Towards an adaptive framework of low-end innovation capability – A systematic review and multiple case study analysis

Low-end innovations, defined as new products or services that expand a market by addressing consumers with a low willingness or ability to pay, have a dual purpose – they can be a prerequisite for firm survival and growth and a major driver of societal change. To overcome the scattered nature of existing low-end innovation research and its lack of an explicit capability conceptualization, which limits academia's ability to move extant knowledge about the domain forward and limits firms' abilities to reliably produce successful low-end innovations, we present the results of a systematic review of the literature (99 journal articles) and a multiple case study analysis (7 cases). The resulting framework helps understand what constitutes a low-end innovation capability. The findings show that firms need a specific and interdependent capability set consisting of internal dimensions (low-end culture and commitment, integrated cost-reducing innovation, high volume scaling), interface dimensions (distant customer needs acquisition, iteration, total solution development) and external dimensions (access creation, low-end support networking) to cope with low-end markets' unique characteristics. The study also identifies market- and firm-specific contingencies for each capability dimension and analyzes the relationship between low-end and “regular” innovation capability.     

From knowledge to decision – a case study of sales and operations planning in health care

One of the most important challenges in health care management is balancing resources with fluctuating and uncertain demand. This study examines whether introducing a standardised process for sales and operations planning at a large university hospital improved specialty department managers’ knowledge of planning conditions and if so, whether decisions were made based on this knowledge. Using responses from a survey of 30 specialty department managers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, the analyses indicate that operational knowledge strengthens insights about the needs for strategic decisions, and vice versa. Moreover, knowledge is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for making decisions at the department level. An overall planning and decision structure is required and should be implemented first at the hospital level to effectively allocate resources.     

External resource provision and the international performance of SMEs – A contextual analysis

This paper investigates whether different categories of links (core and discretionary) to external resource providers are associated with the international performance of SMEs, as well as the perceived importance of external links for providing specific forms of assistance toward internationalization. A study of 180 internationally active SMEs examines whether these features vary according to the SMEs' contexts, specifically their industry and level of home economy development. The relevance of these two contexts is theoretically informed by resource dependence, environmental munificence and institutional perspectives. SME decision-makers' attribution of importance to discretionary external links predicts stronger international performance, but this is not the case with core market transactional links. Different external parties emerge as important sources of specific forms of assistance toward internationalization. Many of these results are associated with the SME's industry and home economy context. The paper concludes with a new contextually-informed model of SME egocentric networking and implications for practice.     

Sensitisation of SMEs towards the implementation of Lean Six Sigma – an initialisation in a cylinder frames manufacturing Indian SME

This article suggests the adoption of a model on Lean Six Sigma for successfully implementing it in small and medium engineering enterprises (SMEs). This model is given the name Deficiency Overcoming Lean Anchorage Define Measure Analyse Improve Control Stabilise (DOLADMAICS). The DOLADMAICS model has been designed to lift up an SME through the implementation of Lean Six Sigma in five levels. The implementation study on first level of DOLADMAICS model conducted in an Indian SME, manufacturing a component called ‘cylinder frames’, has been reported in this article. After conducting this implementation study, it was found that the first level of DOLADMAICS model would act as a catalyst and guide for sensitising the management of SMEs to successfully implement Lean Six Sigma.     

Firm-level indicators of instrumental and political CSR processes – A multiple case study

Recent studies have been increasingly distinguishing between instrumental and political approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, few studies have explored the firm-level processes generating these types of CSR engagements. Using Basu and Palazzo’s (2008) proposition to model CSR as a process of sensemaking, we suggest that multinational enterprises use different processes in developing capabilities around instrumental and political CSR. Our qualitative multiple case–study analysis is based on data from 42 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 27 senior managers from British American Tobacco, Nestlé, and Hewlett Packard. Our findings from the three cases indicate that instrumental and political CSR are characterised by different sensemaking processes. We also find evidence for overlapping of processes between instrumental and political CSR.     

Lean and green in the transport and logistics sector – a case study of simultaneous deployment

The transport and logistics sector is of vital importance for the stimulation of trade and hence the economic development of nations. However, over the last few years, this sector has taken central stage in the green agenda due to the negative environmental effects derived from its operations. Several disciplines including operations research and sub-areas of supply chain management such as green supply chains, green logistics and reverse logistics have tried to address this problem. However, despite the work undertaken through these disciplines, theoretical or empirical research into the sequential or simultaneous deployment of the lean and green paradigms, particularly, in the road transport and logistics sector is limited. This paper presents a case study where both paradigms have been combined to improve the transport operations of a world leader logistics organisation in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico. To do this, a systematic methodology and a novel tool called Sustainable Transportation Value Stream Map (STVSM) were proposed. The results obtained from the case study indicate that the concurrent deployment of the green and lean paradigms through such methodology and the STVSM tool is an effective approach to improve both operational efficiency and environmental performance of road transport operations. The paper can be used as a guiding reference for transport and logistics organisations to undertake improvement projects similar to the one presented in this paper. Additionally, this research also intends to stimulate scholarly research into the application of lean and green paradigms in the transport and logistics sector to expand the limited research pursued in this area.     

A multiple buyer – supplier relationship in the context of SMEs’ digital supply chain management*

Abstract

By underlining the relevance of the use of ICTs, knowledge sharing and electronic markets for SMEs, it emerges the need for stimulating a debate on digitisation process of supply chain management (SCM). Electronic infrastructure in the service sector are reducing each kind of cost and improving multiply buyer–supplier relationships, facilitating negotiations and transactions. However, since the coordination costs are still high, the use of ICTs is limited. This phenomenon thus attracts the interests of scholars and practitioners. Although it still needs to further investigate. Especially, the optimal use of ICTs within SMEs’ SCM have not been studied yet. Therefore, by leveraging on four proxies: ICTs specialised human resources, knowledge sharing activities, buyer–supplier relationships, adoption of electronic markets this optimal was analysed via structural equation modelling based on a sample of 1254 SMEs operating in the service sector in Italy.     

The moderating effects of corporate and national factors on lean projects barriers: a cross‐national study

Abstract

Despite companies’ efforts to develop lean thinking in their industrial context, the implementation of many lean projects has not been consistently successful, often resulting in delay, failure, abandonment or rejection. Whereas some authors emphasised that company characteristics, like the product demand profile, are significant factors in lean projects, other studies analysed the impact of national culture. This paper aims to study the combined effect of various factors related to national culture and company characteristics of lean implementation barriers in order to determine whether the environmental context in which the company operation can affect the outcome of lean project implementation. A survey has been conducted to collect information about companies of various sizes (small–medium–large) in all industry fields. Data from companies, including manufacturing firms, in 23 different countries, were analysed in depth by a combination of Association Rules and Network Analysis. The results show that some national culture dimensions, such as Performance Orientation and Gender Egalitarianism, influence lean management success and help to maintain a lean culture. Maintaining a lean culture is even more critical than developing it. Furthermore, if the implementation of lean practices is an arduous task for large organisations, it becomes even greater for SMEs. Other cultural factors of individuals such as Uncertainty Avoidance, Future Orientation and Institutional Collectivism also help to support a lean culture and overcome human and cultural barriers.     

Integration of IPA and QFD to assess the service quality and to identify after sales service strategies to improve customer satisfaction – a case study

Customer satisfaction is considered very essential nowadays as it shows how firms are dedicated to afford quality products or services to their customers. Retaining the existing customer and acquiring the new customers are the basic objectives of any organisation and after sales service (ASS) has acquired a strategic role as a mean to achieve customer satisfaction. Importance–performance analysis (IPA) and quality function deployment (QFD) are the powerful tools successfully applied in many fields. However, studies on application of these tools in investigating the ASS quality and customer satisfaction seems to be scarce. This article investigates linking of IPA, which is a simple and effective customer satisfaction tool and QFD in the improvement of ASS attributes in an effort to determine the appropriate ASS strategic action plans to be adopted with the objective of enhancing customer satisfaction. In this study, a customer-driven model is proposed to examine the importance of the various ASS attributes and the performance of the organisation via questionnaire survey, and through the IP analysis, the areas to be focused are identified to help the decision makers in devising suitable policies, to improve the ASS performance. This is achieved through the employment of QFD that will help decision makers in the strategic planning to attain better customer satisfaction. A case study is carried out to exhibit the effectiveness of the developed model in a firm involved in manufacturing the home appliances.     

A pro-active and collaborative approach to reverse logistics—a case study

Reverse logistics is considered to be the key for re-manufacturing and sustainable development. It has gained increasing attention in the last decade and has been a new frontier of strategic management. One of the driving forces for firms to adopt the reverse logistics practice is cost saving from reverse logistics activities. Another motivation to put reverse logistics forward is probably due to environmental impacts on non-returnable materials. Reverse logistics, however, may require cooperation of more than one company and hence it is generally poorly managed due to self-interest of different companies. Therefore, a pro-active and collaborative approach to reverse logistics is demanded. This paper reports a case study of using returnable packaging materials between a manufacturer and an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) supplier. A cross-company team was established to pursue the goal of the reverse logistics project. Tangible and intangible benefits of reverse logistics from this case study are presented in this paper.     

How to reconsider risk management in SMEs? An Advanced,Reasoned and Organised Literature Review

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to reconsider the fundamental role of risk management (RM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by identifying and critically analysing the most important international works; and to define opportunities for further studies by suggesting a different approach to study the topic. This research is based on a new hybrid method developed by the authors, called Advanced, Reasoned and Organised (ARO) literature review, which improves the quality of literature reviews by integrating the systematic review for quantitative papers, the meta-synthesis for qualitative research and the critical interpretative analysis. Forty-eight articles were included in the literature review. Bibliometric and cluster analyses were carried out. Two hypotheses were applied as filters in the interpretative synthesis of the content and guided the analysis to answer two research questions. The findings underline that RM in SMEs is still a ‘spot’ subject as they put little effort into the risk identification, assessment and monitoring. The lack of procedures and strategies is due to the lack of risk mindfulness and knowledge, and it is related to the managers’ and owners’ risk attitudes. It is fundamental to understand why risk procedures are not implemented and to find a way to raise awareness of the potential benefits of risk and control measures. The topic is current, and the multidisciplinary perspective and mixed-method approach enhance both theoretical and practical contributions for academics and SME owners.     

Quality Function Deployment and operational design decisions – a healthcare infrastructure development case study

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how QFD can enhance a healthcare organisation’s strategic operational alignment, by synchronising the infrastructure design with the service intention. In this empirical paper, a case study of a £15 million infrastructure development has been used as the unique context to assess and test the experimental findings. QFD was utilised in order to capture and transform the requirements of decision-makers, providers, patients and local communities into both service and building design for Project K, a healthcare infrastructure, in the U.K. Two full iterations of the QFD results are presented. Using QFD generated effectiveness and efficiency by creating an information exchange platform and providing the stakeholders with a framework to optimise the decision-making. This paper makes a practical contribution by empirically testing the QFD modelling and providing evidence of its implementation within the complex, dynamic and evolving nature of the healthcare built environment sector.     

Organizational structure and success of international joint ventures in emerging economies: the case of Spanish–Moroccan SMEs

One of the most common ways in which SMEs internationalize their business is through the creation of joint ventures; nevertheless, many of these fail. To avoid this risk, it is important to identify the factors that favour the continuity of such enterprises. The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors related to organizational structure that determine the success of international joint ventures between SMEs in emerging economies, taking as the particular area of study the question of joint ventures between Spanish and Moroccan firms, located in Morocco. The research hypotheses were tested using a linear regression model applied to a sample of 210 international joint ventures. The results obtained from a structured survey show that, with respect to the success of the partnership, significant factors include the existence of majority ownership by the foreign partner, management by a local CEO and the effort made by each party to adapt to the management style of the other. This research contributes to the knowledge of the main factors related to the organizational structure of joint ventures that influence the level of success achieved. The value provided by this research lies in the breadth of the sample examined, in its focus on a very common type of partnership between SMEs, on which very little has been previously studied, and in the fact that the results obtained are extensible to other realities, such as partnerships between European companies and those from countries with similar characteristics (located in Africa or in countries where an Arab culture prevails).     

Looming threats to the intimate bond in hospice care? Economic and organizational pressures in the case study of a hospice

Hospice organizations are assailed by stiff competition, ever-rising costs, limited funding, and policy changes. Do such pressures stifle the high quality of care these organizations strive to provide? As a case-in-point, we draw from the mid-1990s accounts of caregivers at a nonprofit hospice in a Midwestern city in the United States. We maintain that economic pressures drive organizational restructuring, which then weakens working conditions and, thereby, weakens the staff-client relationship. We discuss effects upon worker behaviors, the worker-client relationship, and client care. This ethnographic case study signals the need to closely examine the threats that current economic and organizational pressures in the United States may pose to the quality of hospice care.     

How to support the application of multiple criteria decision analysis? Let us start with a comprehensive taxonomy

Decision making is a complex task that involves a multitude of perspectives, constraints, and variables. Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a process that has been used for several decades to support decision making. It includes a series of steps that systematically help Decision Maker(s) (DM(s)) and stakeholders in structuring a decision making problem, identifying their preferences, and building a decision recommendation consistent with those preferences. Over the last decades, many studies have demonstrated the conduct of the MCDA process and how to select an MCDA method. Until now, there has not been a review of these studies, nor a proposal of a unified and comprehensive high-level representation of the MCDA process characteristics (i.e., features), which is the goal of this paper. We introduce a review of the research that defines how to conduct the MCDA process, compares MCDA methods, and presents Decision Support Systems (DSSs) to recommend a relevant MCDA method or a subset of methods. We then synthesize this research into a taxonomy of characteristics of the MCDA process, grouped into three main phases, (i) problem formulation, (ii) construction of the decision recommendation, and (iii) qualitative features and technical support. Each of these phases includes a subset of the 10 characteristics that helps the analyst implementing the MCDA process, while also being aware of the implication of these choices at each step. By showing how decision making can be split into manageable and justifiable steps, we reduce the risk of overwhelming the analyst, as well as the DMs/stakeholders during the MCDA process. A questioning strategy is also proposed to demonstrate how to apply the taxonomy to map MCDA methods and select the most relevant one(s) using real case studies. Additionally, we show how the DSSs for MCDA method recommendation can be grouped into three main clusters. This proposal can enhance a traceable and categorizable development of such systems.     

Districting for parcel delivery services – A two-Stage solution approach and a real-World case study

This paper studies a real-world problem arising in the context of parcel delivery. Given a heterogeneous set of resources, i.e., different drivers and different vehicles, the problem for each day consists of assigning a driver and a vehicle to each customer requiring service. Two conflicting aspects must be taken into account. On the one hand, service consistency is desirable, meaning that a customer should always be served by the same driver. On the other hand, daily demand fluctuations and tight resource constraints prohibit fixed resource assignments. With the aim of finding a reasonable compromise between these aspects, we propose a novel two-stage districting approach, which establishes delivery districts in the first stage and adapts them to the daily demand realizations in the second stage. For the first stage problem we propose three models that differ in the level of detail of their input data, their expected compliance with service consistency and the driver’s contractual working times, and their computational effort. Our two-stage approach merges the two dominant approaches in the literature, which either determine a priori routes and then adapt them on a daily basis, or derive fixed service regions for drivers. We present a case study based on a real-world data set. The results highlight the differences between the three first stage models and show that only few adaptations of the districts are necessary in the second stage to achieve feasible daily delivery tours along with a very good workload balance for drivers. We also analyze the effects of a homogeneous vs a heterogeneous fleet, of full time drivers vs full and part time drivers, and of the location of the depot and the length of the planning horizon.     

Green and lean: a Gemba–Kaizen model for sustainability enhancement

Abstract

Despite the encouraging results obtained from the application of Green Lean, organizations have found the integration of Green and Lean, and their implementation as an integrated approach, challenging. This paper therefore presents a model for integrating Lean and Green based on the Gemba-Kaizen approach. The proposed model was developed on the basis of a through literature review on Gemba and Kaizen, conducted on peer reviewed journal articles and pragmatic books, and the more than 40 years of accumulated experience of the authors as academics, researchers, industrialists and consultants. The model was validated through two cases study in the aerospace and automotive industries. The results showed that the proposed model helped the case organizations to reduce the consumption of resources and improve their environmental performance. The proposed model can be the basis for further research on Lean and Green, contributing to help organizations to improve their sustainability performance.     

The how and why of a firm’s approach to CSR and sustainability: a case study of a large European company

This paper aims to analyse “how” and “why” a company engages in CSR and sustainability. The “how” concerns the features of the firm’s CSR and sustainability approach, defined in terms of a firm’s strategy (implemented issues, initiatives and activities) and organization (organizational structures and roles and managerial systems adopted). The “why” refers to the key determinants, both internal and external, of CSR and sustainability. Finally, how the firm’s CSR and sustainability approach evolves over time and the relation between CSR determinants in various stages of the CSR evolutionary path are also investigated. The research method is based on the longitudinal analysis of a case study concerning a large multinational company operating in the telecommunications industry in Europe. The analysis of the case study shows that sub-cultural differences in the approach to CSR and sustainability may occur across hierarchical levels and functional units. Moreover, embedding CSR and sustainability principles doesn’t follow a linear and continuous process, made by sequential stages. Indeed, it can be characterized by an up and down evolutionary path, based on different stages with a changing emphasis given to CSR and sustainability issues. Finally, we find that the firm CSR and sustainability approach is not an autonomous choice, but it is a consequence of the contingent role played by both the external and the internal drivers and by their relative importance during the company’s CSR history.     

From strangers to social collectives? Sensemaking and organizing in response to a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily exposed the inadequacy of established institutions and markets to handle a multidimensional crisis, but it also revealed the spontaneous emergence of social collectives to mitigate some of its consequences. Building upon more than 600 responses from an open-ended survey and follow-up qualitative interviews, we seek to understand the spontaneous formation of social collectives in neighborhoods during the initial global lockdown. Applying the sensemaking lens, we theorize the process that prevented the collapse of sensemaking; motivated neighbors to comply with the pandemic-related restrictions; and inspired the development of collective initiatives and the sharing of resources, experiences, and a feeling of belonging. In doing so, we identify mechanisms that allow distributed sensemaking and organizing for resilience: widely shared and accepted cues and frames, simultaneous enactment of practices, embeddedness, visibility of actions, and sense of community. Contrary to the literature on local community organizing and entrepreneurship, which emphasizes the importance of shared values and beliefs, we reveal how the abovementioned mechanisms enable social collectives to emerge and build resilience in times of crisis, even in the absence of pre-existing ties and physical and social isolation. Implications for sensemaking, resilience, organization studies, and community psychology are discussed.     

A pawn in someone else's game?: The cognitive,motivational, and paradigmatic barriers to women's excelling in negotiation

Women's relatively worse performance in negotiation is often cited as an explanation for gender differences in advancement and pay within organizations. We review key findings from the past twenty years of research on gender differences in negotiation. Women do underperform relative to men in negotiation, but only under limited circumstances, which means the performance gap is unlikely due to lesser skills on their part. The barriers between women and negotiation excellence are of three types: cognitive, motivational, and paradigmatic. Cognitive barriers stem from negative stereotypes about women's negotiating abilities. Motivational barriers stem from desire to prevent women negotiators from excelling in a masculine domain. Paradigmatic barriers stem from how negotiation is currently studied. We call for greater attention to motivational barriers and for changes to the negotiation paradigm. Women negotiators are not incompetent, and training them to negotiate more like men is not obviously the solution. In fact, women have greater concern for others than men do, and their cooperativeness elevates collective intelligence and enables ethical behavior. Under a new paradigm of negotiation, the value of these strengths could become more readily apparent. In particular, we advocate for greater attention to long-term relationships, subjective value, and relational capital, all of which may have important economic implications in real world negotiations.