Knowledge management for sustainability in operations

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of Knowledge Management (KM) as a platform to enable sustainability in firms’ operations and to provide recommendations for managers to integrate sustainable operations into their business strategies. The urgency to create and implement sustainable operations is also argued. The conceptual framework is based on the hypothesis that KM contributes to the achievement of more suitable operations. To test this hypothesis, a model of structural equations was developed with data collected from 345 SMEs. Empirical evidence supported the hypothesis, indicating that KM represents an important alternative to implementing sustainability. The results suggest that managers need to implent KM, as they will enable a better understanding and awareness regarding the global dangerous impacts from unsustainable operations mainly focused on sales and cost reduction. For this reason, this research provides evidence that KM offers an alternative impulse on the quest for more sustainable operations.     

Coordinating business strategy and technical planning

Business managers face the decisions discussed in this article regularly. Without a systematic framework, the business context for these decisions is more difficult to establish and to communicate in a company. Where technology is the life-blood of the company, the strategic decision-makers can ill-afford to have the technological resources allocated in a suboptimal fashion. Nor can they afford a business strategy which does not recognize the implications of their technological assets. This article describes an approach to technological strategy formulation that has successfully achieved this.     

A control engineering framework for planning

Control Engineering provides a convenient framework for analyzing and understanding the essential features of business planning and control processes. This is because the basic idea of a control hierarchy is fundamental both to Control Engineering and to the control of a business. Control hierarchies in both business and in engineering are information-processing devices. As a business grows in size and complexity, its control hierarchies grow correspondingly more complex (‘The Principle of Hierarchization’); this is in order to manage the increased information-processing load.The authors describe how the basic control diagram can provide valuable insight into the planning and control hierarchies of business systems. The authors emphasize that the ‘Control Engineering’ method of analyzing the management process complements exisiting theories of management planning and control.     

Systems thinking and business process redesign: An application to the beer game

Managers are regrettably ignorant of the fact that their business organisations are ‘designable’. But recently, concepts such as business re-engineering and systems thinking, coupled with advances in methods of quantifying business systems, have enabled managers to scrutinise their business systems afresh.Ann van Ackere, Erik Reimer Larsen and John Morecroft use a well-known logistical system — the ‘beer game’ — to illustrate these re-engineering concepts and tools in a multi-stage production and distribution system involving a single brand of beer. This business game raises the fundamental question of why it is so difficult to match shipments and factory production to consumer demand.The authors conclude that such re-design concepts and tools can be applied successfully to full-scale business problems. Systems thinking, modelling and continuous time simulation can provide the framework for carrying the design process from mapping all the way through to redesign. The most effective CEOs of the future will be those who are competent to create corporate design in which employees are allowed to succeed.     

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.     

商业模式创新的机理分析:一个系统思考框架

在文献研究的基础上,构建起一个商业模式创新机理的二维分析框架,认为商业模式创新包括企业战略分析、创新要素利用、收入模式设计三大模块。基于该判断,采用多案例研究方法分析了4种企业商业模式的创新实践。基于系统思考的研究表明,投资模式是保证企业商业模式持续创新的重要因素,是连接收入模式与企业战略、创新要素的重要纽带;内化于创新活动之间的因果联结机制是商业模式创新的内在机理,初始创新活动则是商业模式创新的触发动因。     

Systems innovation manager

Each year organizations spend a significant amount of money developing new products and processes in an effort to satisfy customer demands and manufacture high-quality products efficiently. Both development processes - product and process, are complex, resource intensive and thrive on innovation. They demand a variety of skills and resources, but in particular, participation among all staff in generating ideas, managing projects and implementing change. There are currently a number of software tools and methods that facilitate change in a systems environment. These range from complex modelling tools to information management tools. The tools have been developed around paradigms, e.g. world class manufacturing, total quality management and business process reengineering. They are often complex, requiring the efforts of skilled designers and managers. Current thinking within a systems environment reflects a more participative and less specialist approach to managing innovation and change. There is a need to create compromise between detailed project engineering and good management practice. This paper introduces a new paradigm centred on good management practice, and identifies the critical issues in systems innovation and change. The paradigm is articulated through a series of change levers and a methodology that guides managers and designers. It is supported by a series of software tools that together bring innovation management to life within the industrial organization.     

Conflict of values— the central strategy problem

There is growing evidence that the central strategy question for business is no longer ‘what business are you in?’ but‘why are you in business?’ The traditional answers to this question—‘to make profits’, ‘to grow’ and ‘to give an adequate return to the shareholder’, are all being questioned. In their place others are being suggested—‘to provide satisfying jobs’, ‘to help solve social problems’, ‘to assist in urban and regional development’.In this article, Bernard Taylor suggests that the conflict between business goals and social goals has become the central strategy problem. Business enterprises like other organizations tend to develop their own distinctive sub-cultures with their own value systems which may differ markedly from the values accepted in society generally. The more effective the selection, training and reward systems, the more these business values will be reinforced.But this can lead to difficulties when society begins to reject business values in favour of other social goals; particularly at a time when the power and autonomy of management is being challenged and Corporate Planning is being transformed from an internal dialogue between managers at headquarters and managers in divisions into an open debate involving public servants, employees and self-appointed representatives of community interests.     

Decision‐Making Analytics Using Plural Resilience Parameters for Adaptive Management of Complex Systems

It is critical for complex systems to effectively recover, adapt, and reorganize after system disruptions. Common approaches for evaluating system resilience typically study single measures of performance at one time, such as with a single resilience curve. However, multiple measures of performance are needed for complex systems that involve many components, functions, and noncommensurate valuations of performance. Hence, this article presents a framework for: (1) modeling resilience for complex systems with competing measures of performance, and (2) modeling decision making for investing in these systems using multiple stakeholder perspectives and multicriteria decision analysis. This resilience framework, which is described and demonstrated in this article via a real‐world case study, will be of interest to managers of complex systems, such as supply chains and large‐scale infrastructure networks.     

An Integrated Approach for Modeling Sustainability Risks in Freight Transportation Systems

Integrating sustainability into freight transportation systems (FTSs) is a complex and challenging task due to the sheer number of inherent sustainability risks. Sustainability risks disrupt the economic, social and environmental objectives of freight operations and act as impediments in the development of sustainable freight transportation systems. The area of sustainability risk management is still unexplored and immature in the operational research domain. This study addresses these research gaps and contributes in a threefold manner. First, a total of 36 potential sustainability risks related to FTSs are identified and uniquely classified into seven categories using a rigourous approach. Second, the research proposes two prominent perspectives, namely, ontological and epistemological perspectives to understand risks and develops a novel framework for managing sustainability risks in FTSs. Third, a novel approach by integrating fuzzy evidential reasoning algorithm (FERA) with expected utility theory is developed to quantitatively model and profile sustainability risk for different risk preferences, namely, risk-averse, risk-neutral, and risk-taking scenarios. The proposed FERA is a flexible and robust approach, which transforms the experts’ inputs into belief structures and aggregates them using the evidence combination rule proposed in Dempster–Shafer theory to overcome the problem of imprecise results caused by average scoring in existing models. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed model. Unlike conventional perception, our study suggests that most of the high priority sustainability risks are behaviorally and socially induced rather than financially driven. The results provide significant managerial implications including a focus on skills development, and on social and behavioral dimensions while managing risks in FTSs.     

Dealing with Ethical Dilemmas in Organizational Change Processes

Several theories exist on how managers think aboutethical responsibilities in a business environment.Some stress the economic way of thinking and explainwhy there is no space for moral reasoning in abusiness environment. Others claim that in a businessenvironment also moral considerations can play animportant role. In this article, we will explore theway managers have actually dealt with potentialdilemmas in organizational change processes,especially changes with drastic consequences foremployees. Do managers consider moral arguments? Dothey feel a moral responsibility towards theiremployees? And in what way do they include a moralresponsibility in the decision process and itsoutcomes? These questions were investigated throughcase studies in two organisations and interviews withsix managers in other companies. The framework whichis used in the research will be described and the mainresults of the field-research will be presented. Wedid find that managers actually strived to some extentfor fair and morally responsible solutions in dilemmasituations, but in another way then we expectedbeforehand. Managers did not base their acting onmoral arguments. Instead they used a more pragmaticapproach wherein acting in a morally responsible wayis based on strategic arguments, such as the positiveeffects for the organisation in the long run.     

Tiered Approach to Resilience Assessment

Regulatory agencies have long adopted a three‐tier framework for risk assessment. We build on this structure to propose a tiered approach for resilience assessment that can be integrated into the existing regulatory processes. Comprehensive approaches to assessing resilience at appropriate and operational scales, reconciling analytical complexity as needed with stakeholder needs and resources available, and ultimately creating actionable recommendations to enhance resilience are still lacking. Our proposed framework consists of tiers by which analysts can select resilience assessment and decision support tools to inform associated management actions relative to the scope and urgency of the risk and the capacity of resource managers to improve system resilience. The resilience management framework proposed is not intended to supplant either risk management or the many existing efforts of resilience quantification method development, but instead provide a guide to selecting tools that are appropriate for the given analytic need. The goal of this tiered approach is to intentionally parallel the tiered approach used in regulatory contexts so that resilience assessment might be more easily and quickly integrated into existing structures and with existing policies.     

Humanizing strategy

In this article, we apply our latest thinking on knowledge to provide insights on how to reconceptualize strategy to cope with a VUCA world, epitomized recently by COVID-19. We demonstrate that business leaders must draw on phronesis, or practical wisdom, for strategy to become more future-oriented, society-focused, dynamic, and human-centric. Using in-depth case studies, we show how companies will survive in the long run if they start with a moral purpose, and end by offering value to customers, contributing to society, living in harmony with nature, and creating a new and better future. We came up with six practices that enable business leaders to create new and better futures, citing evidences from neuroscience. We conclude that humans should be at the center of strategy, driving future-making with the help of digital-led automation. Reconceptualizing strategy based on this “inside-out” approach, the reward to the company is resilience, longevity, and sustainability.     

Planning corporate growth with inverted product life cycles

The boomtime periods of growth enjoyed by U.S. corporations during the 1950s and 1960s are not likely to return. Firms desiring to realize consistent and continuous sales volume growth in the years ahead will need new perspectives and tools to actively and systematically plan that growth.Traditional approaches to planning growth are too unsophisticated for today's complex and competitive marketplace. Computerized simulations and other advanced techniques available today are, on the other hand, a step too far into the future for most business planners.This article presents a new framework and new perspectives for viewing and considering alternative growth opportunities. The framework—the “Inverted Product Life Cycle”—takes something with which most managers are very familiar (the product life cycle concept) and expands it into an analytical yet intuitive and useful tool for planning future growth.     

The Influence of Middle Managers in the Business Planning Process: A Case Study in the UK NHS

The paper takes a processual approach (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Pettigrew, Ferlie and McKee, 1992) in conjunction with a typology of middle-management influence upon strategic change (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992) to investigate the role of middle managers in business planning in the National Health Service (NHS). Over time, as the business planning process becomes increasingly one which adopts a top-down approach, the main influence middle managers have is upon the implementation of deliberate strategic change. Middle managers modify the implementation of deliberate strategy by contesting the performance indicators that form the basis of the business planning framework. In particular they draw upon features of inner and outer context of the organization to question the legitimacy of business planning. However, the findings also show, albeit to a limited extent, that middle managers are purveyors as well as recipients of change. That middle managers can have upward influence has important implications for policy-makers since potentially, middle managers can enjoy an enhanced role and add value to organizations, in this case to patient care. Therefore recent attacks upon their numbers and role may be misplaced. In addition a high degree of central intervention in the NHS generally may be inappropriate, since it militates against an enhanced role for middle managers.     

Strategic Development of Business Models: Implications of the Web 2.0 for Creating Value on the Internet

There is virtually a consensus that, to remain competitive, firms must continuously develop and adapt their business models. However, relatively little is known about how managers can go about achieving this transformation, and how, and to what extent, different types of business models should be adapted. To illustrate the differential effect of environmental changes on different business model types, this article draws from the ‘4C’ Internet business model typology to elaborate on how a recent wave of changes on the Internet – the emergent Web 2.0 phenomenon – is affecting each of its four business model types. We argue that Web 2.0 trends and characteristics are changing the rules of the ‘create and capture value’ game, and thus significantly disrupt the effectiveness of established Internet business models. Since systematic empirical knowledge about Web 2.0 factors is very limited, a comprehensive Web 2.0 framework is developed, which is illustrated with two cases and verified through in-depth interviews with Internet business managers. Strategic recommendations on how to what extent different Web 2.0 aspects affect each business model type are developed. Executives can use the ideas and frameworks presented in the article to benchmark their firm's efforts towards embracing the changes associated with the Web 2.0 into their business model.     

Industrial harm to an ecological dream

We have inherited past industrial pollution, but can business change the future and introduce sustainable solutions? This article focuses on how a small business can improve its internal barriers to environmental efficiency. Bovince Limited is working on a strategy of integrating ISO 9002, ISO 14001, EMAS, Kaizen, Investors in People systems to promote cyclic activity. We have been working on this strategy for improvement since the early 1990's, to ensure the continuous progression of our systems. The transparency of systems and strategies are seen as being of fundamental importance to business sustainability. Going beyond normal business activity and looking at how the impacts of people development and behaviorism affect strategic outcomes.Looking at these broader based concepts and their impact on day-to-day business is seen as the way forward. Bovine believe that quality of product or service cannot happen unless environmental considerations are linked into the process. Environmental systems and the reporting of them will not mean anything unless people are involved in their improvement. People will be unable to perform to their full potential unless developed.     

A Model for Managing Corporate Sustainability

The world is faced with unprecedented global economic, environmental, and social challenges. Sustainable development has emerged as an organizing principle for addressing these issues. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is seen as the business contribution to sustainable development. The article defines CSR as an organization's efforts to secure resources and legitimacy for survival or competitive advantage by managing nonmarket and nonregulated issues arising from complex social and environmental problems. Supporting this definition, the “sustainability issue management” (SIM) model is presented to help managers and researchers assess and manage CSR issues. Based on ecological economics, the tool originated from a larger study. The model is used to explain and discuss how the UK Government's National Indicator 185 (requiring carbon reporting from Local Authorities) shaped the action of a supplier to Local Authorities. The case illustrates how the SIM model can help both managers and researchers understand and manage CSR issues.     

Was müssen Führungskräfte können?

Ethics Education complements business administration only if it teaches strategic competencies that help managers to become better leaders. To this end, this article sketches an ordonomic approach to an economic ethics for competitive markets, to a business ethics for firms (corporate citizens), and to a process ethics for new governance. The core idea of this ordonomic approach is the win-win concept of mutually beneficial value creation. Thus, ordonomics is compatible with the market economy and at the same time supplements the management education in business schools: This approach systematically identifies strategic competencies that enable managers to display the kind of entrepreneurial leadership that is necessary for firms to fulfill their social function of value creation—by making use of moral commitments as a factor of production.     

Preparing for business model change: the “pre-stage” finding

The purpose of this paper is to investigate managers’ initiatives in the context of an emergent technology and their effect on the business models of firms. Building on four case studies of organizations interested in using an emergent technology for commercial purposes, this study applies a process-based framework of business model change. The main finding is that managers’ initiatives occur in the context of a “pre-stage” of potential business model change, which includes processes of experimenting and learning. The pre-stage finding gives a better understanding of when change initiatives affect a business model and when they do not, allowing managers to adopt a more proactive behaviour and guide their organizations towards effective business model change. The main contribution of this paper is to suggest the inclusion of the pre-stage idea in research and practice, since it is an intermediary step in the process of business model change that has been overlooked.