Resources prospectively: How actors mobilize resources in business settings

Actors work with resources in putting their business plans into practice, some of which are close-at-hand and some at arm's length to that business. Furthermore, actors can transform and translate resources in more or less complex ways in bringing them into the realm of a business activity, for instance through a single transactional market exchange or a series of social exchanges, the economic dimensions of which are very much in the background. The IMP group's framings of resources in the Actors, Resources and Activities (ARA) approach and in the Resource Interaction approach form this paper's conceptual focus. The paper examines three cases of actors mobilizing resources and emphasizes: (1) The prospective or future-oriented quality of resources, in connection with actors' business plans and activities; (2) The distinct rules, customs and practices in settings that individuals recognize to be more or less economic and more or less social; and (3) The roles and identities of individuals alongside their business units.     

Antecedents and consequences of social capital on buyer performance improvement

The ability to leverage social capital within strategic buyer–supplier relationships is increasingly cited as a key driver of value creation. Despite the importance of strategic partnerships, the process by which social capital accumulates within buyer–supplier relationships and contributes to buyer performance improvements is not well understood. Drawing on social capital theory, we develop a model linking positive relational capital, and its antecedents, supplier integration and supplier closeness, to buyer performance improvements. Further, we hypothesize that structural capital, as reflected in managerial communication and technical exchanges, is also positively related to buyer performance improvements. Using data provided by 111 procurement executives from the United Kingdom, we find support for our hypotheses. The study extends the supply chain management and social capital literature and suggests important implications for both research and practice.     

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Die Autoren zeigen im Detail, wie sich das Zusammenspiel von Methodik, Daten und Technologie in einer SAP-Systemumgebung umsetzen lässt, damit Unternehmen die richtigen Vorhersagen treffen können. Sie geben dabei einen Einstieg in die Anwendung von SAP Predictive Analytics und gehen dabei auf die verschiedenen Ansätze ein, die das Tool bietet. Die beiden Modi ?Automated Analytics“ und ?Expert Analytics“ werden praxisnah erläutert.

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Max Kuhn, Kjell Johnson Applied Predictive Modeling SpringerNew York 2013, 600 Seiten, 74,99 EuroISBN 978-1-4614-6848-6

     

Managerial Collective Cognitions: An Examination of Similarities and Differences of Cultural Orientations

abstract    Using the context of market orientation, we examine how an exemplary business's market orientation culture is reflected in managers' mental models, evaluate how mental models and perceived behaviours differ across hierarchical levels and functions, and compare the cognitive values and beliefs or the cognitive aspects of market orientation culture with behavioural aspects. Results from a rich, multi-method, case study suggest that while managers in the business share core beliefs regarding the customer dimension of market orientation, their beliefs regarding competitors, technology and inter-functional coordination dimensions vary widely across the levels and functions of the business. We found differences in terms of both the integration between the four dimensions of market orientation and the depth of knowledge within the dimensions. Our findings reveal that customer rather than competitor beliefs are the most important commonly shared beliefs in successful companies, leading us to encourage cognitive researchers to move beyond competitor analysis when examining managerial cognition. Another implication for future research is that a strong market orientation implies common core beliefs regarding customer dimensions but does not imply that all beliefs will be or should be shared. From the methodological standpoint, we find that cognitive mapping techniques provide rich insights into a business's market orientation culture that are not gained from behavioural methods alone.