Enhancing value creation of device vendors in the medical service industry: a relationship perspective

Around the world, hospitals receiving government funding and insurance payments are under increasing pressure to cut costs. Based on the literature in relationship value and transaction cost economics, long-term relationships between suppliers and customers can be beneficial to cost reduction and value creation. This study explores the value of long-term relationships between medical device vendors and hospitals from the hospital perspective. In-depth interviews were conducted employing a grounded theory approach. The results show that in addition to product benefits/costs and supportive services, vendor reputation and sales personnel specificity are most influential towards the value of their long-term relationships.     

商务模式对企业社会责任与企业绩效关系的影响

如何协调解决经济目标与社会目标的利益冲突,实现两者的统一,是我国企业面临的现实问题。本文运用内容分析法,通过对四个中国上市家电企业的多案例研究,发现商务模式对企业社会责任与企业绩效冲突与否起到关键性的作用。当企业采取共享型商务模式时,企业社会责任活动有利于提升企业绩效;反之,当企业采取非共享型商务模式时,企业社会责任与企业绩效就会出现冲突。     

Bring in the brewers: business entry in the Swedish brewing industry from 1830 to 2012

This article analyses long-term business entry in the Swedish brewing industry, presenting new data on its organisational historiography. Since 1830, the rate of entry has varied considerably; entries increased progressively from the 1850s, and fell at a decreasing rate from the early twentieth century. An increasing tendency to enter the trade can be observed from the mid-1980s – in particular, there has been a considerable resurgence since the turn of the millennium. The article elaborates on explanations that are both exogenous and endogenous. Above all, the results provide support for the role of endogenous conditions. The results should be viewed as complementary to previous analyses of the (Swedish) brewing industry, which either have employed shorter analytical time-frames or have mainly focused on the role of exogenous conditions, such as changes in the institutional framework.     

Firm size and growth in Sweden's life insurance market between 1855 and 1947: A test of Gibrat's law

Using data for the period from 1855 to 1947 and the two sub-periods, 1855–1902 and 1903–47, the article examines whether the organic growth rates of 38 Swedish life insurance firms are independent of size, as predicted by Gibrat's (1931) Law of Proportionate Effects. Using panel unit root tests and panel Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) regression, the article finds a significant difference between the growth rates of small and large Swedish life insurance firms (with smaller firms tending to grow faster than larger firms), a result that clearly contradicts Gibrat's Law as a long-run tendency in the Swedish life insurance sector. significant influences were also found on firm growth from profitability, organisational form, reinsurance, the real rate of interest and the Swedish regulatory environment.     

The Taiwan hat industry: Pre-war roots of the post-war miracle

Taiwan's pre-war hat industry was a precursor of the export-oriented living-room factory industries which played a leading role in Taiwan's post-1960 economic miracle. After World War I, success in the global hat trade required quick reaction to ever-changing fashion. Taiwan's hat industry was based on a flexible subcontracting system which could respond quickly to fashion change and ramp up production at short notice. Taiwan's early hat industry has been overshadowed by its larger agricultural exporting industries, but the hat industry itself was, by many standards, large and influential. Evidence suggests that Taiwan's early experience in the hat trade was a key factor behind Taiwan's later post-war success.     

Cooperation between business associations and the government in the Korean cotton industry, 1950–70

The Korean government intended to promote the cotton industry, and expected that the industry would play a positive role to decelerate the inflation rate and increase exports during 1950–70. However, the ability of Korean public servants to develop the industry was insufficient. Korea had a powerful business association in the industry, the Spinners and Weavers Association of Korea (SWAK), which did have enough organisational resources. The government asked SWAK to support its policies, and SWAK cooperated with the government with good results. SWAK did not simply implement government policies in the business world, but was a partner of the government in accomplishing targets.     

Global value chains and the lost competitiveness of the Japanese watch industry: an applied business history of Seiko since 1990

An applied business history approach offers particular insights into the lost competitiveness of the Japanese watch company Seiko and its causes. Although Seiko was the world's largest firm in the watch industry in the mid-1980s, the company experienced a huge decrease in sales during the next decade and became unable to compete effectively against Swiss watch companies that had repositioned themselves in luxury business. The focus on the evolution of global value chains (GVC) in the industry, which saw a shift from producer-driven GVC to buyer-driven GVC, highlights a major change in the 1990s. Seiko did not change its strategy despite this paradigm shift and has continued to run its foreign subsidiaries according to the producer-driven model.     

Organic growth and shareholder value: A case study of the insurance industry

This paper examines organic growth and its impact on shareholder value creation. At a conceptual level, organic and external growth are readily defined; yet, at a practical level, decomposing revenue growth into its constituent elements presents methodological challenges. We develop a method to decompose revenue growth into organic growth, external growth, exchange rate effects, and under- or outperformance. Using extensive data from three insurance companies, AXA, Generali and ING, we analyzed the period from 1995 to 2005. Exchange rate effects were of minor importance, unless companies entered markets at inopportune times. Primarily, the findings indicate that only organic revenue growth enhanced shareholder value. Therefore, managers should focus on marketing as a key driver of organic growth to create value.     

Clio in the business school: Historical approaches in strategy,international business and entrepreneurship

On the back of recent and significant new debates on the use of history within business and management studies, we consider the perception of historians as being anti-theory and of having methodological shortcomings; and business and management scholars displaying insufficient attention to historical context and privileging of certain social science methods over others. These are explored through an examination of three subjects: strategy, international business and entrepreneurship. We propose a framework for advancing the use of history within business and management studies more generally through greater understanding of historical perspectives and methodologies.     

Ethical leadership,organizational identification and employee voice: examining moderated mediation process in the Chinese insurance industry

This study examines the link between ethical leadership and employee voice behaviour by focusing on the mediating role of organizational identification and the moderating role of organizational trust. The results of distinctive data from 293 supervisors–follower pairs in an insurance group from the People's Republic of China reveal that ethical leadership positively relates to employee voice behaviour, and that organization identification fully mediates the positive influence of ethical leadership on employee voice behaviour. We also found that organization trust moderates the relationship between the organization identification and employee voice. Furthermore, the mediating effect between ethical leadership and employee voice is moderated by organizational trust, that is to say moderated mediation. We discuss implications of these findings for research and practice.     

Firms' efficiency and global value chains: An empirical investigation on Italian industry

This paper investigates the effect of participation in global value chains (GVCs) on firms' efficiency and explores heterogeneity in this impact across different firms, according to GVC governance, positioning in the chain and time length of participation. Our analysis takes advantage of survey data providing information on involvement in GVCs for a large set of Italian industrial SMEs between 2008 and 2012. We employ Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to retrieve a measure of firms' technical efficiency (i.e., DEA efficiency scores) and estimate the impact of involvement in GVCs on firms' efficiency through propensity-score matching techniques and truncated regression. Our results show that participation in GVCs induces significant efficiency premia, especially for suppliers, with stronger effects in the case of relational modes of participation.     

Mutuality as a control for information asymmetry: A historical analysis of the claims experience of mutual and stock fire insurance companies in Sweden, 1889 to 1939

We test two competing arguments regarding the influence of organisational form on underwriting performance using data from the Swedish fire insurance industry for the years 1889 to 1939 – a period of both economic growth and stagnation. Since mutuality is a response to information asymmetry problems, mutual insurers are expected to report lower annual claims relative to premiums than stock insurance companies. However, an alternative view is that stock insurers seek to reduce information asymmetry problems by issuing non-participatory rights insurance contracts with high deductibles that induce risk-sharing between the insurer's shareholders and policyholders. This implies that stock insurers are likely to report lower annual claims than mutual insurers. Our results show that organisational form is an important determinant of the claims experience of Swedish fire insurers, suggesting that mutuality acts as an effective control for information asymmetries in the market.     

A longitudinal meta-analysis of corruption in international business and trade: Bridging the isolated themes

ABSTRACT

This article chronicles the academic debate on corruption in international business and trade. It identifies three themes: contributing factors, consequences, and combating corruption. We found convergence in the literature and that authors tend to remain loyal to their chosen theme. As a result, we found a distressing dearth of research that transcends, integrates, or validates the interrelationships between them. Through our work, we propose the bridging of themes, demonstrating how they interrelate, thereby validating their interdependencies and the broader lens needed through which to observe corruption in international business.     

湛江模式的启示:探索社会医疗保险与商业健康保险的合作伙伴关系

在推进全民医保的新探索中,广东省湛江市在推进社会医疗保险与商业健康保险的合作伙伴关系上呈现出独有的特色,引起了政府和社会各界广泛的关注。"湛江模式"的重要启示是,社会医疗保险与商业健康保险建立合作伙伴关系,可以有效促进双方的共同发展以及多层次医疗保障体系的形成与发展。     

Born internationals: Market expansion and business operation mode strategies in the digital media field

This paper examines leading Swedish and Finnish Internet consultancies operating in the digital media service field. These are ‘born international’ firms that internationalise their business at an exceptionally rapid pace. The paper focuses on why and to what extent the market expansion and business operation mode strategies of these companies deviate from the traditional pattern depicted by the Scandinavian process school. The empirical data consisted of interviews with the founder and senior management and secondary data from company and public archives. The research findings show that in fact both the international new venture research and the Scandinavian internationalisation model appear to be valid. The former model was evidenced by the fact that the born internationals indeed deviated from the behaviour of the traditional firms. The latter was exemplified by the fact that the final internationalisation profile, after the withdrawals of firms from unsuccessful markets, was close to what the Scandinavian internationalisation model would call ‘rational’ expansion. Hence, if the investigation period is long enough to account for unsuccessful endeavours and withdrawals, we may then find empirical support for the traditional model as well. To be reliable, the investigation period should cover at least one economic slow down.     

Customer benefits and value creation in streaming services marketing: a managerial cognitive capability approach

Customer value analysis and management is a key theoretical and empirical issue in marketing management and strategic management. However, little is known about the influence of customer benefit on customer value from the microfoundations of the dynamic capabilities perspective. Currently, a boom in online video and music streaming services is changing the entertainment industry structure. Thus, marketing managers in the fast‐growing streaming services industry should have dynamic managerial capabilities to anticipate other service elements that customers consider valuable. Based on managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities, this research explored the influences of customer‐perceived functional benefit, experiential benefit, financial benefit, and psychosocial benefit on perceived instrumental and terminal values. General linear model (GLM) and fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were conducted to gain a more nuanced understanding of how different customers’ perceived benefits have different impacts on perceived value. The findings illuminate complex benefit configurations that drive perceived instrumental and terminal values and contribute to the development of value creation and its drivers. The proposed framework can help managers develop managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities by increasing their understanding of the impact of different perceived benefits on value creation for different types of customers.     

Late globalization and evolution,episodes and epochs of industries: Evidence from Danish textile and fashion industry, 1945–2015

This paper explores the conceptual terrain of what we term late globalization. The late globalization phenomena are multilevel and multidimensional; this paper offers an initial portal into these phenomena. Understanding late globalization would provide academic insights and help in shaping practices at international, national, sectoral, and corporate levels. The paper follows a macro‐conceptual to a micro‐empirical path to provide illustrative empirical evidence. Studying the emergence and evolution of Danish Textile and Fashion Industry (DTFI) between 1945 and 2015—a quintessential sector for globalization—allows the examination of several interrelated issues: critical events, impediments, pressures, and turning points that shaped DTFI; main institutional players that motivated key policy changes in and evolution of DTFI; and effects of late globalization on size, mission, location, knowledge, growth, and structure of DTFI. This longitudinal case study of the development of the DTFI brings to the fore key features that shape late globalization at the sectoral‐national level: government industrial policies toward domestic and foreign players in an industry, global competition that shapes and continually reshapes (cost as well as quality‐driven) location of key value chain activities (and the concomitant global distribution of core competencies and skills), and the growing role of information technologies that enable globally‐dispersed value chains to function in cohesive and unified ways. Late globalization has additional levels and dimensions; and we point to implications for future research.     

Digital innovations,impacts on marketing,value chain and business models: An introduction

Digital innovations are changing business models and industries and, in today's world, effective mastery of digital innovations can be greatly advantageous, yet digital innovation literature suffers from major lacunae. We contribute to this literature by providing definitions and analysing specificities of this emerging research stream. We then discuss the impact of digital innovation on marketing, value chain, and business models, focusing on tensions and marketing challenges, the value chain, and the evolutions of business models. We conclude with suggestions for further research.     

Apartheid and business: Competition,monopoly and the growth of the malted beer industry in South Africa

The South African brewing industry experienced enormous growth in the apartheid era, following the lifting of prohibition on the sale of ‘European liquor’ to Africans in 1961. Successive international brewers and local entrepreneurs sought to benefit from increased demand in the 1970s but were unable to withstand competition from South African Breweries (SAB), the dominant player in the industry. A decade of intense competition in the brewing industry ended with the intervention of the cabinet of the Afrikaner Nationalist government. SAB's status as ‘sole supplier to the industry’ remained virtually unchallenged until the demise of apartheid and the end of South Africa's international isolation. The end of apartheid and changes in the global brewing industry brought renewed competition to the South African beer market in the late 1990s and early 2000s.     

Relationship between functional movement screening score and history of injury and identifying the predictive value of the FMS for injury

This study aimed to reveal the functional ability of functional movement screening (FMS) scores in determining an athlete's predisposition to injury. One hundred (50 females and 50 males) university level athletes, weight of 69.44 ± 5.84 kg, height of 172.69 ± 7.26 cm, age of 22.56 ± 2.99 years and Baecke score 21.66 ± 1.73, practised in football, handball and basketball sports (at least for 5 years), with no recent (<6 weeks) history of musculoskeletal injury were recruited. Of the 100 subjects, 35 of them suffered an acute, lower extremity (ankle = 20 and knee = 15 subjects) injury. An odds ratio was calculated at 4.70, meaning that an athlete has an approximately 4.7 times greater chance of suffering a lower extremity injury during a regular competitive season if they score less than 17 on the FMS. This study provides FMS reference values for university level athletes that will assist in the interpretation of individual scores when screening athletes for musculoskeletal injury and performance factors. More research is still necessary before implementing the FMS into a pre-participation physical examination for athletics, but due to the low cost and its simplicity to implement, it should be considered by clinicians and researchers in the future.