The strategic relevance of business relationships: a preliminary assessment

The ubiquitous contention within the Industrial Networks literature - that business relationships are one of the firm´s most important resources - has not been, in our viewpoint, thoroughly explored. Hence we argue that the ‘Resource-based View of the Firm’ (‘RBV’) may complement the network-based reasoning on the strategic relevance of business relationships. A theoretical framework is proposed – a competence-based view of the firm – which solves RBV´s terminological and inconsistency problems and, more importantly, assures compatibility with the network perspective´s assumptions. The possibility of cross-fertilizing the Industrial Networks and RBV theories seems not only real, but also conceptually profitable for both theoretical fields.Business Relationships, Industrial Networks, Resource-Based View of the Firm, Competence-Based View of the Firm

Relationship portfolios and capability development : Cases from the moulds industry

A number of authors within business marketing andpurchasing, have stressed that the heterogeneity of relationships in customer andsupplier portfolios are a source of managerial problems andopportunities. This paper looks at the use and development of firms’ capabilities in the context of relationship portfolios. Two case studies about producers of moulds are used to illustrate how their contrasting trajectories in terms of degree of specialisation can be relatedto the variety foundand sought in their portfolios of relationships. Our study suggests that portfolio interdependencies are best understood in the context of the development of idiosyncratic capabilities, which include interpretations and experiences in using and influencing that variety.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Technological centers as a negotiated context to combine technological capabilities

Recent perspectives on a capabilities view of the firm often recognize the need for firms to develop an external organization. From a relational view of the industry, the external organizationmay include economic and non-economic exchange relationships. The decision to combine both types of relationships and its relevance for the firm can be linked to their role for accessing, generating and diffusing knowledge. More often than not, these decisions are however not unilateral. This paper discusses the potential role that Technological Centers (TC’s), created by the collective initiative of some local firms, can play as part of firms’ external organizations and emphasizes TC’s role in connecting economic and non-economic exchange relationships. It is further suggested that the diverse motives and benefits perceived by firms in relating in and across the TC’s and, in general, the relevance of sharing experiences within these contexts, should be seen in the wider context of firms’ specific and idiosyncratic trajectoriesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How is the relationship significance brought about? A critical realist approach

The markets-as-networks theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships for the focal firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to the focal firm’s survival and growth. We do not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the Markets-as-Networks Theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. Significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the focal firm’s business relationships. We adopt explicitly a critical realist position in this conceptual paper and claim that the relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., their functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), effects result for the focal firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a result the relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, the relationship significance can result from the dual influence that business relationships have on a great part of the structure and powers and liabilities of the focal firm, i.e., its nature and scope respectivelyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Searching for a dynamic view of franchising

This paper suggests a new perspective of franchising networks. We start from the limitations of what we have called the traditional management literature about franchising and look at the current research about franchising and the recent advances in the Economics of the Organisation, in order to propose a Capabilities View of Franchising Networks. From this perspective, we suggest that the emergence of franchising networks may be seen as a kind of dynamic arrangements, which seek to combine the franchisor’s and franchisee’s partly idiosyncratic capabilities. Franchisees are seen as heterogeneous as they can and often hold different knowledge and experiences. Hence, they may be an important source of dynamic capabilities for the franchising network. Thus, in contrast to traditional approaches, a Capabilities Approach emphasises the processes of creating, transmitting and coordinating productive knowledge. Analysing franchising from this perspective may also help us to understand the plural form by linking their existence and dynamics to previous experiences and commitments with a particular system, including the investments made in inter-firm relationships and the need to preserve a degree of variety within the franchise networkinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Toward a relational perspective of franchising chains

In many professional and services industries, firms try to scale up their operations by reproducing practices in new locations through franchising arrangements, especially business format franchising. The classic but still prevailing explanations for franchising related phenomena, especially the initiative of franchising, the propensity to franchise, and the franchise performance, are mostly based on two orders of reasons (or a combination of them): franchising is either explained as a means to deal with resource scarcity or (and) as a mechanism for franchisor and franchisee to align incentives between themselves. However, empirical studies have shown limited support for both such claims, especially in face of the so called plural form, where proprietary and franchised units of the same franchisor co-exist. It may also be argued that the traditional literature on franchising has assumed a high level of homogeneity within and between franchising ‘‘networks,’’ possibly due to the perception that they tend to be ‘‘dominated’’ by a high level of standardization and replication of practices, both operative and relational. However, learning processes in such ‘‘networks’’ have recently been brought in as an attempt to capture other mechanisms that may underlie their operation and sustainability. This article seeks to explore a third perspective to look at franchising ‘‘networks,’’ by drawing from the literatures on capabilities and industrial networks. Seen from this perspective, business format franchising may involve more than the mere replication or exploitation of a recipe, especially if we take into consideration the partly idiosyncratic nature of both the relationships between actors and their capabilities and intentions. Within this perspective, variety preservation, and not only uniformity, may be recognized by participants as relevant for the performance of the franchise chain. In other words, variety may reflect the need for the refinement of the ‘‘package’’ throughout time, in more than one ways, together with the gradual development of the network and the learning experiences that take place in that context.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bound states of bosons and fermions in a mixed vector-scalar coupling with unequal shapes for the potentials

The Klein-Gordon and the Dirac equations with vector and scalar potentials are investigated under a more general condition, $V_{v}+V_{s}= \mathrm{constant}$. These intrinsically relativistic and isospectral problems are solved in a case of squared hyperbolic potential functions and bound states for either particles or antiparticles are found. The eigenvalues and eigenfuntions are discussed in some detail and the effective Compton wavelength is revealed to be an important physical quantity. It is revealed that a boson is better localized than a fermion when they have the same mass and are subjected to the same potentials.Comment: 3 figure

Relativistic confinement of neutral fermions with a trigonometric tangent potential

The problem of neutral fermions subject to a pseudoscalar potential is investigated. Apart from the solutions for $E=\pm mc^{2}$, the problem is mapped into the Sturm-Liouville equation. The case of a singular trigonometric tangent potential ($\sim \mathrm{tan} \gamma x$) is exactly solved and the complete set of solutions is discussed in some detail. It is revealed that this intrinsically relativistic and true confining potential is able to localize fermions into a region of space arbitrarily small without the menace of particle-antiparticle production.Comment: 12 page

Tracking magmatism and oceanic change through the early Aptian Anoxic Event (OAE 1a) to the late Aptian: Insights from osmium isotopes from the westernmost Tethys (SE Spain) Cau Core

Some of the major Carbon cycle perturbations of the Phanerozoic occurred during the Aptian, in relation to magmatism. The highest temperatures reconstructed for the Cretaceous Period correspond to the Oceanic Anoxic Event of the early Aptian (OAE 1a), an episode of accelerated global change. Here we present a chemostratigraphic study based on osmium isotopes integrated with high-resolution Carbon-Oxygen stable isotope data from the Cau Core (Western Tethys, SE Spain), including a 6.4 Ma record from the early to the late Aptian. This high-resolution study of the continuous and expanded Cau section permits a thorough understanding of the duration of the Aptian events, as well as an evaluation of the mechanisms triggering the abrupt changes of the global carbon and osmium cycles and their interdependence. Here we show that the Large Igneous Province (LIP) Aptian magmatism initiated 550–750 kyr prior to the OAE 1a, and persisted for 1.4 Myr after the event, influencing the composition of seawater for 2.8 Myr. We show a continuous Os isotope record encompassing the OAE 1a and the late Aptian for the first time, and demonstrate that the recovery from the exceptionally unradiogenic composition of seawater Os produced by the dominance of the Ontong Java Plateau volcanism, was slow. Our results demonstrate the different time duration of some events, and the asynchronous relationship between the carbon and osmium cycles

Stephen Hawking: Black Holes and other Contributions from one of the Greatest Scientists of Our Time

Stephen Hawking entered the hall of the greatest scientists of all time, alongside names like Galileo, Newton and Einstein. He was a warrior fighting a degenerative disease that deprived him of movement. Hawking made important contributions to understanding the functioning of the Universe by exploring issues such as Black Holes, Wormholes, Space and Time, and the Big Bang. The understanding of the Thermodynamics of the Black Holes caused us to approach the Relativity of Quantum Mechanics, leaving the "Theory of Everything" closer to our reality. Stephen William Hawking was born exactly on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death and died at the age of 76 on Albert Einstein´s birthday on Pi Day on March 14, 2018