes the dynamics of firms' geographic scope as an evolutionary process, explains the temporal change in the geographic scope of firms during the latter part of the demand growth stage of a geographically fragmented industry.

This analysis of the demand-side dynamics of firms' within-industry geographic scope focuses on the hypothetical causal effect of intra-industry exit, a pervasive business phenomenon. First, the demand-side analysis of the evolution of geographic scope is grounded in a theoretical framework that melds firm dynamics with submarket dynamics and industry dynamics. Second, this analysis explicates the demand-side underpinnings of the strategic adaptive mechanism.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptually develop the understanding of co‐opetition dynamics and to enhance the conceptual clarity of co‐opetition by developing a definition based on previous research efforts.

This conceptual paper integrates various approaches to the concept co‐opetition into a definition that holds for co‐opetitive interactions across multiple levels. Different co‐opetitive interactions and the resulting dynamics are discussed by drawing upon competition and cooperation theories. The paper concludes with an agenda for further research on co‐opetition dynamics.

The paper outlines how different types of co‐opetitive interactions result in archetypical situations where the dynamics of co‐opetition are present as well as where the dynamics of co‐opetition are missing due to a lack of balance between cooperation and competition. It notes four co‐opetitive forces: over‐embedding, distancing, confronting, and colluding. These four forces drive development towards situations without dynamics.

This paper provides a conceptual understanding of co‐opetition dynamics and will reveal that in order to adequately account for co‐opetition dynamics, a definition of co‐opetition must analytically separate the cooperative and the competitive interaction inherent in co‐opetition.

Logistics systems used in companies that perform multiple roles are expected to be able to manage conflicting objectives. Nevertheless, the literature suggests that many existing logistics performance measurement system (PMS) frameworks are not optimized to provide mechanisms to reveal dynamic relationships between conflicting performance indicators. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new logistics PMS by linking the system dynamics model with a set of balanced performance indicators.

The logistics PMS is developed through a literature review and case study of a company that plays multiple roles. The interrelationships between logistics factors and their links to end results are modeled in diagrams through in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The developed model is then used to build a simulation tool to analyze factors that cause poor performance.

The new logistics PMS developed by incorporating system dynamics offers decision makers ways to identify dynamic relationships among factors and conflicting indicators, in turn helping them to understand holistic logistics performance, objectively analyze why logistics systems perform in a certain way and foster a common shared view.

Stakeholders of companies that play multiple roles can use the new PMS model to comprehensively evaluate the performance of logistics systems. In addition, the increased visibility of logistics systems may support decision-making while preventing local optimization.

A logistical PMS based on the system dynamics model for managing logistics systems in companies performing multiple roles has not yet been identified. This paper fills this theoretical gap and contributes to the academic literature by proposing a novel PMS model based on the system dynamics model to address the limitations of existing PMS frameworks.