Building the Flexible Firm

The profusely used tools of operational management research in lean manufacturing context include roadmap, conceptual model, implementation frameworks, descriptive planning and assessment checklist. Out of these, an implementation framework development in lean manufacturing sector is common, but faces quandary regarding its development, consolidation and validation – thereby confirming the requirement of availability of succinct platform that aids in research methodology development. The aim of this research is to attain a clear research context, achieved accordingly by detailed literature review study that would subsequently aid in developing a generic research methodology design framework. Concomitant to it, the four layers, the layers of research onion were discussed; followed by selection of appropriate methods for development of research methodology in order to arrive at implementation frameworks. It was observed that for the methodology development, the philosophy of pragmatism is highly suitable, followed by abductive logic, in case of technique, mixed mode research is best, whereas in strategy selection, case study strategy is the most suitable due to its multi-functional ability of in-depth operational study. In addition to that, the mixed-mode approach carries the ability of comparative qualitative and quantitative research through longitudinal and cross-sectional case study respectively. Furthermore, the data collection processes were discussed in relevance to the research objective, which culminated in the formation of a detailed research methodology which has been divided into three major stages of research context and approach, framework development and validation, resulting in attaining implementation framework through literature review, longitudinal case study and cross-sectional case study respectively. The major strength and contribution of this research study is the development of one concise research methodology that is considered as the paradigm shift and a clear innovation towards this field.

Parent–subsidiary relationships are commonplace nowadays, yet surprisingly there is a paucity of research analysing their dynamics over time. This paper presents a (longitudinal) case study, illuminating the dynamics implicated when a UK chemicals company imposed its systems and rules on a new subsidiary. Drawing on observations from a longitudinal case study (from 1993 to 2001), the study considers: (1) the extent to which a parent imposes its (management accounting) systems, rules and procedures on a subsidiary; (2) the role which (local) political, cultural and institutional factors in a subsidiary play in shaping the dynamics of such change implementation; (3) how new systems and practices become accepted and take root as values and beliefs and how they supplement earlier norms? The study provides insight for the questions above, and draws on institutional theories and a power mobilisation framework to assist in the interpretation of observations. We find that the operations of the subsidiary company are influenced by inter-related forces, both inside and outside the organisation encompassing issues of power, politics and culture. As such, existing institutions in a subsidiary organisation are influenced, sustained, and changed by the socio-economic context in which the subsidiary is located. Organisational practices designed to secure external legitimacy are not however always symbolic and decoupled from internal operations.

Adaptive Latitude: Environment, Organization, and Individual Influences

Previous studies point to a range of factors as influencing managerial decision‐making processes. There are four major trends with regard to the studies. They are environmental antecedents, organisational antecedents, decision‐specific antecedents and individual managerial characteristics. While the majority of literature has chosen to focus in a specialised way on the influence of unidimensional variables there are a number of studies advocating the study of multiple dimensions simultaneously. This paper examines the findings from a qualitative research methodology, convergent interviewing, focussing on the impact of environmental, organisational, decision‐specific and individual characteristics, in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics on managerial decisions. Information from managers suggested decision‐specific and individual characteristics in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics, were highly relevant to the process of decision making. For all managers, managerial years of experience and the complexity and politicality of decision content were indicated as an important preconditions for determining the nature of managerial decision making. Furthermore, environmental and organisational factors such as environmentally determined time constraints (e.g. government policy) and staff conflict were important issues influencing managers’ decisions. A number of multidimensional interactions were posited from the findings. Implications for future research are discussed.

How to manage innovation processes in extensive networks: A longitudinal study

Rapid and deep changes in society, the economy and policy over the last decades are having an increasing impact on the delivery of social housing in North Western Europe. These changes are transforming the way in which social housing providers perform their task and are reshaping their relationships with the State, communities and with other market actors. The combination of continued State withdrawal from service provision, the deep and persistent effects of the global financial crisis that begun in 2008 and profound changes in the type of demand for social housing across North Western Europe call for a reflection on the implications of these phenomena for social housing providers. Several studies indicate that social housing providers in Europe have begun to adopt new (social) entrepreneurial strategies and are becoming more innovative as a response to these challenges. These strategies imply tackling the tensions between (at times) conflicting drivers, notably those arising from the State, the market and communities. However, research in this topic so far is fragmented, focussing on one country or on specific sub-areas such as asset management and non- housing activities and rarely connects with the relevant wider literature on the third sector and social enterprise. Within this context, this PhD research has sought to widen this discussion by providing new insights through a comparative study of the ways in which individual social housing providers are relating to (i.e. responding to and influencing) these contextual changes. More specifically, the research sought to better understand the complex process of decision-making these companies undergo to manage their responses to competing drivers. Companies operating in two countries (England and The Netherlands) were studied in-depth. In both countries, the social rental sector has played a prominent role in their respective welfare states for decades. While both are amongst countries with the highest share of social rental housing in Europe, each represents a different type of welfare state and of social housing provision - following Kemeny’s classification, a unitary system (the Netherlands) and a dualist system (England). The broad aim of this PhD was to deepen the understanding of the ways in which contextual drivers impact on the mission, values and activities of social housing organisations. Furthermore, the study sought to understand how these organisations are positioning themselves vis-à-vis the State, market and community. The above aims translate into three research questions: (1) How are contextual developments impacting on the missions, values and activities of social housing organisations? (2) How do these organisations position themselves vis-à-vis the State, the market and community? and (3) How are competing values enacted in the decision-making process exercised by these organisations vis-à-vis these contextual drivers? The universe for this PhD research consists of social purpose organisations, not owned by the State, which operate on a non-profit distribution basis. Together they are part of a wide range of ‘third sector’ actors providing social and affordable housing across most of North Western Europe. The PhD adopted a pluralistic epistemological approach with an interpretivist emphasis, with significant use of qualitative research methods. This approach was deemed useful to give a voice to the subject(s) of study. The research design included a mixed methods approach and a longitudinal, international and inter-organisational case study research design, involving two company-cases. The companies were studied over a four-year period, starting in March 2008. The research design and data analysis draws on elements of grounded theory, and on the work of Eisenhardt on ‘building theory from cases’. Following this approach, a series of ‘theoretical propositions’ were devised from the study’s findings in order to answer each of the three research questions. In relation to the first research question, the study found that contextual developments and the missions, values and activities of social housing organisations are in a two-way relationship. From an initial assumption of unidirectional causality, in the process of the research it became clear that the relationship between contextual developments and organisational change is more often than not one of mutual causality. We qualified this relationship through six propositions. First, we posited that market and State drivers have a relatively stronger impact on social housing organisations as compared to community drivers. Second, we postulated that both market and State drivers have a knock-on effect on community drivers. Third, we established that State drivers pose continuous exogenous shocks to social housing providers by means of constant policy changes. Our fourth proposition stated that in a context of economic crisis the relationship between market drivers and social housing organisations is marked by volatility. Our fifth proposition established that all three types of contextual drivers are reinforcing the long-term trend of deepening residualisation of the social housing sector. The sixth proposition emphasizes the long-term mutually shaping relationship between context and social housing organisations. Findings on the second research question led us to describe the positioning of social housing organisations vis-à-vis their environment as a ‘dynamic balancing act’. In order to understand the way(s) in which social housing organisations position themselves in relation to changes in their environment we drew on theories of social enterprise and hybridity to unpack three ideal-typical strategic orientations that may be at play in this process: State, market and community. We adopted a triangular model to illustrate these orientations and developed a classification model to understand the ‘strategic position’ that these organisations adopt vis-à-vis their environment. We looked at three different dimensions of this strategic position, namely mission, values and activities, each captured by a different type of variables in the classification: ‘descriptor’ (to capture the formal characteristics of the organisation), ‘motivator’ (as related to the organisation’s mission), and ‘behaviour’ (referring to the organisation’s activities). Upon applying this classification to our case studies, our findings resulted in three propositions. First, it became clear that while descriptor variables confirmed the hybrid formal characteristics of social housing organisations, they do not account on their own for their position in relation to State, market and community. Our second proposition stated that social housing organisations are constantly balancing pressures to (re)define their mission. Our study found that in this process, each company is faced with trade-offs when considering their organisational mission in relation to a changing mandate from the State domain, while at the same time weighing demands from the market and community domain. Third, we posited that social housing organisations exert different degrees of agency in their positioning vis-à-vis the State, market and community. We identified a continuum of actions that these organisations have put in place to respond to key contextual changes, ranging from ‘reactive’ to ‘proactive’ and ‘strategic’. Hence, social housing organisations would have the capacity to shape their environment and / or at least, their position in relation to this environment. On our third research question, we found that enacting competing values in social housing organisations implies multiple rationalities at play in decision-making. The PhD research used the study of a critical incident in each company to describe the ways in which competing values are enacted in the decision-making process of these organisations in relation to the three types of contextual drivers. In each case, a critical incident was chosen in conjunction with the companies to be studied over a prolonged period of time. Both incidents turned out to be of regulatory nature (i.e. State-driven); in the English case, it was the Comprehensive spending review (CSR) announced in October 2010 and a series of major welfare reforms implemented by the coalition government. In the Netherlands, the Dutch government ruling on the issue of State aid by housing associations implemented in January 2011. The companies’ responses to these critical incidents, respectively, were operationalised through a ‘strategic decision’ made by each of them vis-à-vis these events, defined as a decision recognised as having significant implications for the structure, direction or purpose of an organisation. The English company defined their strategic decision as the impact on the company’s vision, direction, strategy and financial capacity of the October CSR and the shake-up in the welfare benefit system. More specifically, the company’s bid to the HCA for the four-year development programme in the first half of 2011 formed the basis for the study of this critical incident. The strategic decision of the Dutch company was whether to follow the Dutch government’s ruling on income ceilings or not. Furthermore, the company had to decide how to re-organize its financing in order to comply with the required administrative split between activities classified as ‘Services of General Economic Interest’ (SGEI) and ‘non SGEI’. The study of these critical incidents looked at the decision-making process from both a formal and content perspective, distinguishing motivator and behaviour variables in the process. In terms of form, we found that different modes of decision-making co-exist in the process. Participants in each company use a variety of ‘political tactics’ to influence the decision-making process. Taken

Norway: Nordic Mining – TiO 2 feedstock

Job analysis for a changing workplace

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss how the configurations of short life cycle, low quality, design and price, influence customer purchase intention in fast fashion and high technology industries in China.Design/methodology/approachThe traditional thinking is that products with high quality and low price will win more customers. However, the authors can notice that high quality products usually have high cost. Therefore, it is necessary to do more research on how customers can accept low quality products. The authors take fast fashion products and smart phones as empirical studies, collecting data from customer’s online survey. Based on the methodology of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, the authors analyse the relationship between the factors of short life cycle, low quality, design and price and influence customer purchase intention.FindingsThe authors find that price is the most important influencing factor. Low price is a strong competitive factor in the market. As to low quality products, low price can be achieved relatively more easily than with high quality products, resulting from relatively poorer raw material or configurations. Hence the connection between quality and price may give an idea to enterprises that customers will accept low quality products with low price. Moreover, according to the research, different generations are equally affected by the low price condition, regardless of customer gender and household income.Research limitations/implicationsBecause the study only focuses on fast fashion and smart phones industries, future work needs to replicate this study with individual data for different industries and with alternative methods to reinforce the confidence in the research. Meanwhile , this research studied mainly the customer perspective, it would be desirable to extend the study to the enterprise perspective and find out the difficulties that limit them in using low quality products to meet market needs. This may revel some cultural differences in purchase behavior among different countries and the discussed industries can be expanded to a larger area.Practical implicationsThe study offers a number of managerial implications. With the rapid changes in people’s aesthetic sense and developing high-tech, it is more and more necessary for companies to think about how to win more customers and earn more profits. Low quality products have advantages as they will lower companies’ costs in many dimensions, improving the speed of supply. It helps firms to take low quality products into consideration and think whether they will influence different aspects of the company assistance firms to get a deeper understanding of customer psychology and make better decisions on their products.Originality/valueThe paper fills the gap in the research field by exploring how consumer behavior is affected by different conditions.

The current globally competitive environment is affected by technological changes, shorter product life cycles, supply chain disruptions, rapid changes in the customer needs and expectations. Due to these uncertainties in the business environment, many firms are focusing on building a strategy to cope with it. Likewise, buying firms reduce their supply base to invest in long-term relationships with a small number of suppliers. As a result, buying firms are becoming more dependent on their suppliers. Consequently, traditional marketing (suppliers fighting for the buying firm) is not the way to achieve better position in the market. On the contrary, buying firms competing for the suppliers is more in common and this is called “reversed marketing”. Therefore, building long lasting and strong relationship with your supplier is crucial through which the buyer ensures receiving allocated resources of the supplier. A buying firm wants to achieve preferred customer status in order to receive preferential treatment from their suppliers. Supplier satisfaction is important since suppliers might not allocate preferential treatments to the buying firm when they are not satisfied. Hence, resulting in not receiving the preferred customer status. The supplier satisfaction concept has been increasingly researched in the last decade. If the buyer wants to receive preferential treatment, then it should be taken into consideration. Buyers benefit from it by receiving preferred customer status which is followed by preferential treatment as well as allocated resources and competitive advantages. Although prior research has already pointed out that supplier satisfaction is of growing importance for the buying firm, current literature still lacks including moderating factors or further concepts such as culture and RDT. Therefore this dissertation aims to close two research gaps. 1. Culture: Through the increased awareness of potential issues caused by culture in the buyer-supplier relationship, there is no large empirical study so far that would analyse if culture influences the supplier satisfaction and thus supplier’s allocated resources. It is important to study this context in the setting of supplier satisfaction. This would improve the supplier's satisfaction and contribute to receiving preferential treatment. 2. Resource dependence: empirically testing the explanatory content of RDT for explaining and eventually managing resource allocation in buyer-supplier relationships is still limited in the supplier satisfaction context. This dissertation’s major contributions can be summed up as follows. First, a CVF framework was used to empirically test organisational culture's effect. This shows which cultural type influences the relationship between the buyers’ relational behaviour and supplier satisfaction as well as receiving allocated resources. Second, the explanatory content of RDT for explaining resource allocation in buyer-supplier relationships by considering cultural influences was tested. Finally, RDT was put at the centre of analysis by assessing the situations in which supplying organisations are becoming dependent on buyers.

PurposeMost scholars acknowledge the role of firm-stakeholder relationship for enabling corporate sustainability (CS), but existing literature tends to apply a superficial understanding of interaction. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge by challenging classical stakeholder theory with fundamental insights from the IMP perspective, which in turn leads to a deeper conceptualization of interactive CS.Design/methodology/approachA typology framework is developed through an abductive research design grounded in the concepts of actors, resources, and activities. The authors illustrate the potential of the framework through a longitudinal case study. The empirical case revolves around an initiative for recycling of plastic material in a partly beforehand established supply chain, and the study reveals three main findings.FindingsFirst, recycling solutions can result in major technological challenges. For example, using recycled material can jeopardize industrial quality standards. Second, third-party stakeholders represent critical knowledge and competence that can remedy technological challenges. Finally, R&D projects are important means for developing firm-stakeholder relationships.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper introduces IMP concepts to the CS debate, which can illuminate the emerging literature on tensions and paradoxes related to CS phenomena. Further research is needed on the role of non-business actors as capacity generators for social and environmental change in traditional business networks.Practical implicationsThe proposed framework can be used to analyze why some stakeholders (individuals and groups) turn into contributing actors in inter-organizational relationships, while others remain latent.Originality/valueThis paper illustrates the usefulness of actor bonds, resource ties and activity links as explanatory concepts. Moreover, developed relationships in terms of collaboration and networks represent a capacity to change, which is overlooked in current CS debates.

This paper explores the factors that determine the sustainability of growth in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Previous research has shown that SME growth may be the consequence of the strategic choices of entrepreneurs or the structural characteristics of the external environment. This research investigates the dynamic between these two “conflicting” explanations. Two in‐depth longitudinal case studies are presented of SMEs in the wholesale sector. For SME managers, this research suggests that the first key managerial choice is “where to compete” but that this is followed by other key choices concerning “how to compete” and it is in the combination of these that sustained growth is found. Moreover, there may be circumstances when an innovative decision about “where to compete” endows the creative first mover with the opportunity to both drive growth and to be the prime beneficiary of market growth.

Mass Customization and Beyond – Application of Co-Creation & Postponement

The cut-throat situation of competitiveness in almost every business sector, followed by globalization, shortened product life cycles, and rapid technological changes have raised the importance of innovation to overrun the rivals. Scholars have established that appropriate leadership style is a key enabler for organizational success. However, it is not clear in existing literature how the concept of authentic leadership is related to innovative work behavior (IWB). Likewise, the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to induce IWB is also vague in current literature. Thus, the basic purpose of the current study was to test the relationship of CSR and IWB with the mediating effect of authentic leadership. The proposed model was tested in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sector of China. The data were collected through a questionnaire that was distributed among different respondents of the current survey. The data were obtained from a dyad of supervisor and subordinate serving in different SMEs in Wuhan city of China. The study used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to validate different hypotheses. The empirical results confirm that CSR positively relates to IWB while authentic leadership partially mediates this relationship. The findings of the current survey will be helpful for policymakers to recognize employees as a source of innovation through CSR and authentic leadership.

Many studies of innovation adoption in health care organizations focus either on organizational characteristics or the institutional environment, but not both. Furthermore, these perspectives are rarely employed simultaneously in both public and private health care organizations. This research considers the public-private distinction, organizational compatibility, and interorganizational referral relationships in the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) by substance abuse treatment organizations. Using data from nationally representative samples of 363 publicly funded and 403 privately funded substance abuse treatment centers, a four-category typology of public and private organizations initially predicted variation in SSRI use. However some differences were no longer significant once organizational and environmental characteristics were added to the statistical model. These data support hypotheses about the associations between organizational characteristics and SSRI use as well as hypotheses regarding the external environment. Future research should continue to integrate both internal and external factors in theoretical explanations of innovation adoption.