A Workflow-Based Methodology for Developing Hypermedia Information Systems

Recently, many enterprises have attempted to construct hypermedia systems for electronic commerce innovation by the use of Internet technologies. In this hypermedia-enabled environment, hypermedia development can be considered in terms of workflow. In this article we propose a workflow-aware hypermedia development methodology, workflow-based hypermedia development methodology, to guide developers in creating hypermedia information systems. The methodology employs a workflow model based on corporate documents and is thus more likely to utilize users' business requirements in a natural fashion. The methodology consists of four phases: workflow analysis, document analysis, hypermedia design, and implementation. The emphasis of each phase is on aligning business requirements with hypermedia development technologies. To demonstrate the practical usefulness of the methodology, a real-life case is illustrated.     

Training for creativity and innovation in small enterprises in Ethiopia

Policy makers recognize the role of small businesses in bringing about economic growth and reducing or eliminating poverty, and training can contribute significantly to this process. The present study adds to the small firm literature by examining whether training encourages small firms to be more creative and innovative. It does so by investigating the extent of creative and innovative activities in small enterprises (SEs) that have undertaken training with support from the Ethiopian technical and vocational education and training system. SEs for the purpose of the study are businesses with fewer than 30 employees. The term includes micro‐enterprises, which are defined in Ethiopia as having fewer than six employees. Quantitative methodology was used to compare and contrast these enterprises with similar enterprises which had not had training support. Data were collected from 146 randomly selected small firms by means of interviews with owners and employees. Interviews were also conducted with technical, vocational education and training experts. The study examined five predictors of creativity and innovation activities that training support would be expected to encourage and found significant differences in two of them: creative thinking and motivational attributes. Differences in other creativity and innovation variables, however, were not significant. The researchers conclude that education and training for creativity and innovation should be prioritized to enhance the performance of small firms, in particular by increasing their expertise, improving their motivation and ability to surmount challenges and developing their creative thinking in the search for new business ideas.     

Employees striving for innovation in social enterprises: The roles of social mission and commitment-based human resource management

Social enterprises, promising organizations for solving societal problems with innovative approaches, rely upon their members’ active roles for workplace innovation. However, we still have a limited understanding about how social enterprises can foster employees’ endeavors for innovation. By focusing on employee learning and innovative behavior, we investigate the influences of perceived social mission, value congruence, and human resource management (HRM) practices in social enterprises. We conducted two complementary studies to answer our research questions. In Study 1, with a survey of 369 employees from 68 social enterprises, we examined a multilevel moderated mediation model with firm-level and individual-level data. We found that perceived social mission promoted learning and innovative behavior by increasing value congruence, and that commitment-based HRM practices enhanced the overall process from mission to employee efforts for innovation. In Study 2, with 300 daily surveys from 60 employees participating in an experience sampling study, we found that those with high-value congruence showed a significantly more stable pattern with less variance in innovative behavior than in learning behavior. Our study adds novel implications to the underdeveloped literature on employee innovation and HRM in social enterprises by uncovering the positive effects of social mission and value facets for boosting learning and innovative behaviors. Our research also suggests that social enterprises should benefit from pursuing and emphasizing the social mission and commitment-based HRM bundle together, which will promote the prosperity and well-being of business and society.     

Born to be alive? The survival of innovative and non-innovative French micro-start-ups

Based on French data describing the characteristics of entrepreneurs and their projects, this article studies the differences between the determinants of survival for innovative and non-innovative micro-enterprises. We show that the survival of innovative and non-innovative enterprises is linked to personal criteria such as age, gender, belonging to a minority, professional experience and financing sources. Our results also highlight the positive effect of not being alone in the start-up design phase, whereas being involved in a business network after the start-up period has no significant influence. The survival time of innovative enterprises, which is significantly lower than that of the non-innovative ones, seems adversely influenced by the entrepreneur’s previous management experience. Finally, when considering both innovative and non-innovative start-ups, there appears to be a type of “pecking order” as bank financing has a much more positive effect on survival than a personal one, although when focusing solely on innovative ones this difference does not exist.     

“互联网+”还是“回归实体”？——消费模式与零售企业战略选择

互联网与移动互联网技术迅速发展，带动了许多实体零售企业投身于电子商务的创新实践，但也不乏亚马逊、阿里巴巴等网络零售企业通过投资、并购等方式积极涉足实体零售企业。文章试图解释企业进行不同战略选择的原因，采取“互联网+”或是“回归实体”的依据。在分析互联网对零售企业影响的基础上，文章建立了包括消费者与零售企业在内的一般均衡模型，分析了消费者选择不同零售企业的依据，以及零售企业的应对之策。分析结果表明，消费者在不同零售商店的相对支出比例取决于零售商店提供服务组合的相对效率。因此，基于“有限商圈”与“有限品类”的经营战略成为企业扩大销售收入的关键，现网络零售与实体零售战略选择本质上可以归纳为品类专业化与区域专业化之间的收益比较。     

Innovation and the Operational Performance of Newly Established Small and Medium Enterprises in Taiwan

New Enterprises have been sprouted out prosperously in Taiwan. According to business income tax data, 143 thousand new enterprises were established between 1996–1998, which accounts for about 25% of total number of enterprises, and 98.68% of these new enterprises are SMEs.In this research, a randomly sampled 1,047 new enterprises which established after 1996 were surveyed through telephone. The survey discovered that three-quarters of these new enterprises adopted at least one out of nine types of innovative activities which were listed in the questionnaire.The logistic regression results of this study show that three main areas of innovation which were grouped from the nine activities by principal component analysis all had a positive relationship with operational performance of new enterprises. Innovative action had the biggest impact on sales growth, whilst the cultivation of an innovative atmosphere and the ability to innovate within the organization had the biggest impact on profits. In short, entrepreneurs in Taiwan are actively innovating, and this innovation is reflected in the performance of their enterprises.     

"Business Responsibilities in a Divided World": The Cold War Roots of the Corporate Social Responsibility Movement

Both business executives and management scholars have, in recentyears, focused a great deal of attention on the theme of corporatesocial responsibility (CSR). Calls for business leaders to expendresources on behalf of "social good" tend to downplay, if notignore, what is fundamentally an ideological question: justwhat is a "good" society and who defines "goodness"? The ideologicalunderpinnings of social responsibility and its relationshipto the "good" society can be explored through an historicalperspective. The roots of the CSR movement trace back to theearly years of the Cold War. Led by Donald K David, Dean ofthe Harvard Business School and supported by other academicsand executives given voice on the pages of the Harvard BusinessReview, advocates urged expanded business social responsibilityas a means of aligning business interests with the defense offree-market capitalism against what was depicted as the clear-and-presentdanger of Soviet Communism. Today's enthusiastic calls for businessto "do well by doing good" could benefit from a similar criticalanalysis not just of the goals of CSR but also the ideologicalassumptions, often unacknowledged, that underlie those goals.     

解铃还须系铃人:疫情之下企业家身份焦虑的诱因与化解

经历重大疫情的小微企业面临更为严峻的创新挑战,也使企业家身份焦虑成为常态。文章聚焦疫情暴发这一特定背景,将小微企业对政商关系的预期视为诱发企业家身份焦虑的逻辑起点,从企业所处的外部制度环境和市场环境切入,探索化解企业家身份焦虑并提升小微企业创新意愿的可行路径。研究发现,企业家对政商关系的预期是身份焦虑的重要来源,企业家身份焦虑与小微企业创新意愿之间的关系会受到政策置信性和网络嵌入行为的双调节效应的影响。由于企业家身份焦虑难以避免,提高对政策置信性的预期能够有效缓解政商关系感知引发的企业家身份焦虑。疫情之后的复工复产活动中需要进一步缩短政策的传导链条,加强小微企业之间制度化互动,重塑企业家的自我身份认同,控制企业家身份焦虑的有效边界,推动小微企业持续健康发展。     

Pioneering Modern Corporate Governance: A View from London in 1900

Around 1900 Britain was exceptionally suited to pioneering largescale enterprises because of the precocious development of itsequity markets and London's experimentation with a more eclecticrange of corporate governance techniques than the world's smallerand less cosmopolitan financial centers. Information dissemination,incentives, and reputation—developed by a serendipitousmix of legal compulsions and flexible voluntarism—setthe scene for the growth of large, UK-based, national and internationalcorporations in the twentieth century. "The investment business is not with us as well developed oras well understood as it is in England." W. H. Lyon, Capitalization (Boston, 1913), 207.     

A stranger in a strange land: Micro political risk and the multinational firm

When a firm chooses to enter or continue business in a foreign market, it becomes exposed to associated political risks which should be assessed and managed. Help is available for becoming aware of the level of macro political risk; that is, the political risk across industries or all businesses in entire countries or geographic regions. Yet, surprisingly little guidance exists by which to identify and assess firm-specific political risks, termed micro political risk. Herein, we offer some new perspectives on the nature of micro political risk within a host country, illustrating how it stems from economic, societal, and governmental forces. We have compiled a number of firm-specific variables which can affect the firm’s micro political risk profile, and advance an innovative methodology by which executives can address these variables and develop an assessment of their firm’s micro political risk. Examples of micro political risk situations are provided, along with discussion of implementing the proposed methodology.     

略谈现代企业的文化建设

现代企业管理理论认为,企业管理过程就是企业文化的培植过程,企业的文化建设就是企业的现代管理。建设企业文化的意义在于企业文化的核心是强化以人为本的现代企业管理,它倡导领导者掌握企业“人”的思想,发挥“人”的主观能动性,推动企业的快速发展,它是企业在市场竞争中独特战略和风格的体现。优秀的企业文化会促进企业管理现代化,促进企业可持续战略的实现。应以人为中心,实现企业管理的人本化,强化文化建设的创新意识,把企业文化建设制度化、规范化,从根本上提升企业的管理水准,实现企业的战略目标。     

The Future of Alfred Chandler

One could make a career of throwing darts at the work of AlfredChandler. I don't mean just criticizing him. You could takethe pages of Chandler's books, paste them up on a wall, andstart throwing. Almost everywhere a point struck would be alittle gem of business history to draw your interest. I didn't need a dartboard, but in 1980 when I first read TheVisible Hand I came across a reference to futures trading thatfascinated me. It was something I knew little about, yet thereit was, its history deftly laid out in a few pages. ClassicChandler: futures trading emerged out of a combination of     

High-compliance work systems: Innovative solutions for firm success and control of foreign corruption

Enforcement of laws that prevent corrupt international business dealings has recently intensified. Firms have paid record-setting fines of hundreds of millions of dollars, and individuals have been tried and convicted. This escalating situation demands effective action from business leaders. Compliance has become increasingly complicated as more countries have enacted antibribery laws. To address this situation, I identify four root causes of corruption and present innovative real-world examples of solutions. Combinations of these solutions can be crafted to create high-compliance work systems (HCWSs) to avoid corruption. Firms can formulate their own unique, innovative, and dynamic models to achieve high levels of firm success while also avoiding corruption. These models go beyond trade-off thinking, which suggests that compliance must be exchanged for performance. Pivoting away from such trade-off thinking enables innovative solutions to manage corruption risks and offers firms a sustained competitive advantage over their peers.     

E-Business Method: A Cyclical-Model for Internet Commerce Development

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a methodology for designing and deploying electronic enterprises–a step beyond intuitive or rule-based approaches. As a starting point, the paper presents a cyclical-model consisting of three e-business development phases: conceptualization, simulation, and implementation. Since an e-business “idea” rarely springs forth complete and ready to go, realizing the idea–that is, turning it into a commercial product, system, process, or profitable enterprise–requires business development. Business development requires analysis of the potential organizational structures, IT architectures, HR policies and procedures, strategies, market niche, partnership agreements, and so on, until a satisfactory enterprise design is found. Such consideration and experimentation can be done mentally (intuitively), or by drawing on a napkin (informally), or more logically using strategic and marketing analysis, revenue/cost/asset/operational business models, computer simulations, and other quantitative and qualitative management practices and techniques. In any case, only rarely is the result of the first development effort completely satisfactory, perhaps the business system or process will be too difficult to develop, too complex, or too costly to implement, maintain, or sell. So, once again the business idea goes into the cycle of developing, testing, redeveloping, implementing, and re-testing. Succinctly, the methodology advocated in this paper provides a framework for guiding the e-business development process.     

基于技术创新与商业模式创新有机结合视角的提升产业竞争力研究

技术创新与商业模式创新的有机结合是企业提升竞争力的有效途径。阿里巴巴集团的成功就在于将技术创新与商业模式创新的有机结合。现阶段,我国在技术创新与商业模式创新方面仍存在着创新转化意识薄弱、价值链观念落后、其它现实条件束缚等问题。政府应加快完善相关政策支持体系;企业要积极提升产业创新能力;科研机构及高校应强化科技成果转化意识,在共同合作中促进中国企业实现技术创新与商业模式创新的有机结合,有效提升产业竞争力。     

中国企业国际采购发展阶段特征的案例分析

随着中国企业国际化的发展,国际采购必将为中国企业国际竞争力的提高与可持续发展作出越来越重要的贡献。国际采购不仅是企业的运作职能,更是企业的战略职能。运作层次国际采购向战略层次国际采购的发展可以划分为不同阶段。本文采用案例研究方法对不同阶段中国企业国际采购的特征进行实证分析。研究结果表明,中国企业国际采购发展的初级阶段主要是追求海外供应的高质量和高技术,随着国际采购阶段的深入,中国企业国际采购能力建设将更为完善,将追求更为多样化的战略利益。中国企业国际采购所面临的硬性成本与外部障碍的重要性下降,软性成本和内部障碍越来越重要。对于国际采购发展程度较高的企业,内部障碍对企业国际采购能力建设提出了更高的要求。但软性成本的阶段性特征表现得不明显,文化与商业习惯差异是比较普遍的软性成本,其他软性成本类型主要与企业特征或行业类型有关。     

Chandler: A Retrospect

I met Al Chandler in late 1962 (or early 1963), when he visitedthe Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, as a guestof Associate Dean Clarence Walton. Chandler gave a seminar,based on his new book Strategy and Structure. I was then atColumbia Business School, completing my (and Frank Ernest Hill’s)archive-based history of Ford Motor Company's internationaloperations, which was my first book. As my next project, I wasseeking to write an overall history of US business abroad. Iwanted to figure out whether patterns I had found in my researchon Ford abroad were typical (or atypical) of US corporations,in general, as the latter expanded worldwide. Recently, I looked at the preface (dated June 1963) of our AmericanBusiness Abroad: Ford on Six Continents, published in 1964;there was no acknowledgment of the     

Jeffrey M. Hornstein. A Nation of Realtors(R): A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005. xi + 252 pp. ISBN 0-8223-3528-X, $79.95 (cloth); 0-8223-3540-9, $22.95 (paper).

For many people who study the culture of American business,a mention of real estate will conjure up Sinclair Lewis’sfictional creation George F. Babbitt, the title character ofthe 1922 novel Babbitt. I was reminded, when reading JeffreyHornstein’s A Nation of Realtors^®, that Lewis at onepoint used a different working title: "Population 300,000."Between these two titles lay the relationship between the characterof the Realtor and the community that the Realtor, and his peers,     

我国铁路建设企业实施绿色营销策略的途径——以中铁一局集团公司为例

开展绿色营销是实施可持续发展战略的必然要求和具体体现。企业只有实施绿色营销战略,才能突出自己的特色,不断地提高市场占有率。以中铁一局集团公司为例,通过分析认为,我国铁路建设企业在绿色营销上存在着缺乏绿色技术创新能力和绿色营销的竞争力,经营范围狭窄,没有形成完善的绿色管理系统等问题,要想解决这些问题,必须实施绿色促销策略、绿色价格策略和绿色技术创新策略等绿色营销策略。     

Preparing Russian Small Innovative Enterprises for International Competitiveness: A Scoping Study

Russian small innovative enterprises (SIEs) are emerging as an important force behind the restructuring of the Russian economy and its industrial and commercial infrastructure. The research presented in this paper suggests that there are at least three categories of factors that impact the move of Russian SIEs into international markets: (i) macro-economic obstacles (ii) lacking managerial and business competencies and (iii) differences in culture and business practices. The first factor cannot be directly influenced by the individual SIE, while the latter two represent opportunities of a developmental nature. The work of this paper purports to lay the groundwork for more theoretical follow-up analyses.