Business schools inside the academy: What are the prospects for interdepartmental research collaboration?

Established literature about the role of business schools tends towards more parochial concerns, such as their need for a more pluralist and socially reflexive mode of knowledge production (Starkey and Tiratsoo 2007; Starkey et al 2009) or the failure of management’s professionalism project expressed through the business school movement (Khurana 2007). When casting their gaze otherwise, academic commentators examine business schools’ weakening links with management practice (Bennis and O’Toole 2005). Our theme makes a novel contribution to the business school literature through exploring prospects for research collaborations with other university departments. We draw upon the case of UK business schools, which are typically university-based (unlike some of their European counterparts), and provide illustrations relating to collaboration with medical schools to make our analytical points. We might expect that business schools and medical schools effectively collaborate given their similar vocational underpinnings, but at the same time, there are significant differences, such as differing paradigms of research and the extent to which the practice fields are professionalised. This means collaboration may prove challenging. In short, the case of collaboration between business schools and medical schools is likely to illuminate the challenges for business schools ‘reaching out’ to other university departments

The moderating effect of brand orientation on inter-firm market orientation and performance

While prior research has shown that market and brand orientation are key contributors to successful business performance, research to date has not fully explored how inter firm collaboration for these two key orientations can enhance business performance. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between inter-firm market and performance; to test for the moderating role of brand orientation in that relationship. A total of 169 completed pairs of surveys were collected of small and medium enterprises operating internationally in a variety of industries in Switzerland. The results show that inter-firm market and brand orientation are two antecedents of marketing and financial performance. The impact of inter-firm market on marketing and financial performance is significant when the brand orientation is favorable. This study extends previous research by examining the moderating role of brand orientation on inter firm market orientation, which is important, especially for firms wanting to increase their brand reputation by entering into partnerships with other firms. Further research is indicated, to identify the key moderators of the driving force of inter-firm market in relation to business performance and the reason why maintaining a strong brand presence is important in the international marketplace

A Conceptual Framework of Reverse Logistics Impact on Firm Performance

This study aims to examine the reverse logistics factors that impact upon firm performance. We review reverse logistics factors under three research streams: (a) resource-based view of the firm, including: Firm strategy, Operations management, and Customer loyalty (b) relational theory, including: Supply chain efficiency, Supply chain collaboration, and institutional theory, including: Government support and Cultural alignment. We measured firm performance with 5 measures: profitability, cost, innovativeness, perceived competitive advantage, and perceived customer satisfaction. We discuss implications for research, policy and practice

The role of inter-organizational collaboration within innovation strategies: towards a portfolio approach.

Within the innovation literature, inter-organizational collaboration is being advanced as instrumental for improving the innovative performance of firms. In addition inter-organizational collaboration can be instrumental for addressing the multiple requirements innovation strategies entail. At the same time - large scale - empirical evidence for such a relation is scarce. Within this paper we examine whether evidence can be found for the idea that inter-organizational collaboration supports the effectiveness of innovation strategies. Multivariate and Tobit analyses of data on Belgian manufacturing firms, collected by means of the CIS survey (n=221), reveals a positive relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and innovative performance. Moreover the findings reported here suggest the relevancy of adopting a portfolio approach towards inter-organizational collaboration.Data; Effectiveness; Firms; Innovation; Innovation strategy; Manufacturing; Performance; Portfolio; Requirements; Strategy; Time;

Managing Intellectual Property to Foster Agricultural Development

Over the past decades, consideration of IPRs has become increasingly important in many areas of agricultural development, including foreign direct investment, technology transfer, trade, investment in innovation, access to genetic resources, and the protection of traditional knowledge. The widening role of IPRs in governing the ownership of—and access to—innovation, information, and knowledge makes them particularly critical in ensuring that developing countries benefit from the introduction of new technologies that could radically alter the welfare of the poor. Failing to improve IPR policies and practices to support the needs of developing countries will eliminate significant development opportunities. The discussion in this note moves away from policy prescriptions to focus on investments to improve how IPRs are used in practice in agricultural development. These investments must be seen as complementary to other investments in agricultural development. IPRs are woven into the context of innovation and R&D. They can enable entrepreneurship and allow the leveraging of private resources for resolving the problems of poverty. Conversely, IPRs issues can delay important scientific advancements, deter investment in products for the poor, and impose crippling transaction costs on organizations if the wrong tools are used or tools are badly applied. The central benefit of pursuing the investments outlined in this note is to build into the system a more robust capacity for strategic and flexible use of IPRs tailored to development goals

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse