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A key challenge for hybrid organizations is managing to recombine the different institutional logics they incorporate while navigating complex, fast-changing environments. To examine how hybrids address this issue, the authors analyze the evolution of the Italian fiscal police – the Guardia di Finanza – from its foundation in 1862. Building on this unique case of a fiscal law enforcement agency that incorporates public fiscal and military logics, the authors propose that hybrid organizations can integrate the different logics they incorporate on the basis of four mechanisms. The mechanisms of upward and downward vertical integration trigger the integration of different logics throughout the entire organization. Integrated horizontal task extension and integrated horizontal competency extension enable an organization to manage a broader range of tasks while it develops the competencies that environmental complexity demands. These four mechanisms interact and, when properly managed, reinforce each other. With this chapter, the authors contribute to research on the processual nature of organizational hybridity and to broader research on the role of structures and competencies in dealing with environmental complexity.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

The main purpose of this paper is to research the e‐government architecture issue as a means of addressing the interoperability gap. It will incorporate the new knowledge acquired in the e‐government integration methodology of the interconnectivity of cross‐layers. These layers include the vertical direction of strategy, business, process, service and information.

The methodology used in this research as it progressed was component‐base driven and involved the exploration of vertical e‐government integration and common service interoperability between business and IT. The realization of this methodology first required a technical foundation setup followed by a business semantics study and a new concept of enterprise integration. The lack of interconnectivity between these layers is the main concerns with the implication that e‐government architecture needs a robust micro‐mechanism of semantic messaging and metadata to coordinate across layers.

E‐government architecture became pervasive in the twenty‐first century due to its significant growth in terms of huge volume transactions, the citizens' new service concept, and sophisticated businesses. Enterprise architecture mainly mediates between business and IT to minimize the gap by improving governance, agility and business integrity. All of these disciplines and principles should be applied to attain e‐government transformation and vertical interoperability and common services provisioning are the major findings in the research.

This paper contribute new concept of enterprise vertical integration in e‐government. The integrated solution of coherence of approaches forms the basis of this new concept; it serves as the backbone in vertical integration and addresses the e‐government enterprise gap. It is expected to provide further insights into micro process integration across e‐government enterprise layers.

This article is concerned with the role of theory in explaining the inter‐industry variation of vertical integration (VI). Why, for example, is the world aluminium industry highly integrated (Stukey, 1983) whereas the tin industry is not (Hennart, 1982)? The article is not concerned with explaining differences in the average level of VI across countries, although these are undoubtedly significant (Chandler and Daeins, 1980).

This study aims to fill in new evidence related to theoretical explanations on how perception of sincerity, excitement and sophistication relates to attitudes towards the different kinds of brand extensions, namely, horizontal extension and vertical extension.

Taking an established Chinese brand as a test object and a survey sample data from three cities in China, the strength of perception of brand personality and its effect on attitudes towards brand extension is tested. T‐test is used to analyze the data.

Results show that, a salient perception of personality “sincerity” is significantly favourable to downward extension, but has no significant effect on upward, near or far extension. A salient perception of personalities “excitement” and “sophistication” is significantly favourable to upward and far extension, but has no significant effect on downward or near extension.

Although the data used for testing the hypotheses in this article are taken from three cities in China, spanning four major age groups, this collection of data does not eliminate the possible errors introduced in the course of survey. Another limitation is that this survey takes one single established brand.

This study provides targeted strategies for the long‐term management of Chinese local brands, particularly established brands. Decision makers for enterprises of established brands are consequently faced with two alternative solution approaches. One is to undertake brand extension and develop and promote new products to improve brand personality. The second is to reform a brand's personality to make it conducive for reasonable market extension.

This study contributes to branding theories by pioneering research on attitudes towards a parent brand as an evaluation factor in research on the mechanism of brand extension, as well as by enriching research on matters related to brand personality traits.

The purpose of this paper is to present a simple model to demonstrate how a trade‐off between incomplete contract distortions and excessive governance costs determine an agricultural firm's organizational choices.

In this paper, it is argued that the perishable nature of products exaggerates the incomplete contract distortion, such that products with a short biological production cycle (e.g. eggs) are likely to be operated under vertical integration, products with a medium cycle (e.g. poultry) are likely to be operated under product contracts, and products with a long cycle (e.g. pork) are likely to be operated under marketing contracts.

This model helps explain why vertical integration dominates the US egg industry, why product contracts are prevalent in the turkey industry, and why marketing contracts have become common in the pork industry. The implications from this model are also applicable to other sectors and other countries, including China's agricultural sectors.

This paper illustrates that perishable products are more vulnerable to opportunism, because the incomplete contract distortion is exaggerated by the perishable nature of the products. However, a local government can reshape firms' choices of vertical coordination by improving its legal infrastructure to reduce the incomplete contract distortions and then weaken the role of the perishable nature of products, so that contracting (product or marketing) may take place. Note that agricultural producers benefit more in selling their products through product/marketing contracts than spot markets.

Looks fundamentally at the reasons for vertical integration. Specifically addresses the question of why vertical integration and close contractual equivalents have arisen in the petrol and brewing sectors of the UK. Reports the results of a comparative case study. Considers the ability of power and efficiency explanations to account for both the current pattern of vertical integration and its changes over time. Principally concludes the following: the recent history of vertical integration is better accounted for by efficiency rationales in the case of petrol and by market power in the case of brewing. Nevertheless, elements of both are present in each industry. Given the strong similarity in vertical and horizontal industry structure between these sectors, this implies that a case by case approach is preferable to a form‐based approach.

In mature industries, downward vertical (line) extension has become an increasingly popular strategy, particularly for automobile manufacturers aiming at expanding their consumer bases and/or avoiding competition in higher market segment. This paper aims to examine how Mercedes-Benz (MB) practiced a downward vertical line extension within the same product category. When commercialized as a product line innovation, the MB A-Class was the first and most symbolic move made by a premium brand in the automobile industry.

This paper investigates the microfoundations of a vertical downward extension strategy. To do so, the authors adopt a narrative style to analyze the story of the MB A-Class from its inception to its commercialization. Secondary data sources, such as company websites, annual reports, internal documents, books, public relations and press releases, were used. Qualitative as well as quantitative performance outcomes were assessed using market and product sales in Western Europe (1997-2016) and the results of an MB brand image survey conducted in 1998 following the accident faced by the A-Class.

The case illustrates that contrary to initial assumptions, lower-quality extensions may be relevant for prestige brands under certain conditions and identifies four strategy components that may drive a successful downward stretch: combine organizational, product, process and marketing innovation with the support of dynamic capabilities; manage paradoxes/contradictions in terms of product development; target the high-end of a lower consumer segment; and adopt a “brand humility talk scheme”.

Existing studies primarily focus on consumers’ evaluations of vertical step-down extensions. Rare are the articles that adopt the company’s perspective. Moreover, additional research is needed to assess the short- and long-term impacts of vertical downward extension on performance outcomes.

The case of the MB A-Class encourages top executives to consider the trade-offs inherent to a down-market strategic move: keeping the (premium) brand’s standards high within a reduced cost/price envelope while learning the codes of the new/bottom of the market. In addition, the A-Class may serve as a fundamental school case for marketing managers and creative advertising agencies on what should and should not be done, whether at the product or at the advertising level.

This paper demonstrates that a premium brand that practiced a vertical downward line extension can expand its sales in a mass market, by targeting a small but growing segment with a high willingness to pay for more expensive products. This adds to the contention that it is not the downscale extension product price per se that negatively affects the parent brand but rather where it stands in the hierarchy of the market segment considered and the ability of the premium brand to integrate the downscale extension to its own history (i.e. combining its original values with tangible product benefits while backing the cause of the new market). Finally, the story of the A-Class strongly suggests that any company needs to upgrade its capabilities as part of the learning process of a new market to convert a business opportunity into a market success.

The stability of two‐dimensional natural convection of water near its density maximum (cold water) inside a vertical rectangular enclosure with an aspect ratio of eight is investigated via a series of direct numerical simulations. The simulations aim to clarify, under the influence of density inversion, the physical nature of the instability mechanism responsible for the laminar buoyancy‐driven flow transition from a steady state to an oscillatory state in the enclosure filled with cold water. Two values of the density inversion parameter, _m= 0.4 and 0.5, where the density inversion of cold water may exert strong influence on the flow, are considered in the present study. The results show that the transition from steady state to periodically oscillatory convection arises in the cold‐water‐filled enclosure through a Hopf bifurcation. The oscillatory convection in the water‐filled enclosure for both values of _m is found to feature an oscillatory multicellular structure within the contra‐rotating bicellular flow regions. A traveling wave motion accordingly results along the maximum density contour, which demarcates the contra‐rotating bicellular flows in the enclosure. For both cases the nature of transition into unsteadiness is found to be buoyancy‐driven. The critical Rayleigh number for the bifurcation at _m = 0.4 is found to be markedly higher than that at _m = 0.5.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.