Search results

This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.

We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.

Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

This paper aims to identify the combination of innovation determinants driving the creation of innovative products amongst market leaders and market followers in food and beverage (F&B) firms.

This research is based on the case study methodology by using two types of data sources: (1) semi-structured interviews with industry experts and (2) in-depth interviews with managers. In addition, a questionnaire adapted from prior research was used to consider market and firm types.

Suggesting an integrated theoretical framework based on firm-based factors and market-based factors, this study identified a combination of determinants significantly impacting innovative products in the market. Specifically, these determinants are competition intensity and innovation capability (a combination of research and development (R&D) investment and marketing capabilities). The study also examined how these determinants vary depending on whether the firms are market leaders or market followers.

This research provides practical insights for managers working in the F&B industry by using case studies and exploring the determinants of developing innovative products. In doing so, suitable strategies can be selected according to the market and firm situations.

The originality of the study is shown by focussing on how different combinations of market and firm factors could be applied in creating successful innovative products in the food sector.

This research aims to analyse the perceptions of practitioners in three regions regarding the challenges faced by their firms during the pandemic, considered a black-swan event. It examines the strategies implemented to mitigate and recover from risks, evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and assesses the difficulties encountered in their implementation.

In the summer of 2022, an online survey was conducted among supply chain (SC) practitioners in France, Poland and the St. Louis, Missouri region of the USA. The survey aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their firms and the SC strategies employed to sustain operations. These regions were selected due to their varying levels of SC development, including infrastructure, economic resources and expertise. Moreover, they exhibited different responses in safeguarding the well-being of their citizens during the pandemic.

The study reveals consistent perceptions among practitioners from the three regions regarding the impact of COVID-19 on SCs. Their actions to enhance SC resilience primarily relied on strengthening collaborative efforts within their firms and SCs, thus validating the tenets of the relational view.

COVID-19 is (hopefully) our black-swan pandemic occurrence during our lifetime. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from it can inform future SC risk management practices, particularly in dealing with rare crises. During times of crisis, leveraging existing SC structures may prove more effective and efficient than developing new ones. These findings underscore the significance of relationships in ensuring SC resilience.

The purpose is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurs’ exit strategies and modes of entry. The topic of exit strategies in the context of approaching retirement warrants further attention.

We apply logistic regression to analyse 1,192 responses to an online survey of firms with entrepreneurs aged over 55.

Family successors are more likely to choose family succession and buyers to choose to sell, but the association between founding and exit mode cannot be confirmed. Firm size is also significant. Our findings suggest that entry and exit via a business transfer are linked. Entrepreneurs might be influenced by their form of entry when choosing their exit strategy.

The data were collected from a single European country, limiting generalisation. Future research should incorporate intervening variables not controlled for here, such as, entrepreneurial experience. Future studies should also seek to test the existence of imprinting directly, as it is implied rather than verified here.

If the entry mode has a lasting effect on the entrepreneur as our results suggest, thus influencing the exit strategy selected, entrepreneurs could benefit from greater awareness of the imprinting mechanism. Increasing awareness of imprinted biases could unlock the benefits of exit strategies previously overlooked.

The study is the first to consider sale, family succession and liquidation as exit strategies in relation to the original entry mode of ageing owners. It contributes to the understanding of exit strategies of ageing entrepreneurs and proposes using entrepreneurial learning and imprinting as lenses to clarify the phenomenon.

Firms are advocating for social change to a growing extent, but the performance implications of corporate activism are not clearly understood. This study aims to introduce social nonmarket strategy (SNMS) as a goal-directed form of corporate activism, explore whether such strategy harms corporate financial performance (CFP), and assess the buffering potential of effective market-based strategy and good standing with stakeholders.

A reflective measurement model and all hypothesized relationships were tested using consistent partial least squares structural equation modeling on a data set of 202 US-based small, medium, and large manufacturing and service firms.

SNMS is positively related to good standing with stakeholders but negatively related to CFP. By contrast, a higher market strategy (MS) is positively associated with both stakeholder performance and CFP. MS and stakeholder performance buffer but do not fully neutralize the adverse financial effect of SNMS.

Firms undertaking SNMS face serious risks. However, effective MS and higher levels of stakeholder performance can buffer but not fully neutralize the adverse financial effect of SNMS.

This research introduces SNMS as a goal-directed form of corporate activism, establishes the conflicting performance effects of such strategy and estimates the buffering potential of MS and stakeholder performance.

From a firm-centric perspective, this study aims to elaborate on the types of servitisation strategies that can support a firm’s circular ambitions by asking: What is the role of servitisation in narrowing, slowing and/or closing resource loops? And, how are resources and capabilities arranged to provide such strategic circular service offerings?

Drawing on the experiences of an international manufacturing company from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the study offers an analytical framework that goes inside the firm’s operationalisation of its service offerings to support circularity in terms of the strategic decisions made. This framework is later used to frame the findings.

The study highlights the case-specific feedback loops and capabilities needed to support circular transitions. Various resource and innovation strategies for circularity are combined along customer interfaces and in partnership with upstream actors. Yet, open innovation strategies are conditioned by physical distance to provide circular services in remote areas.

The main contributions are empirical, analytical, conceptual and practical. The servitisation framework for circularity connects prior servitisation-circularity research and provides an analytical tool for framing future studies. The study also expands the definition of open innovation in that closed innovations for circularity can be achieved through “open” information exchange in knowledge networks, as well as provides advice for similar large manufacturing companies.

This study focuses on the strategic choices made by industrial firms for circular service provision and emphasises the environmental benefits from such choices, in addition to the economic and customer benefits covered in extant servitisation research.

Despite the proliferation of cyberthreats upon the supply chain (SC) at large, knowledge on SC cybersecurity is scarce and predominantly conceptual or descriptive. Addressing this gap, this research examines the effect of SC cyber risk management strategies on integration decisions for cybersecurity (with suppliers, customers, and internally) to enhance the SC’s cyber resilience and robustness.

A research model grounded in the supply chain risk management (SCRM) literature, with roots in the Dynamic Capabilities View and the Relational View, was developed. Survey responses of 388 SC managers at US manufacturers were obtained to test the model.

An impact of SC cyber risk management strategies on internal cyber integration was detected, which in turn impacted external cyber integration with both suppliers and customers. Further, a positive effect of internal and customer cyber integration on both cyber resilience and robustness was found, while cyber integration with suppliers impacted neither.

Industry practitioners may adapt certain risk management and integration strategies to enhance the cybersecurity posture of their SCs.

This research bridges between the established domain of SCRM and the emergent field of SC cybersecurity by forming and testing novel relationships between SCRM-rooted constructs tailored to an SC cyber risks context.

The paper aims to analyse the construct of business model innovation (BMI) in the digital and sustainable landscape, investigating the key role of boundary strategies. The paper advances a comprehensive framework aimed at further understanding the overlap among digitalization, sustainability and BMI development, by a “boundary approach”.

The paper follows a theoretical approach based on an in-depth review of relevant literature on BMI, digitalization and sustainability as relevant megatrends and, boundary management. By critically integrating the literature, a framework is developed with the objective of supporting firms in the current transformation challenges.

The paper highlights the interplay among BMIs, megatrends and boundary management. The pressures and opportunities driven by the technological changes have made even more relevant the management of resources placed in the boundary area. Our study shows how firms can rethink their BMs in the digital and sustainable landscape by providing a boundary-based framework.

The framework offers insights and guidelines to help practitioners manage the change processes dictated by digitalization and sustainability. The authors encourage a focus on boundary resources/capabilities to increase the effective management of the digitalization and sustainability processes, to grasp the external stimuli driven by these two megatrends and to develop new/renewed BMIs.

This study emphasizes the importance of developing new BMIs in the current digital and sustainable landscape starting from the analysis of firm’s boundaries. The paper enriches the BMI literature supporting the enhancement of boundary management, leading firms to overcome challenges in the digital and sustainable landscape.

The purpose of this paper is to explore board functions and their location in family firms.

Through structured induction in a four-case study of medium-sized Swedish family firms, the authors demonstrate that board functions can be located in other arenas than in the common board and suggest propositions that explain their distribution.

(1) The board is but one of several arenas where board functions are performed. (2) The functions performed by the board vary in type and emphasis. (3) The non-family directors in a family firm serve the owners, even sometimes governing them, in what the authors term “bidirectional governance”. (4) The kin strategy of the family influences their governance. (5) The utilization of a board for governance stems from the family (together with its constitution, kin strategy and governance strategy), the board composition and the business conditions of the firm.

Being a case study the findings are restricted to concepts and theoretical propositions. Using structured induction, the study is not solely inductive but still contains the subjectivity of induction.

Governance agents should have an instrumental view on the board, considering it one possible governance arena among others, thereby economizing on governance.

The institutional pressure toward active boards could paradoxically reduce the importance of the board in family firms.

The board of a family company differs in its emphasis of board functions and these functions are performed with varying emphases in different governance arenas. The authors propose the concept of kin strategy, which refers to the governance importance of the structure of the owner and observations on bi-directional governance, indicating that the board can govern the owners.

Building upon the foundational eight dimensions of quality proposed by Garvin (1987), this research formulates a modern meaning of “quality.” This new meaning aligns with and encapsulates the evolving sophistication of consumers, the strategic quality investments made by firms, and the current dynamics of sales.

Due to the complexity of the concept of quality, a triangulation approach is used, which is composed of the following: a review of the literature, an analysis of consumers’ quality dimensions using both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (survey) methods, as well as a quantitative investigation (survey) of firms’ investments in quality dimensions and the links to sales.

Our findings reveal the existence of 21 new and emerging dimensions through which consumers measure product quality, all of which complement Garvin’s dimensions. These dimensions contribute to a fresh and modern interpretation of quality. Although there are 29 dimensions of quality in total, firms should shape their strategies by focusing on usability, customization, efficiency, innovation, performance, perceived quality, serviceability, pricing, conformance quality, ethics, and sustainability. These dimensions align with consumer wants and positively correlate with firms’ sales.

This research identifies novel and contemporary dimensions of quality, serving to complement the eight dimensions previously delineated by Garvin (1987). Consequently, it contributes to updating the operations management literature on Total Quality Management, 36 years subsequent to the introduction of Garvin’s foundational dimensions.