Crafting business models for conflicting goals: Lessons from creative service firms

The business model construct has become attractive to both managers and academics. It reflects how the most important organization's strategic and tactical choices regarding the allocation of resources interact in order to create and capture value. Yet with the growing entrepreneurial complexity, managers often end up pursuing conflicting and even paradoxical strategic goals, thus rendering the business modelling processes more complex, too. Well-known examples are profit versus social value, stakeholder versus company interests, exploration versus exploitation and environmental sustainability versus economic returns. The academic business model literature so far has provided limited insights on how to implement business models beyond a single goal and focused mainly on the initial strategic choice of a business model, ignoring that such salient tensions are often persistent and resurface within the business practice. In this study we leverage paradox theory to investigate how managers of creative firms make tactical choices to accommodate (not solve) salient tensions within their business models, focusing on the domains like services provided, choice of clients, networking and resourcing practices, revenue models and new venture creation. Based on qualitative case study research, we found four integrating and three differentiating decision-making tactics that managers deploy to create both economic and creative value through their business models. Adding to the business model theory, we show how business models are crafted in managerial practices by making tactical decisions to solve conflicts and paradoxes. The results equally enrich the paradox literature by providing for tactical-level approaches toward working through the paradox.     

人力资源管理对战略“之字形”演进的促进机制研究

针对复杂动荡环境下,企业陷入“战略漂移”的困境,首先,从战略内在逻辑和形态的划分入手,通过对有意图战略和涌现战略各自局限性的分析,剖析了“战略漂移”的成因.然后,鉴于外部客观环境变化的不可预测性,在对影响“战略漂移”的组织内部主观因素展开研究的基础上,依据组织演进的复杂性适应观,将有意图战略和涌现战略有机整合,构建了战略的“之字形”演进模式.最后,根据战略的“之字形”演进模式与企业组织及个人的认知特性紧密相关的特点,指出人力资源管理如何通过对组织文化建设和组织学习施加影响,从而促进战略的“之字形”演进.     

Umbrella for research into Human Resource Development (HRD)

This paper explores Thailand's ‘sufficiency economy’ (SE) philosophy and its impact on human resource development (HRD). The paper highlights the current attempts to achieve sustainable development, especially after the economic crisis of 1997. The philosophy introduces a great shift of conceptual thinking on the general development and administration in the country. This paper examines the importance of the SE philosophy and discusses its impact on HRD in Thailand at different levels of the society.     

Implementing workforce development in health care: A conceptual framework to guide and evaluate health service reform

Abstract

The term ‘workforce development’ is increasingly popular in the health-care field. It appears to encompass a range of human and organizational development activity. However, there has been limited explication of the concept of workforce development in Australian health care at area health service levels. It is timely to develop a framework for workforce development and processes to guide any evaluation of the implementation of workforce development strategies. This paper presents a framework that has been developed through consultative processes in an area health service and an associated review of literature.     

Human capital theory: implications for human resource development

This article reviews definitions of 'Human Capital Theory' by leading economists and HRD scholars. The origin of the term 'capital' is explained, and the link between Human Capital Theory and HRD is discussed. It is argued in the article that HRD scholars and practitioners should explore further the link between human capital, HRD and development at individual, organizational, community and international levels.     

Planning training programmes to support business initiatives: a model for business and training partnership

The ‘Model for Business and Training Partnership’ (MBTP) draws upon insights of HRD and adult education programme-planning scholars, integrating training and development processes with a typical business-planning model. It is a practical, client-focused programme-planning model designed to promote strategic alliances between the HRD practitioner and business manager at all levels and development phases. The model may be utilized on a cross-functional group project for implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) system or other large system change initiative within a large organization. This model has not been tested empirically.     

纵向式职业生涯发展与发展性胜任力--基于企业人力资源管理人员的实证研究

麦克利兰提出了"胜任力"的概念,斯宾塞等人将胜任力划分为基准性胜任力与鉴别性胜任力.本文在此基础上,提出新概念-发展性胜任力,并以企业人力资源管理人员为例,通过电话访谈和问卷调查的方式,揭示了决定其纵向式职业生涯发展的发展性胜任力.     

Planners' Perspectives on Obstacles to Sustainable Urban Development: Implications for Transformative Planning Strategies

A major problem confronting planning is the gap between transformative proposals and enduring urban development trends. The paper interprets interviews with 62 planners involved in a sustainable urban development strategy in a large region focussed on Toronto, Canada. Surveyed planners were asked about the obstacles they encounter when attempting to modify prevailing urban development. Mentioned obstacles are consistent with expectations arising from three major perspectives on inertia: institutionalism, political economy and path dependence. Interviews also highlight the role of planners' practical knowledge in identifying and interpreting obstacles, and the existence of a consensus among respondents over sustainable urban development.     

Management of Energy Technology for Sustainability: How to Fund Energy Technology Research and Development

Operations management methods have been applied profitably to a wide range of technology portfolio management problems, but have been slow to be adopted by governments and policy makers. We develop a framework that allows us to apply such techniques to a large and important public policy problem: energy technology R&D portfolio management under climate change. We apply a multi‐model approach, implementing probabilistic data derived from expert elicitations into a novel stochastic programming version of a dynamic integrated assessment model. We note that while the unifying framework we present can be applied to a range of models and data sets, the specific results depend on the data and assumptions used and therefore may not be generalizable. Nevertheless, the results are suggestive, and we find that the optimal technology portfolio for the set of projects considered is fairly robust to different specifications of climate uncertainty, to different policy environments, and to assumptions about the opportunity cost of investing. We also conclude that policy makers would do better to over‐invest in R&D rather than under‐invest. Finally, we show that R&D can play different roles in different types of policy environments, sometimes leading primarily to cost reduction, other times leading to better environmental outcomes.     

How Business Interests and Government Inaction Led to the Humidifier Disinfectant Disaster in South Korea: Implications for Better Risk Governance

Humidifier sterilizers were regarded as innovative and health-promoting products; they were widespread in South Korea until 2011. However, hospitals reported mysterious deaths, and a legal investigation in April 2016 found that hundreds of people have died due to use of the sterilizing disinfectant. This article takes up that topic, discussing the government's role in dealing with the risk regarding the humidifier disinfectant. We pay particular attention to the unequal nature of the uncertainty produced by the distorted socioeconomic structure. Through in-depth interviews with key informants and an examination of relevant documents from the government, civic groups, and newspapers, we find that the government had increasingly acknowledged the risk, yet their inaction failed to stop the high number of casualties, and they have only recently responded proactively. The uncertainty of the risk was unevenly distributed between companies, the government, experts, and citizens. We argue that the proactive and transparent role of the government with the precautionary principle could fix the unequal structure of knowledge production and preserve public health.     

Business Characteristics of Male and Female Small and Medium Enterprises in the UK: Implications for Gender-based Entrepreneurialism and Business Competence Development

The aim of this paper is to identify differences, if any, between the characteristics of male and female businesses and to establish whether female businesses do constitute a distinct entrepreneurial group. The paper presents the results of an ongoing study based on a national survey of nearly 6000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. Given that existing research tends to focus, in the main, on the pre-start up and start-up differences, this study aims to identify gender-based differences between male and female owned/managed businesses in their post-formation stage. A gender-based business competence development model is developed and a case is made for what is termed 'gender-based entrepreneurialism'. It is argued given that established male and female businesses exhibit different characteristics, gender-based entrepreneurialism should be acknowledged and considered by policy makers within the SME sector. Female owned/managed businesses may require differentiated policies beyond the pre-start up and start-up stages for developing business competencies and to nurture their growth and development.     

企业战略变革的定义比较、测量述评及量表开发——兼对笔者原战略变革定义的修正与操作化

基于对战略变革主要定义的归类比较以及对战略变革测量现状的系统考察,以对战略变革作出新的定义并提出相应的概念模型,吸纳部分以往战略变革定义种差和测量工具项目,尝试性地开发了包括定位差异与观念差异2个维度和20个项目的战略变革测量量表,以中国企业样本检验,具有较好的信度与效度。     

Development of a Screening Approach to Interpret Human Biomonitoring Data on Volatile Organic Compounds: Reverse Dosimetry on Biomonitoring Data for Trichloroethylene

A screening approach is developed for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to estimate exposures that correspond to levels measured in fluids and/or tissues in human biomonitoring studies. The approach makes use of a generic physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model coupled with exposure pattern characterization, Monte Carlo analysis, and quantitative structure property relationships (QSPRs). QSPRs are used for VOCs with minimal data to develop chemical-specific parameters needed for the PBPK model. The PBPK model is capable of simulating VOC kinetics following multiple routes of exposure, such as oral exposure via water ingestion and inhalation exposure during shower events. Using published human biomonitoring data of trichloroethylene (TCE), the generic model is evaluated to determine how well it estimates TCE concentrations in blood based on the known drinking water concentrations. In addition, Monte Carlo analysis is conducted to characterize the impact of the following factors: (1) uncertainties in the QSPR-estimated chemical-specific parameters; (2) variability in physiological parameters; and (3) variability in exposure patterns. The results indicate that uncertainty in chemical-specific parameters makes only a minor contribution to the overall variability and uncertainty in the predicted TCE concentrations in blood. The model is used in a reverse dosimetry approach to derive estimates of TCE concentrations in drinking water based on given measurements of TCE in blood, for comparison to the U.S. EPA's Maximum Contaminant Level in drinking water. This example demonstrates how a reverse dosimetry approach can be used to facilitate interpretation of human biomonitoring data in a health risk context by deriving external exposures that are consistent with a biomonitoring data set, thereby permitting comparison with health-based exposure guidelines.