Technological proximity and the choice of cooperation partner

This paper provides empirical tests of hypotheses of cooperative behavior provided by evolutionary approaches in the resource-based view of the firm. The influences of “technological proximity”, individual incentives to cooperate and managerial tools to the choice of research partner are analyzed. Using German patent data we can show the positive influence of those three determinants. The results of this paper confirm theories dealing with the path-dependency of research activities.      

An empirical examination of strategic sourcing dominant logic: Strategic sourcing centricity

Recently, much of the thought in strategic sourcing, i.e., dominant logic, has shifted away from the exchange of tangible goods and toward the exchange of intangibles, specialized skills and knowledge, and processes. This study refers to strategic sourcing dominant logic as strategic sourcing centricity (SSC) and describes it as a sourcing management′s mindset based on learning, performance, planning, and relational orientations and manifests itself in the implementation of SS to meet supply management objectives and satisfy stakeholder requirements. Building on insights on intangibility derived from resource-based theory (RBV), the study proposes and empirically tests strategic sourcing centricity (SSC). The authors test the operational measures of SSC dimensions and its impact on performance on a sample of 174 supply management executives. The results indicate strong support for the theorized framework. Managerial implications and future research agenda are provided.     

The manufacturing strategy formulation process: Linking multifunctional viewpoints

While there has been considerable research on the content of manufacturing strategy, there is a paucity of literature concerning the process of manufacturing strategy formulation [Ward, P.T., Brickford, D.J., Leong, G.K., 1996. Configuration of manufacturing strategy, business strategy, environment, and structure, J. Manage., 22(4) 597–626; Leong, G.K., Snyder, D.L., Ward, P.T., 1990. Research in the process and content of manufacturing strategy, Omega, 18(2) 109–122]. Many researchers have highlighted the need to overcome this deficiency by studying the process of developing manufacturing strategy [Adam, E.E., Swamidass, P.M., 1989. Assessing operations management from a strategic perspective, J. Manage., 15(2) 181–203; Anderson et al., 1989; Leong, G.K., Snyder, D.L., Ward, P.T., 1990. Research in the process and content of manufacturing strategy, Omega, 18(2) 109–122]. To effectively link the manufacturing strategy of a firm to the needs of the marketplace, critical competitive factors or order-winning criteria must be understood and agreed upon both by operations and marketing managers [Hill, T.J., 1983. Manufacturing's strategic role, J. Operational Res. Soc., 34(9) 853–860; Hill, T.J., 1994. Manufacturing Strategy—Text and Cases, 2nd edn., Irwin, Homewood, IL]. For this study, we created and examined a process of establishing a set of order-winning criteria for a consumer pharmaceuticals firm which involved the participation of sixteen managers from seven functional areas over four months. The foundation of the process was developed by Hill [Hill, T.J., 1989. Manufacturing Strategy—Text and Cases. Irwin, Homewood, IL; Hill, T.J., 1994. Manufacturing Strategy—Text and Cases, 2nd edn., Irwin, Homewood, IL], however it was soon evident that additional steps were required. The expanded process we developed both exposed significantly differing views among the managers and raised several questions with important managerial and research implications.     

Export strategy: : a dynamic capabilities perspective

It is argued here that traditional export strategy research (encompassing the study of internationalization processes and export performance) is characterized by weak theoretical foundations and could benefit from a reorientation towards a dynamic capabilities perspective (DCP). We seek to draw on insights from DCP in order to devise a theoretical basis that could enrich export strategy research. Although our development of DCP insights builds on previous work, it also adds a crucial distinction between knowledge stocks and informational architecture. Changes in architecture are of greater importance. Following this elaboration of the dynamic capabilities perspective, we outline some implications and guidelines for future export strategy research.     

Radical innovations in new product development and their financial performance implications: An event study of US manufacturing firms

At the dawn of the 21st century, global competition continues to increase at an accelerating rate and radical innovation is recognized as a potent weapon for firms to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Academics, practitioners and consultants share the view that radical innovation is important to the long-term financial success of firms. Nevertheless, empirical studies on the relationship between radical innovation and firm performance have been dominated by survey research, which provided little concrete evidence on the financial impact of radical innovation. In this study we traced the financial performance of publicly traded manufacturing firms in the United States that introduced radical innovations over the period 1986-2000 and examined whether radical innovation could lead to superior financial performance in these firms. We employed the event-study method, matching each sample firm with a control group of firms in the same industry with similar pre-event performance and firm size. Our results show that while radical innovation helps firms maintain sales growth and return on sales (ROS), firm profitability in terms of return on assets (ROA) is not significantly improved. In fact, manufacturers suffer from a decline in profitability upon the introduction of radical innovations in new product development.     

Linking routines to operations capabilities: A new perspective

A typical approach to studying capabilities in the operations management literature is to assess the intended or realized competitive operational performance and their contribution to business and organizational objectives. While it is crucial to identify the operational performance that helps create competitive advantage, it is equally important to understand the means for delivering the needed performance at the operational level. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), we argue that routines are a critical source of operations capabilities and subsequently investigate operations capabilities by means of their underlying routines. Because a common problem to studying capabilities is the ambiguous and confusing definitions, we conduct an extensive literature review to address the semantic confusion among various definitions of capabilities and delineate it from other related terms. We identify improvement and innovation as two critical plant level capabilities, each consisting of a bundle of interrelated yet distinct routines. We then empirically measure the two capabilities as second-order latent variables and estimate their effects on a set of operational performance measures. The results suggest that routines form internally consistent bundles which are significantly related to operational performance. This supports our notion of “capabilities as routine bundles” that are difficult to imitate and thus a source of competitive advantage.     

Limits to global sourcing?: Strategic consequences of dependency on international suppliers: Cluster theory,resource-based view and case studies

This paper argues for the inclusion of an analysis of industry clusters when making decisions about global or local sourcing. Suppliers are viewed as valuable resources that can contribute to a firm's competitive advantage. Two contrasting case studies illustrate that, contrary to common expectations, a high global sourcing quota does not necessarily improve a firm's competitiveness. Rather, there may be limits to global sourcing, if a firm is unable to become a preferred customer of its strategic suppliers. Achieving preferred customer status is easier for firms located in the same regional or national cluster than it is for foreign firms attempting to access a remote supplier. This paper contributes a new and more differentiated approach to global sourcing decisions by integrating the cluster concept. Furthermore, our findings enrich the discourse of strategic management by supporting the view that resources which enable a firm to achieve sustainable competitive advantages can be located beyond its legal boundaries.     

An empirical approach to the organisational determinants of spin-off creation in European universities

Given the importance in recent years of the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship in European universities, knowledge about determinants and performance of this technology transfer mechanism may have important managerial and policy implications. Applying the resource-based view at universities, we have tested the influence of five bundles of resources and capabilities on spin-off activity rates as well as on the performance of new spin-offs in a sample of seven European universities. These five bundles are: technology transfer policies and strategies; human capital; stock of technology; resources and capabilities of technology transfer offices; and support measures for academic entrepreneurship. Our results show that excellence of human capital and the presence of university-based financial support measures are strongly associated with both spin-off activity and performance. Another interesting finding is related to the availability of university-based non-economic support measures (training, counselling, etc.), which have no influence on spin-off activity but are significantly associated with performance of new spin-offs. We also discuss some interesting relationships between explanatory variables.     

Strategic human capital and the performance of public sector organizations

Organization scientists have long considered human capital as a strategic asset that contributes to organizational effectiveness. Whereas the strategic importance of human capital has been widely studied in the case of for-profit organizations, measurement difficulties and the role of human capital in the public sector have received little attention. The present study attempts to bridge this gap by suggesting a behavioral approach to measuring organization-specific human capital and examining its impact on the financial performance of local government authorities in Israel. The results confirm the strategic importance of human capital. Local government authorities that possess strategic human capital—namely, a workforce that is highly educated, that exhibits organization-specific competencies and experience, and that is valuable, unique, and imperfectly imitable—exhibited a better financial performance, as measured by a three-financial ratio scale over 2 fiscal years.     

Is synergy always good? Clarifying the effect of innovation capital and customer capital on firm performance in two contexts

The resource-based view (RBV) posits that a firm can leverage the effect of existing capital on firm performance via capital configuration, complementarity, and integration, but little empirical research has addressed these issues. This study investigates the effects of innovation capital and customer capital on firm performance, whether their complementary interactions are important determinants of relative firm performance within the industry, and whether these effects considerably differ significantly between high- and low-technology manufacturing firms. Based on data collected from 312 high-technology manufacturing firms and 204 low-technology manufacturing firms in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry, the results of SEM analyses demonstrate that the main effects of both innovation and customer capital significantly and positively impact firm performance. The analytical results demonstrate that: (1) a significant interaction effect only exists in the high-technology manufacturing firms; (2) the main effect of customer capital is lower among high-technology manufacturing firms; (3) the main effect of innovation capital is the same for both high- and low-technology manufacturing firms. Additionally, this investigation also discusses the limitations of the current research, future research directions, and the theoretical and practical implications of the empirical analysis.     

The difference a manager can make: organizational justice and knowledge worker commitment

The quality of the employment relationship is argued to be central to knowledge workers' commitment, which in turn supports knowledge creation. Given the high levels of discretion enjoyed by knowledge workers, managers' decisions over work distribution, content and resources become more critical for commitment and knowledge creation. However, little research has explored how justice perceptions shape the quality of the employment relationship and the consequences for commitment. Using a sample of 429 R&D workers from across six science and technology-based firms this paper explores the three-way interaction of procedural and interactional justice with the psychological contract to predict knowledge worker commitment. We found that when employees simultaneously perceived high levels of procedural and interactional justice this moderated the relationship between psychological contract breach and knowledge worker commitment. Furthermore, where there was contract breach, positive perceptions of procedural justice moderated the relationship with commitment. However, in the context of contract fulfilment, low perceived levels of interactional justice predicted lower comparative levels of commitment, regardless of the level of procedural justice.

The results suggest that the perceived quality of the relationship between knowledge workers and their manager can make a positive difference in the context of breach of the psychological contract and this in turn can help maintain levels of commitment important for knowledge creation.     

The cultural characteristic of individualism/collectivism: A comparative study of implications for investment in operations between emerging Asian and industrialized Western countries

This study provides insight into the importance of national culture, investment in operations, and performance in the context of emerging Asian economies with a collectivist orientation, which are compared to industrialized Western nations with an individualist orientation. Hypotheses are developed and tested based on the cultural concept of individualism/collectivism, the theory of performance frontiers, and the extent of economic development. More specifically, data collected from 639 manufacturing plants in nine countries are used to first assess the influence of the cultural trait of individualism/collectivism on the extent of investment in structural assets (specifically: physical and capital-based) and infrastructural assets (specifically: team-based methods and improvement programs). Second, the influence of the extent of economic development on these investment factors is measured. Third, evidence is provided supportive of the theory of performance frontiers, and the nature of resource investments in the context of the cultural construct of individualism/collectivism. And fourth, support is provided for the efficacy of this theory, as well as for its compatibility and association with the resource-based view of the firm. Overall, this study makes important contributions to both theory and practice, and provides evidence for the role played by the cultural characteristic of individualism/collectivism in determining plant level investment outcomes in emerging Asian economies.     

企业战略的新选择--知识管理战略

知识管理战略是着眼于推动知识资产的形成、储存、分享和应用的发展战略。实施有效的知识管理战略是企业进行知识管理,提高知识创新能力,增强竞争优势的重要途径。选择适合企业发展的知识管理战略成为理论界和企业解所普遍关注的问题。     

基于流程节点的知识集成方法研究

提出了一种基于流程节点的知识集成方法,并对该方法的现实意义进行了分析。在对流程节点进行界定的基础上,构建业务流程模型;并对知识分类与表示进行了研究并构建了知识集成模型。