The Technological Innovation Journey of Hisense Group

This case illustrates key innovations that took place in Hisense Group, one of the leading companies in the electronic appliances industry in China, from 1990s to 2010. Several factors contributed to its leading position, including strategic positioning, consistent technological innovation over decades, and an efficient administrative system. Since 1992, Hisense has paid close attention to technological innovation. It makes it clear that R&D plays a dominant role in competition. Hisense has continuously invested heavily in R&D and restructured its R&D administrative system, including the organizational framework, incentive mechanisms, project management and teamwork. Hisense’s strategy has resulted in major technological innovations. Hiview chip is a technological breakthrough, which helps the company gain competitive advantages.     

Ethical Issues in the Music Industry Response to Innovation and Piracy

The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet. This paper briefly describes some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, and examines some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations. The paper concludes by highlighting the risks associated with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties.     

Radical Product Innovation in the Dutch Food Industry

Abstract

This paper examines the adoption of radical food production systems in the Dutch food industry. It is argued that radical innovations are of major importance to contribute to the increase of growth and competitiveness. A model was developed to test which factors influence the adoption of radical product innovations, in particular health enhancing food products. It includes organizational and environmental factors derived from literature that influence the adoption of radical innovations. Results indicate that differences in firms' organizational factors determine the adoption of radical product innovations. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

"小狗经济"困境与"浙商"组织创新——价值网格理论的应用

结构化与锁定风险、“缘约”文化的制约性以及“浙商”与全球化经济的融合鸿沟,使得素有“小狗经济”之称的“浙商”企业,面临着组织创新。既有的模块化理论难以解决价值创造网络中,价值模块动态配置的组织问题。基于模块化和计算机网格技术的价值网格理论,为＂浙商＂组织创新提供了深刻启示。构建价值网格式组织,是＂浙商＂组织创新的战略途径,文章为此提出了具体的对策措施。     

Competitive Strategy,Environmental Characteristics and Performance in African Emerging Economies: Lessons from Firms in Ghana

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of the implementation of competitive strategy on organizational performance in response to economic liberalization policies using survey data from organizations in Ghana. We also examine how the perceived intensity of industry competition and industry sector moderate the relationship between competitive strategy and organizational performance. The results show that the implementation of the competitive strategies of low-cost, differentiation, and integrated low-cost and differentiation were all positively related to performance (return on assets and return on sales). We also find that both industry competition and industry sector moderate the relationship between differentiation strategy and return on assets. Moreover, industry competition moderates the relationships between both low-cost and differentiation strategies and return on sales. The results indicate that implementing a clearly defined competitive strategy is beneficial to organizations experiencing significant changes in the environment due to economic liberalization. The findings also suggest that while low-cost strategy is more beneficial to organizations in a highly competitive industry, differentiation strategy is more beneficial to firms in lowly competitive industry. At the same time, organizations in the manufacturing sector benefit more than those in the service sector when they implement the differentiation strategy. Managerial implications are presented.     

Integrating nonmarket and market resources,strategy and performance in Chinese enterprises: a review of the field and a resource-based empirical study

The resource-based view (RBV) regards strategy as deploying resources to obtain a competitive advantage. This article adopts such a RBV, by a simultaneous consideration of nonmarket and market factors, and then an empirical analysis of the relationships between such nonmarket and market resources, strategies and performance, focusing specifically on Chinese enterprises. The results test hypotheses related to the integrated strategy and RBV of the firm on linkages of nonmarket and market components. Combining those two views, this study reveals that there is a high and positive correlation between nonmarket and market strategies, while nonmarket strategy has a positive indirect effect on market performance via nonmarket performance. These findings suggest that the RBV is an appropriate theory for addressing the shortcomings in integrated strategy research.     

Organizational culture and adoption of high‐technology products

Research on organizational adoption of high‐technology products has concentrated on two major elements. Researchers have primarily examined whether organizations adopted innovations and whether there are differences between organizations that adopt or do not adopt innovations. In contrast, the present research examines the decision‐making process of adoption of high‐technology products in organizations. Specifically, the paper examines the concept of organizational culture and its relationship with the adoption decision process. A survey of firms that had recently made an adoption decision for a high‐technology product is reported. The results suggest that adoption decision processes are distinct within organizational cultures. The paper explains these results and discusses the implications.     

Self-categorization as a nonmarket strategy for MNE subsidiaries: Tracking the international expansion of an online platform

This article examines how MNE subsidiaries develop nonmarket strategies to create a fit between a global market strategy and a local nonmarket framework. Derived from an analysis of archives and interviews on eBay’s expansion into France, our findings suggest that MNE subsidiaries engage in defensive and proactive self-categorization to create their nonmarket strategic fit. Specifically, through the purposeful use of labels, rhetoric and narratives, self-categorization enables subsidiaries to strategically position themselves vis-à-vis both regulators and local incumbents, thereby exercising agency to influence the nonmarket environment in their preferred direction. The findings contribute to the institution-based view of international strategy by shedding new light on the interaction between MNE subsidiaries and local institutional authorities in a context of international expansion. Furthermore, we theorize how subsidiaries use self-categorization to transfer global organizational practices to the host country.     

Evolution of firms' product strategy over the life cycle of technology-based industries: A case study of the global mobile phone industry, 1980–2009

This paper adopts industry life cycle approaches to understand better the changing rationales for product strategy development in the worldwide mobile phone industry. Based on both primary and secondary sources, we find that mobile phone manufacturers have radically changed their product strategy over the industry life cycle in response to various factors, such as the intense global competition and the need to respond rapidly to changes in technology and mass-consumer preferences. We also find that, when the mobile phone industry entered a stage of shake-out in the 2000s, contrary to the prediction of the classical product–process life cycle model, mobile phone manufacturers focused their strategy not only on process but also on product innovations. The continuous launch of new and advanced product technologies served mainly to stimulate the demand for replacement purchases. We observe this unexpected key role of product innovation to be very strong also in the stage of industry maturity.     

Understanding the drivers of organizational innovations

Organizational innovations involve the implementation of significant changes in business practices, the workplace organization, and external relations. The article reports an analysis of organizational innovations' objectives and adoption in 240 Spanish healthcare businesses. Statistical tests find a dynamic behavior in healthcare organizations with 40.8% having developed an organizational innovation in the period from 2007 to 2009. The main objectives pursued are related to improved knowledge sharing and innovation skills. Results also reveal a close relationship between organizational and product/process innovations. Specifically, healthcare companies developing new organizational methods to improve innovation skills and knowledge sharing are more successful in adopting product and process innovations.     

A Balancing Act: Disproportionate Sampling of Organic Foods

When exploring decision making in food marketing, particular events are often unequally represented in the data. Concerns over bias can confuse public policy or strategy interpretation if samples are unbalanced. This occurs when researching organic food marketing. A small share of the market (～4%) and of product innovations (～7%) are organic. Caution is advised when predicting trends based on this disproportionately small sample of organic products. This study demonstrates that there is little statistical difference, and even a net gain in predictive power, when using a balanced sample to test factors that influence a firm’s decision to market organic food. Marginal probabilities for the smaller, balanced sample are biased by a constant factor. Thus ex post adjustment is easy and recommended to enhance predictive power.     

Uncovering the role of cross-border strategic alliances and expertise decision centralization in enhancing product-service innovation in MMNEs

Research is needed on effective servitization by multinational enterprises. This study examines whether Manufacturing Multinational Enterprises (MMNEs) can obtain better servitization outcomes by partnering with Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms and or by internationalizing their service function. In addition, the paper analyses the centralization of management decisions of human resources as an organizational mechanism to overcome coordination failure between product and service units. Our primary research data contain survey responses from 285 MMNEs collected in cooperation with an industry partner. Results show that cross-border strategic alliances and expertise decision centralization are critical to enhance product-service innovation.     

Beyond Organizational Innovation Adoption – a Conceptual and Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this study is to conduct a conceptual and empirical analysis of the research on the organizational adoption of innovations. The empirical part consists of three cases. On the basis of the results, we could question and criticize the dominant single-choice operationalization of organizational adoption and argue for a more process-like approach.     

Organizational innovation,technological innovation,and export performance: The effects of innovation radicalness and extensiveness

This study focuses on the relevance of different types of innovation for firms’ export performance. Despite ample research on the innovation–performance relationship, previous studies have mainly focused on technological innovations, leaving the effects of organizational innovations relatively unexplored. Hypotheses on the relationship between organizational and technological innovations and firm export performance are tested by structural equation modelling using data from 218 Swedish export ventures. The results indicate that organizational innovation enhances export performance both directly and indirectly by sustaining technological innovation. Moreover, by fine-graining our analysis of the mediating role of technological innovation, according to its radicalness and extensiveness, for organizational innovation, we show how the latter enhances both the radicalness and extensiveness of technological innovation although, notably, only extensiveness is actually beneficial for export performance. This study helps alleviate the scarcity of research examining the links among different types of innovation in relation to export performance and contributes to international business and marketing literature by generating new evidence regarding the mechanisms through which organizational and technological innovations may improve export performance.     

Influences on Strategic Planning Processes among Irish SMEs*

In this study we argue that the approach to strategy formation reflects organizational and individual influences. The study, based on questionnaire responses from 359 firms, examines a number of organizational and individual factors influencing the type of strategy formation process adopted. The constructs of strategic posture, organization structure, management ownership, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) experience are measured. Three models predicting strategy formation approaches are explored. First, an organizational model emphasizing the impact of strategic posture and organization structure is analyzed. Second, a model is tested dealing with CEO and top management team characteristics reflecting the effects of agency costs and experience base. Finally, an integrative model combining both organizational and individual factors is evaluated. The results highlight the importance of organizational factors and show, for instance, that entrepreneurial firms tend to adopt more formal strategic planning approaches, while conservative firms adopt more incremental approaches. In addition, both management shareholding and CEO experience are negatively related to formal strategic planning activities.     

Innovation and the market share of private labels

Abstract

This study investigates national brand manufacturers' innovations, and analyses the relationship between innovation and the market share of private labels in the consumer packaged-goods industry. The data for this study come from two extensive databases that cover 142 product categories during 2004–2006. According to logistic regression methods adapted to the resource allocation context, manufacturers' innovation strategy has a negative impact of the market share of private labels in two specific market conditions. Managers therefore must design a strategy that aligns with the market conditions because an innovation strategy may be effective in some situations, whereas in others a different strategy or combination of strategies may be more appropriate.     

The Business Value of Health Management

For organizational development that is future-oriented, enterprises increasingly need qualified, motivated and efficient workers who are able and willing to contribute actively to technical and organizational innovations. Furthermore, customers and consumers are increasingly interested in healthy products and services. Therefore, health has become a (potential) business value of strategic importance. In interaction with all relevant stakeholders, an approach was developed for companies that want to manage their health impact in a proactive and preventive manner. The approach was termed Integral Health Management (IHM). IHM forms a strategic approach for reducing the costs of sickness absence and working disability, while the productivity and resilience of the company and its employees are increased. This brings the company direct economic benefits. Finally, it is of prime interest for employees to remain physically and mentally healthy and employable. The IHM approach distinguishes seven lines of development: (1) health as a strategic company interest; (2) the realization of a healthy primary process; (3) a safe and sound physical (work) environment; (4) an inspiring social (work) environment; (5) vital people; (6) a sound relationship with the immediate organizational environment and local community, and (7) healthy products and/or services. The inter-relationships between the seven development lines are essential for combining an improvement of the business impact on health with a strategic interest of companies and organizations. The seven lines of IHM development can easily be linked to the European Foundation for Quality Management's European Excellence Model.     

Service innovativeness in retailing: Increasing the relative attractiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 primarily spreads through close contact between humans and has affected retailing industries extremely hard. To manage the situation retailers have turned to service innovation to change their operations to make consumers feel safe while shopping. This research focuses on the role of service innovativeness in retailing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic through an empirical study of almost 6000 consumers of 28 retailing firms. The results suggested that retailers with high service innovativeness performed COVID-19 imposed innovations better to improve their relative attractiveness. For retailers with physical stores, changes to the servicescape and the offering were found to be the key antecedents of service innovativeness. The findings on COVID-19 imposed service innovations demonstrate the importance of service innovativeness in successfully changing retailing services to adjust to the restrictions from governments and safety needs of customers.     

Fortune at the bottom of the innovation pyramid: The strategic logic of incremental innovations

It is not uncommon to come across appeals in business literature exhorting managers to devote greater effort to the pursuit of radical innovations, or to see comments admonishing managers for devoting too much energy to the search for incremental innovations. Over the years, successful radical innovations have undisputedly had a significant impact on the fortunes of a number of companies. At the same time, firms cannot afford to overlook the role of incremental innovations in enhancing and sustaining the revenue and profit streams of successful radical innovations. From the standpoint of survival, growth, and profitability, both home runs, meaning radical innovations, and singles, meaning incremental innovations, matter. The fact that home runs are generally infrequent underscores the importance of frequent singles. This article explores the various competitive strategy contexts in which incremental innovations can be leveraged effectively against that backdrop.     

中国环境下的跨国企业市场与非市场战略、策略以及战术间的关系

许多管理者认为,在中国市场上非市场环境应该与市场环境受到同样的高度关注,跨国企业经营战略应该由市场(或竞争)部分和非市场两部分组成。因此,本文提出了一个市场与非市场战略、策略以及战术之间关系的概念性理论模型。该模型反映了跨国企业在中国市场上是如何进行贸易或投资选择、策略选择和制定实施战略的。