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In “The next wave of entrepreneurship research,” Schoonhoven and Romanelli (hereafter S&R, this volume) set forth a broad-gauge review of recent work in entrepreneurship. They challenge standard debates and focus on arguments and research that explore large-scale contextual variation in complex ecologies of entrepreneurship over time. Further, their review puts networks and teams, communities of expertise and knowledge, and collective activity at the center of new directions for entrepreneurial research. They contend, in this paper and elsewhere, that the important questions going forward “concern the mass effects of entrepreneurial activity on the creation of new firms and industries, the pioneering of emerging markets, the evolution of existing industries, the development of regional economies, and even … the competitiveness of nations” (Schoonhoven & Romanelli, 2001, p. 383).

This paper offers a novel approach for conducting impactful research on emerging topics or practices. This method is particularly relevant in the face of emerging phenomena and new dynamics, such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain risks. Because these new phenomena and dynamics are relatively unexplored, little prior knowledge exists in literature and industry, and they represent a large opportunity and/or challenge to practitioners.

The action principles research (APR) approach, as a newer version of critically engaged research (CER), offers comparison against more traditional empirical or intervention-based research. The authors illustrate the approach with a pandemic risk-management study.

The APR approach originated in the information technology field. It is highly applicable for researchers who are seeking to more expeditiously support decision making and actioning on new dynamics and emerging topics and practice in supply chain management than is allowed by traditional methods and longitudinal CER.

In the context of ongoing calls for relevance, impact and actionable findings on pandemic risk management, this paper describes an approach to developing timely findings that are actionable for practitioners and that advance science around dynamic and emerging topics or practices. We hope this will grow societal value of research, particularly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the new dynamics and uncertainties that managers face in modern supply chains.

The aim of the study is to identify best practices from Business Excellence (BE) award-winning organizations on the use of their BE self-assessment (internal assessment) and third-party assessment (external assessment including BE award assessments) for organizational improvement.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to gather data from 50 organizations across 17 countries with varying degrees of BE maturity. Twenty of these, representing 40% of the sample, then participated in semi-structured interviews through which their understanding of the impacts of various practices was explored in more detail. From this sub-sample, three (3) emerged as exemplars used as the case studies reported here.

The findings from the first and broader study of the 50 organizations demonstrate a diverse approach to BE assessments, much of which is tailored to the maturity level of each organization. BE organizations with a high BE maturity level are more likely to conduct regular self-assessments and certificate assessment. Key practices identified in the case study organizations were their unique approach to preparing the organization for assessments irrespective of the BE award criteria, the use of mock assessments to prepare for award assessments, the use of customer-led assessments, thorough action plan review process, the use of internal assessments to grow internal capabilities, participation in regular award assessments, the use of external BE assessors and experts for assessments, increased use of technology to support the assessment process, and varying assessment types by organizational BE maturity.

This research provides a specific and valuable contribution to the existing BE literature by presenting contemporary, real-world examples of best practices in BE assessment. It offers a unique perspective on how award-winning organizations tailor their strategies to meet diverse business needs and strategic objectives.

Do managers have the creative and innovative ability needed for their organisations to survive in an increasingly competitive environment? A study of 200 managers from eight companies gives an answer to this question. If intuition is an indication of creativity and innovation, we find that almost 25 per cent of all managers were primarily intuitive when solving problems and making decisions. The concept of intuition and other decision functions is based on Jung’s typology. Is intuition in managers an important asset to their organisations? An investigation of problem‐solving and decision‐making styles of 33 managers related to organisational effectiveness throws some light on this question. What is called the “creative‐innovative” decision‐making style was found in 23 per cent of the managers. This article suggests that intuition as decision‐making style appears to be related to organisational effectiveness. Several managers are intuitive. Whether the intuitive managers are more effective than others remains to be seen.

Although management scholars have embraced grand challenges research, in many cases, grand challenges have been treated as merely a context for exploring extant theoretical perspectives. By comparison, our approach – robust action – provides a novel theoretical framework for tackling grand challenges. In this invited article, we revisit our 2015 model, clarifying and elaborating its key elements and taking stock of subsequent developments. We then identify three promising directions for future research: scaffolding, future imaginaries, and distributed actorhood. Ultimately, our core message is remarkably simple: robust action strategies – participatory architecture, multivocal inscription and distributed experimentation – jointly provide a means for tackling grand challenges that is well matched to their complexities, uncertainties, and evaluativities.

The power cable maintenance robot is an important equipment to ensure the reliable operation of high-voltage transmission (HVT) lines and is a useful exploration to achieve high-quality power transmission. In respond to a series of technical problems in the operation process, such as robot shaking, terminal positioning error, camera image blurred and visual servo control difficulty which caused by the influence of high altitude random wind load on the motion control of power maintenance robot. The purpose of this study is to minimizing the impact of wind loads on robot motion control on the high voltage transmission line, so as to obtain the sound motion performance.

This paper presents a robust stabilization control method for flexible wire power maintenance robot under wind load action, the coupling mathematical model between the flexible wire with the robot has been established, and the robot rolling model under wind load has also been established. According to the tilt sensor, the robot pendulum angle value can be obtained and fitted through sinusoidal function; the robot swing period and frequency under wind load action can be also obtained; the feedforward- and feedback-based robot closed-loop control system is also designed.

Through the online detection of wind load dection, so as to dynamic control the clamping force of the robot's dual-arm jaws, therefore, the robot robust stabilization control with different grades of wind load can be realized. Finally, the effectiveness and engineering practicability of the proposed algorithm are verified by simulation experiments and field operation experiments. Compared with the conventional proportional integral differential (PID) algorithm, this method can effectively suppress the influence of wind load on the robot robust stabilization motion control, and the robot posture detection operation control has been further optimized.

A robust stabilization control method for power robot under wind load is proposed. The coupling motion model of flexible HVT and robot is established. The mathematical relationship between the robot wind rolling angle and the wind force has been deduced, and the corresponding closed-loop control system with feedforward and feedback has also been designed. Through the design of robust stabilization control algorithm based on mixed sensitivity function, the effectiveness of the mixed sensitivity robust stabilization control algorithm is verified by simulation experiments in MATLAB environment. Compared with the traditional PID algorithm, this method can effectively suppress the influence of large-scale disturbance information represented by wind load on the robot motion control. The engineering practicability of the robot robust stabilization control algorithm is further verified by the robot live damper replacement operation under the field wind load, which further improves the robot operation efficiency and intelligence.

The purpose of this paper is to inform of the development and use of comprehensive system dynamics model for the formulation of robust strategies in project manufacturing business.

Experiences from action research involving field study with project manufacturing businesses are reported.

It is possible, using readily available resources, to develop comprehensive system dynamics model for project manufacturing business which can be used to facilitate the formulation of robust strategies.

Field study involved only five businesses serving three project manufacturing sectors.

The need for better approaches for dealing with dynamic complexity in project business is recognized in the literature. However, extant models deal with single projects or a few aspects of multiple projects. The research suggests that companies can develop system dynamics models that go beyond multiple projects to encompass broader business issues which cause effects within their projects. Further, such comprehensive models can be used to formulate robust strategies.

The originality of the research reported in this paper is that both immediate sources, and ultimate sources, of dynamic complexity are described. Extant system dynamics models are concerned with either, but not both. Hence, extant models are not comprehensive. That is, they do not encompass the full extent of sources of dynamic complexity in project business. The value of this paper is that it offers practical examples to inform the development of comprehensive system dynamics model for project manufacturing business. Moreover, the use of comprehensive model to facilitate the formulation of robust strategies is explained.

Organizational theorists and strategy scholars are both interested in how organizations deal with ambiguity, especially in relation to implementation. This chapter examines one source of ambiguity that organizations face, which is based on their efforts to implement moral mandates. These mandates, which are related to areas such as environmental sustainability and diversity, are inherently ambiguous, as they lack a shared understanding regarding their scope and associated practices. They are also often broad and systemic and may be unclearly aligned with an organization's strategy. Due to these challenges, in this chapter, we theorize that collective action at the field level is necessary for organizations to advance and concretize moral mandates. We examine this theorizing through the case of the implementation of sustainability in higher education. We hypothesize and find support for the idea that when an organization's members engage in collective action at the field level, those organizations have an increased likelihood of achieving sustainability implementation. To gain insight into this field-to-organization relationship, we qualitatively examine 18 years of conversations from an online forum to develop a process model of moral mandate implementation. We theorize that collective action functions as a field-configuring space, in which actors from a variety of organizations come together to (1) refine the scope of the mandate and (2) create an implementation repertoire that actors can draw on when seeking to bring sustainability to their own organizations. Overall, our study provides a model of how ambiguous moral mandates can be implemented by highlighting the important role of collective action across organizations in concretizing those mandates and providing actors with the tools for their implementation.