How management control systems can facilitate a firm's strategic renewal and creation of financial intelligence

This chapter presents how management control systems and financial intelligence can facilitate a firm’s strategic renewal. Although the strategic accounting literature has recognized the importance of financial intelligence to a firm’s strategic decision making and formulation of strategy, the question of how a management control system (MCS) can help a firm to revamp and reallocate its resources has been overlooked in the prior strategy literature. In response, this chapter presents a conceptual model, which presents how advanced management accounting systems can foster a firm’s strategic renewal in light of the available theoretical foundations (the strategy implementation view, the dynamic capability perspective, and management accounting). This chapter advances managers’ understanding of firm’s renewal practices through the use of an MCS. Practical examples have been used to illustrate how firms renew their business operations in practice.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Family Businesses and Adaptation: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

The main objective of this research was to propose a framework centred on the dynamic capabilities approach, and to be applied in the context of family businesses’ adaption to their changing business environment. Data were gathered through interviews with ten FBs operating in Western Australia. Based on the findings, the clusters of activities, sensing, seizing, and transforming emerged as key factors for firms’ adaptation, and were reinforced by firms’ open culture, signature processes, idiosyncratic knowledge, and valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable attributes. Thus, the usefulness of the proposed framework was confirmed. Implications and future research opportunities are presented. © 2018, The Author(s)

International experience and FDI location choices of Chinese firms: The moderating effects of home country government support and host country institutions

We examine the extent to which Chinese government support of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects and host country institutional environments interact with prior entry experience by Chinese firms, and how this interrelationship affects FDI undertaken by Chinese firms. We hypothesize that home country government support and well-established host country institutions enhance organizational capabilities to take risks in FDI. As such, they reduce the need to accumulate experiential knowledge and capabilities relating to entering host countries based on prior entry experience in a particular country when undertaking follow-up investment projects. Using a unique, hand-collected panel data set of Chinese publicly listed firms during 2002–2009, we find that home government support and well-developed host country institutions reduce the importance of prior entry experience and significantly increase the likelihood of FDI entry into a host country. Further, from our subsample analyses we identify differences between entering developed and developing host countries in terms of the impact of home country government support and quality of host country institutions. Our findings help explain the puzzle concerning why emerging economy firms have rapidly internationalized in a short period of time and do not follow the pattern predicted by classical IB theories

Entrepreneurial Behavior as Learning Processes in a Transgenerational Entrepreneurial Family

Within the extant body of literature, little is known as to how transgenerational entrepreneurial families develop entrepreneurial mind-sets in order to create value across generations. Accordingly, this chapter aims to explore the role of the family ownership group in entrepreneurial behavior by examining the entrepreneurial learning process in a transgenerational entrepreneurial family. In achieving this aim, the 4I organizational learning framework by Crossan et al. (An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review 24 (3): 522-537, 1999) is adapted as a theoretical lens. The empirical evidence that draws upon evidence from a detailed longitudinal case study illustrates the interjectory influence of the family ownership group within this process, suggesting that entrepreneurial learning in a transgenerational family firm is embedded at the family group level and reproduced and co-created as a result of resilient entrepreneurial behavior

Upstream Supply Chain Visibility and Complexity Effect on Focal Company’s Sustainable Performance: Indian Manufacturers’ Perspective

Understanding supply chain sustainability performance is increasingly important for supply chain researchers and managers. Literature has considered supply chain sustainability and the antecedents of performance from a triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental) perspective. However, the role of supply chain visibility and product complexity contingency in achieving sustainable supply chain performance has not been explored in depth. To address this gap, this study utilizes a contingent resource-based view theory perspective to understand the role of product complexity in shaping the relationship between upstream supply chain visibility (resources and capabilities) and the social, environmental, and economic performance dimensions. We develop and test a theoretical model using survey data gathered from 312 Indian manufacturing organizations. Our findings indicate that supply chain visibility (SCV) has significant influence on social and environmental performance under the moderation effect of product complexity. Hence, the study makes significant contribution to the extant literature by examining the impact of SCV under moderating effect of product complexity on social performance and environmental performance

Trans-specialization understanding in international technology alliances: The influence of cultural distance

In the information age, the firm's performance hinges on combining partners' specialist knowledge to achieve value co-creation. Combining knowledge from different specialties could be a costly process in the international technology alliances (ITAs) context. We argue that the combination of different specializations requires the development of "trans-specialization understanding" (TSU) instead of the internalization of partners' specialist knowledge. This article examines the extent to which inter-firm governance in ITAs shapes TSU, and whether the development of TSU is endangered by cultural distance. We hypothesize that relational governance, product modularity, and cultural distance influence TSU development, which in turn influences firm performance. We collected data from 110 non-equity ITAs between software and hardware firms participating in the mobile device sector. We analyzed the data using partial least squares path modeling. Our findings suggest that TSU largely depends on product modularity and relational governance in alliances. However, while cultural distance negatively moderates the path from relational governance to TSU, it has no effect on the relationship between product modularity and TSU. Based on this, we conclude that product modularity can substitute for relational governance when strong relational norms are not well-developed in international alliances. Thus cultural distance does not invariably amount to a liability in ITAs

Towards a Framework for Shaping & Forming Enterprise Capabilities

Part 4: Reviews and Analyses of Modeling MethodsInternational audienceIn this era of rapid change and major technology-enabled transformations, information systems design needs to take into account the specific context of the organizational setting and the strategic direction of the enterprise. To this end, researchers and practitioners have built on the concept of capability to analyze what a business can and should do to manage its strategic trajectories. This paper describes four categories of modeling and analysis requirements to deal with capability formation. The requirements are identified through a review of the origins of the capability concept in the strategic management literature. A set of guidelines is proposed as part of a modeling framework based on the i* language. Enterprise Capabilities are modeled as a specialized type of intentional actor so that their socio-technical characteristics can be specified and analyzed. This approach to modeling capabilities enables reasoning about (1) why a capability is needed, (2) how it is achieved, (3) how it fits within the organizational and social setting of the enterprise, and (4) what relationships are required for its success. The applicability of the guidelines and associated viewpoints are demonstrated on a chatbot example

Managerial Mindsets Toward Corporate Social Responsibility: The Case of Auto Industry in Iran

Despite a plethora of empirical evidence on the potential role of senior management in the success of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Western-dominated organizational contexts, little attempt has been made to document the various managerial mindsets toward CSR in organizations in Muslim-dominated countries in the Middle East region. To address this existing lacuna of theoretical and empirical research in CSR management, this paper offers a qualitative case study of CSR in three manufacturing firms operating in Iran’s auto industry. Based on an inductive analysis of the qualitative data, three types of managerial mindset toward CSR are identified: conformist, self-seeker, and satisfier. While it is evident that these different mindsets of Iranian managers seek to serve managerial ends and short-term self-interests, they fall short of core values of Islamic ethics and CSR