Understanding the service infusion process as a business model reconfiguration

This study conceptualizes service infusion as a business model reconfiguration by using a process perspective. Service infusion is therefore understood as a process affecting the business model dimensions of transaction content, structure, and governance. The service-related reconfiguration of the business model is explained by underlying knowledge conversion mechanisms, which provide insights into the development of reconfiguration capacities as important enablers for business model change. Furthermore, this study introduces the concept of service defusion as an important counterpart to service infusion. Both concepts together are found to fully capture firms' strategic options with respect to their service offering components (transaction content), their engagement with, and disengagement from, important business partners (transaction structure), and also their interactions with these important business partners (transaction governance). The conceptually derived understanding of the service infusion process and mechanisms are exemplified via a multi-actor longitudinal illustrative case study. A conceptual grounding for understanding service infusion processes for further theory and concept development is provided, and managers gain an understanding of how to effectively manage the processes underlying service-related business model reconfigurations.     

抓好过程控制确保施工质量

山东水利工程总公司（简称山东水总）是经山东省人民政府批准成立的大一型国有企业,具有水利水电工程施工总承包一级资质,主要承接各类大中型水利水电工程、市政工程、基础工程、交通工程的施工以及金属结构制造与安装。山东水总于2000年6月通过ISO9002国际质量体系认证,2003年通过2000版换版认证。     

Value-based sales process adaptation in business relationships

In business relationships, the seller is often expected to adapt to the buyer. The main purpose of this study is to understand how business firms adapt their sales processes to the buyer. The resulting framework, which reveals how different modes of adaptation are contingent upon the type of product being purchased, includes three layers: sales process adaptation, seller–buyer relationship orientation, and the purchasing portfolio. The study is a qualitative one and utilizes a retrospective case study, where the main sources of information are in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants representing the seller and buyer counterparts in the ICT industry. Our study adds to the understanding of how different modes of adaptation are contingent upon the type of item being sold and purchased. Managerial implications include that to strategically adapt, the seller could focus on the purchasing portfolio. Although previous research has recognized adaptation as a central aspect in relationships, how the sales process could be adapted to the buyer has received little attention. This study focuses on the adaptation of sales to strategically match it to the buyer's situation.     

Evaluate the sales force as a business

High interest rates are posing serious problems for all business organizations and impact more heavily on those in the industrial sector. Cash flow difficulties result directly from high interest rates, which in turn produce pressure on the sales force: credit terms are tightened; customers are pushed to pay their bills more promptly; and, shipments are delayed because of reduced inventories. This set of difficult circumstances, however, provides an opportunity for management to achieve a long desired objective—making the efforts of the sales force more congruent with the profit and ROI goals of the enterprise.This article outlines the structure of a training program, consisting of seven sessions, that introduces business performance criteria to sales territory management.     

Professionals in the NHS – a case study of business process re-engineering

Rather than providing evidence of business process re-engineering (BPR) as another example of cultural change rhetoric, this case study shows BPR as a substantive initiative that has had a considerable impact on health care professionals. A hybrid of differing bureaucratic professions allows for a diversity specific to the health service. The study highlights a number of controversial issues unique to health care professionals, particularly in the areas of job redesign, multiskilling and empowerment.     

Empirically testing ES success factors in business process reengineering

Previously proposed success factors for Expert Systems implementation are field tested in the context of business process reengineering (BPR) projects. Due to its nature mimicking human expert behavior, ES technology applications in BPR provide a unique opportunity to study major organization changes within a relatively short time. Using Pearson correlations and multivariate regression analysis, eight ES implementation success factors proposed in the literature were empirically tested in this study in terms of their importance to the BPR benefits derived from the application. Sixty-two ES applications within E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Company dealing with business process changes significant enough to be called BPR were used. Despite the relatively small sample size, six of the eight success factors were corroborated: user satisfaction with the ES, the importance and difficulty of the business problem addressed, user attitudes toward ES technology and the particular ES project, the degree of user involvement in the ES implementation process, and the ES developer(s) skills.     

Managing New Product Development Teams in a Globally Dispersed NPD Program

Globalization is a major market trend today, one characterized by both increased international competition as well as extensive opportunities for firms to expand their operations beyond current boundaries. Effectively dealing with this important change, however, makes the management of global new product development (NPD) a major concern. To ensure success in this complex and competitive endeavor, companies must rely on global NPD teams that make use of the talents and knowledge available in different parts of the global organization. Thus, cohesive and well‐functioning global NPD teams become a critical capability by which firms can effectively leverage this much more diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and cultural sensitivities for the global NPD effort. The present research addresses the global NPD team and its impact on performance from both an antecedent and a contingency perspective. Using the resource‐based view (RBV) as a theoretical framework, the study clarifies how the internal, or behavioral, environment of the firm—specifically, resource commitment and senior management involvement—and the global NPD team are interrelated and contribute to global NPD program performance. In addition, the proposed performance relationships are viewed as being contingent on certain explicit, or strategic, factors. In particular, the degree of global dispersion of the firm's NPD effort is seen as influencing the management approach and thus altering the relationships among company background resources, team, and performance. For the empirical analysis, data are collected through a survey of 467 corporate global new product programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business). A structural model testing for the hypothesized effects was substantially supported. The results show that creating and effectively managing global NPD teams offers opportunities for leveraging a diverse but unique combination of talents and knowledge‐based resources, thereby enhancing the firm's ability to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in international markets. To function effectively, the global NPD team must be nested in a corporate environment in which there is a commitment of sufficient resources and where senior management plays an active role in leading, championing, and coordinating the global NPD effort. This need for commitment and global team integration becomes even more important for success as the NPD effort becomes more globally dispersed.     

APPLE: A dynamic financial simulation of research and development in a technologically based business

This paper describes the present state of development of an abstract, dynamic, financial model of industrial research and development called APPLE. The concept, structure and application of APPLE as a practical tool are presented. The application of APPLE to help strategic planning and to increase understanding of the nature, influence and role of research and development is described.     

Managing academic R&D as a business at K.U. Leuven: context, structure and process

In this paper, we elaborate on how academic R&D can be managed as a business. Based on the case of K.U. Leuven Research and Development, it is shown how an academic institution can develop the context, structure and processes conducive to managing academic R&D as a business. It is argued that universities that intend to take advantage of the economic opportunities of their R&D programmes, should leverage their innovation potential through appropriate strategies, organizational structures and management processes that allow them to manage part of their R&D portfolio as a business without hampering though the fundamental academic values and activities of research and teaching. This balancing act has been the responsibility of K.U. Leuven Research and Development for the last 28 years. It is the subject of the case study reported in this paper.     

Managerial incentives as a strategic variable in duopolistic environment

The paper investigates two interrelated problems. The first is the output choice of a firm in which decisions are made cooperatively by managers who might have conflicting objectives. The second is the managerial incentives scheme as a strategic choice of owners who wish to maximize profits. Using an example in which a duopolistic market is studied, the paper shows that giving managers incentives that combine profit and sales maximization might be the dominant strategy for the owners.     

Networks in a protected business context: Licenses as restraints and facilitators

Taking the network approach developed in the Nordic countries as a point of departure (cf. [Håkansson, H. and Snehota, I. (1989). No business is an island. The network concept of business strategy, Scandinavian Journal of Management 5 (3) 187-200.; Turnbull, P., Ford, D., and Cunningham, M. (1996). Interaction relationships and networks in business markets. An evolving perspective, Journal of Business Marketing 11 (3/4) 44-62]) this paper seeks to explore how firms and networks are affected by high involvement by governmental authorities. A special focus is given to the regulating instrument of licenses. In two case studies of protected industries, the pharmacy and insurance industry, we find that licenses are restrictions but also facilitators for relationships and networks. Licenses render firms a certain degree of acceptance, define roles and positions in the network, and affects efficiency. Thus, although licenses can be seen as a restriction for firms it also becomes evident that they facilitate firms' activities related to operating and/or entering new markets.     

Realities of R&D as a business: MBI's experience

The level of effort in a R&D activity on research or development depends upon whether the R&D activity is basic or applied. In general, the R&D at a university is focused more on the research (R of R&D) whereas the emphasis in an industrial R&D is more on the development (D of R&D) and less on research. In the past, this created a gap difficult to bridge between the R&D needs of an industrial sector and the R&D output from university and governmental laboratories. The recent success in R&D as a business has mainly been due to understanding the critical steps needed to take an idea to a marketplace and, thus, the emphasis on R or D has become a moving target depending upon the need. MBI International, a non‐profit R&D organization, was created to bridge the gap between academic and industrial R&D and to validate, develop and demonstrate technologies having commercial potential in the industrial sector. In the process, MBI developed partnerships with universities, governmental agencies, foundations, and industries to resource innovative technologies, funds, physical facilities and market opportunities to make the R&D business a reality. In this paper, we present MBI's experience in developing and commercializing R&D technologies in several new spin‐off companies, joint ventures, and out‐licensing.     

The role of proximity in business model design: Making business models work for those at the bottom of the pyramid

This paper explores the role of proximity in designing business models that work for those at the BoP. BoP markets represent an extreme setting where actors struggle to access and organise limited resources and develop appropriate socio-economic-political practices. Drawing on Boschma's (2005) concept of proximity, we analyse three historical cases of business at the BoP to uncover the spatial-temporal dimensions of business model design in practice. Findings suggest that 1) business model design practices iteratively structure connections with markets and open up new spaces for market activity. This means that business models are necessarily understood as plastic and continuously in-the-making; 2) by taking into account the stability and change of proximity dimensions and the dynamics between them as they relate to business activities, managers are better equipped to identity opportunities that create, shape and connect with markets; and 3) the spatial-temporal dynamic of the business model proximities framework reveals that some proximities strengthen others through time, with negative and positive consequences.     

Business process re-engineering in theory and practice: business paradise regained?

This article examines the hype surrounding BPR from a historical, theoretical and empirical perspective. It delineates three ways in which politics are critical to understanding BPR and uses findings on BPR practice, including from case study work and a 1994/5 UK survey conducted by the authors, to locate and explain BPR's appeal and also the less radical outcomes of BPR practice.     

Institutional maintenance work and power preservation in business exchanges: Insights from industrial supplier workshops

This paper aims to offer new theoretical and empirical insights into power dynamics in an industrial supplier workshop setting. Theoretically, it advances an institutional perspective on supplier workshops as an important venue in managing, preserving and instituting industrial market power. Based on a detailed ethnographic analysis of an industrial workshop setting, this article investigates the institutional maintenance work of Retail Co. in preserving the power dynamics of market dominance in business exchanges and market structures. Our findings revealed three previously unreported insights into the subtle, but nonetheless pervasive power from institutional maintenance work in an industrial workshop setting. First, the institutional workshop work comprised a cultural performance; constituting socialization practice through a performance game, the power of numbers in field comprehension and an award ceremony. Second, the institutional workshop work mobilized projective agency, stipulating, directing and appealing for the instituting of distinct market rules and collective identities. Finally, the institutional workshop work increases supplier docility and utility via the regulative technologies-of-the-self to enhance business planning, operations and market decision-making practice, without necessarily being seen to be disciplinarian.     

A theoretical framework for the studio as a learning environment

In this article we describe a holistic, ecological framework that takes into account the surface structures and pedagogical approaches in the studio and how these elements are connected to the construction of design knowledge: epistemology. In our development of this framework, we came to understand how disciplinary underpinnings and academic culture shape the ways that studio is enacted. Using practice theory, we illustrate our framework with two examples—one in Industrial Design and another in Human Computer Interaction—that demonstrate the ways in which the studio can act as a bridge between academic and professional communities. We came to see the studio as a unique practice community that connects academic and professional contexts. We argue that successful implementation of studio-based learning involves an awareness of disciplinary canons, ontological approaches to knowledge, and the academic constraints on studio-based approaches to learning.     

Pricing process as a capability: a resource‐based perspective

Strategists following the resource‐based view argue that firms can generate rents through value creation. To create value, firms develop and use resources and capabilities that other firms cannot imitate, trade for, or substitute other assets for. Even a firm that has created value, however, may not capture the potential rents associated with that value. To capture rents, a firm must set the right prices for what it sells. Most views of pricing assume that a firm can readily set appropriate prices. In contrast, we argue that pricing is a capability. To develop the ability to set the right prices, a firm must invest in resources and routines. We base our argument on a study of the pricing process of a large Midwestern manufacturing firm. We show that pricing resources, routines, and skills may help or inhibit a firm in setting the right price—and hence in appropriating value created. Our view of pricing as a capability contributes to the resource‐based view because it suggests that strategists should consider the portfolio of value creation and value appropriation capabilities a firm uses to create competitive advantage. Our view also contributes to economics because it suggests that strategic decisions about pricing capabilities have important implications for a fundamental economic action, determining prices. Managers in firms without effective pricing processes may be unable to set prices that reflect the wishes of its customers, so the customers may misuse their resources. As a result, resources may be used ineffectively. Our view of pricing as a capability therefore takes the resource‐based‐view straight to the heart of what is perhaps the central economic question: the best use of resources. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.