The Role of Organizational Competences in the Evolution of Business Models

International audienceThis paper presents the use of a conceptual framework designed for the management of organizational competences to contribute to the evolution of the business model of an enterprise. The framework, developed based on a detailed review of the history of the car manufacturer Toyota, was used for a Delphi study and an action-research applied in the furniture industry. The results suggest that it is applicable for ex-post analysis of organizational changes, as well as a strategy planning tool

The impact of external pressure and sustainable management practices on manufacturing performance and environmental outcomes

Purpose: The study investigates the direct effect of external pressure on environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance and examines the mediating effect of sustainable management practice. Design/methodology/approach: This study draws upon Institutional Theory and Resource Based View to understand how factors such as external pressure and sustainable management relate with environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The model specifies previously unexplored direct and mediating relationships between external pressure, sustainable management, environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from the sixth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS). The research hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modelling. Findings: Results show that while there is a significant direct and mediating relationship between external pressure, adoption of formal sustainability programs and environmental outcomes, such significant relationships do not exist with manufacturing performance. Practical implications: The study shows that external pressure can influence the adoption of sustainable practices but the adoption of formal sustainable practices does not necessarily lead to an improvement in manufacturing performance. The implication therefore is that managers need to clearly understand what the actual benefits of sustainability are and where financial advantage, other than manufacturing cost, may be gained. Originality/value: The relationship between the adoption of sustainable practices and organisational performance is a complex one. In contrast to previous studies, this study found that while external pressure and sustainable management relate positively with environmental outcomes, no such relationship exists with manufacturing performance. This raises a number of questions over naively following such strategies

A strategy-as-practice approach to strategy research and education

This conclusion to the Dialog proposes a strategy-as-practice based approach to bringing strategy research and education closer to practice. Strategy-as-practice rejects the choice, proposed in the previous articles, between theory and practice. The authors argue for strategy research based rigorously on sociological theories of practice. Such research complements the parsimony and generalizability of economics-driven theory, extending strategy research to incorporate the messy realities of doing strategy in practice, with a view to developing theory that is high in accuracy. The authors suggest that practice-based research can also inform strategy teaching by providing students with rich case studies of strategy work as actually practiced, analyzed through such sociological lenses as ethnomethodology, dramaturgy, and institutional theory. Strategy-as-practice research does not aim to give students parsimonious models for analysis or expose them to cases of best practice but rather to help them develop practical wisdom through a better understanding of strategy in practice

Social Entrepreneurship and Broader Theories: Shedding New Light on the “Bigger Picture”

This article documents the results of a research workshop bringing together six perspectives on social entrepreneurship. The idea was to challenge existing concepts of the economy, the firm, and entrepreneurship in order to shed new light on social entrepreneurship and on our existing theoretical frameworks. The first two contributions use a macro-perspective and discuss the notion of adaptive societies and the tragedies of disharmonization, respectively. Taking a management perspective, the next two focus on the limits of conventional assumptions in management theory, particularly human capital theory and resource-based view. The final two contributions follow an entrepreneurship perspective highlighting the usefulness of mobilization theory and the business model lens to social entrepreneurship. Despite this diversity, all contributions share the fact that they challenge narrow definitions of the unit of analysis in social entrepreneurship; they illustrate the aspect of social embeddedness, and they argue for an open-but-disciplined diversity of theories in social entrepreneurship research

ERP and four dimensions of absorptive capacity: lessons from a developing country

Enterprise resource planning systems can grant crucial strategic, operational and information-based benefits to adopting firms when implemented successfully. However, a failed implementation can often result in financial losses rather than profits. Until now, the research on the failures and successes were focused on implementations in large manufacturing and service organizations firms located in western countries, particularly in USA. Nevertheless, IT has gained intense diffusion to developing countries through declining hardware costs and increasing benefits that merits attention as much as developed countries. The aim of this study is to examine the implications of knowledge transfer in a developing country, Turkey, as a paradigm in the knowledge society with a focus on the implementation activities that foster successful installations. We suggest that absorptive capacity is an important characteristic of a firm that explains the success level of such a knowledge transfer.Publicad

Gendering the careers of young professionals: some early findings from a longitudinal study. in Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales

Search for leptophobic Z ' bosons decaying into four-lepton final states in proton-proton collisions at root s=8 TeV

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