Creating a manufacturing strategy to suit your business

The development of manufacturing strategy requires approaches and techniques different from those used in the past. To play its proper role in establishing competitive advantage, the contribution of manufacturing must be recognized explicitly and exploited in conjunction with marketing, design and purchasing. Strategy and implementation are inseperable, and are a vital force in overcoming resistance to change.     

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.     

Demand-side strategy and business models: Putting value creation for consumers center stage

Value creation for consumers, as the conditio sine qua non for value capture, is at the heart of demand-side strategy research and is a core element of almost any business model. In this paper, we discuss the unique ideas that demand-side strategy and business model research jointly contribute to the strategy literature, and we elaborate on the potential for cross-fertilization between both areas of study. We argue that both the demand-side perspective and the business model concept could jointly promote a better understanding of strategy-making by mutually relying on the distinctive insights from each stream; specifically, while research on demand-side strategy can help business model scholars gain a more robust and granular understanding of effective value propositions, business models can serve as a “bridging concept” that links the shared ideas of both areas of study to resource-based streams of strategy research.     

The long-term business strategy of a Danish Savings Bank

In times characterized by the concurrence of strong economic tensions, widespread insecurity and rapid technological developments in banking, long-term business strategies play an increasingly important role. This article begins by discussing the problems and responsibilities of the Danish banks during the current decade and then turns to the long-term strategy of the SDS Savings Bank. The article is based on a presentation that was given in 1983 in Trieste at the 23rd plenary session of a series of meetings held to enable the major European savings banks to exchange their experiences.     

ABC,strategy and business unit performance

The primary objective of the research reported in this article is to examine whether the performance effects of ABC are contingent upon the competitive strategy being deployed. The empirical findings of the study show that the use of ABC is associated with better performance at the business unit level. However, this association appears to be driven primarily by the group of business units following a product differentiation strategy, as contrasted to the group following a cost leadership strategy.     

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.     

Brokerage and governance for business networks: a metasynthesis-based discussion

This article reviews and discusses empirical literature on the micro-mechanisms of Burt’s concept of brokerage for inter-firm business networks from a governance perspective. Using a combination of a literature review and a qualitative metasynthesis, research gaps are first identified in the literature about these micro-mechanisms and then filled with interpretations, stemming from a qualitative metasynthesis of 13 in-depth case studies on brokerage for business network environments. The paper discusses three related elements and their inter-relationship in the brokerage process: the enabling factors for brokerage in business networks; the brokerage activities, particularly the combination of “bonding”, “bridging”, exclusion, and moderation/negotiation in different network configurations; and the outcomes of brokerage for business networks. We argue that network managers should take care of these elements when using brokerage to govern business networks. For example, the positional factors of agents in the network who take over brokerage functions need to be monitored and a balance of their embeddedness in the network and independence of focal firms should be safeguarded. Moreover, activities associated with brokerage should be steered and controlled in order to generate network benefits such as a higher collaborative stance of the partaking firms or learning processes amongst them.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Internal- and external institutional fit of MNE subsidiary political strategy in contexts of institutional upheaval

We investigate how subsidiaries' political capabilities in emerging markets are not just shaped by their home- or host country institutions, but by both simultaneously - presenting a dilemma for subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in host countries. Subsidiaries need to develop CPA that simultaneously “fit” parent company requirements and “external fit” requirements in relation to the host environment. Achieving this dual fit is particularly difficult in volatile host contexts, where the value of political capabilities changes rapidly. Subsidiaries face a dilemma because the easily transferable capabilities – that draw on parent resources – lose value due to their decreasing “external fit” with the host country's volatile institutional environment. Conversely, the most valuable relational political capabilities lack “internal fit,” as they may not be legitimate in the home environment. To understand how firms deal with this dilemma, we develop a typology of political capabilities that takes into account their transferability/stickiness and their dynamic institutional contingency in the host country. Our study shows that MNEs - even from institutionally very different economies - can successfully transfer political capabilities to develop effective CPA in a volatile political environment. Yet, as political risk becomes discontinuous, this strategy may reach its limits.     

企业战略与信息系统战略规划集成过程研究

随着信息系统在企业中应用的发展、变化以及整个市场环境的变化 ,企业战略规划和信息系统战略规划的集成已经成为必然趋势 .本文在评述集成过程方法的基础上 ,针对信息系统应用不同阶段 ,探讨了不同集成过程的特点 ;并且根据变革时期环境对企业提出的挑战 ,研究了变革时期的集成过程的总体框架和组合模型     

Developing and implementing a strategy for production

The survival of the organization as an independent unit is generally accepted as the primary objective for most businesses. While the reasons for failure are often complex, two major causes associated with technology are frequently found— obsolescence of the product line and excessive production costs. In this paper the author argues that there is a need for a production strategy to obviate such difficulties and to act as a guide to investment decisions.     

The business of education: a new paradigm

Business as usual is not the answer these days. But how do you create a new paradigm for academic educational and research endeavors? There is increasing pressure to separate the costs of providing care to patients from those of educating students and residents. It is evident already that we will not enjoy the flexibility of the past to cross-subsidize the academic effort. Presented here is a case study--a joint venture between Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel HealthCare created to sustain the academic mission, as distinct from its clinical business, and promote innovation in medical education and research through intellectual leadership, dedicated state-of-the-art facilities, and a focused development effort.     

Social capital and business and management: Setting a research agenda

This paper adopts the template of systematic reviewing and provides an up-to-date synthesis of the literature on social capital and business and management. The review demonstrates that social capital research is concentrated into three core dimensions: structural, relational and cognitive. First, structural social capital includes social interaction and the frequency of contact and connectivity levels among and between actors' network relations. Secondly, relational social capital refers to the underlying normative conditions of trust, obligation, expectation and identity that guide actors' network relations. Thirdly, cognitive social capital refers to the meaningful contexts of communication among and between actors, and includes the shared language, codes and narratives used to create understanding. However, the rich linkages between structural, relational and cognitive social capital across equivalent/hierarchical social space and geographical boundaries are neglected. A further research focus identified is that the role of face-to-face and the increasingly routine tool of electronic mediated communication may produce different characteristics and levels of social capital. The paper also discusses the ways in which critical realism and mixed methodology may enhance understanding of the process-based linkages between structural, relational and cognitive social capital.     

A call for action: The impact of business model innovation on business ecosystems,society and planet

The impact of business model innovation (BMI) on business ecosystems, society, and planet is of growing theoretical and practical importance for strategic management. Increasing sustainability pressures warrant a better understanding of the impact of companies’ BMI through a more comprehensive analysis of innovation and its consequences. We discuss four foci of innovation (BMI, sustainable BMI, ecosystem innovation, and sustainable ecosystem innovation) to broaden the conceptualization of innovation and its economic, societal, and natural environmental impacts. We call for scholarship examining the impact of BMI to advance knowledge through research on value destruction and the dynamics of BMI over time.     

Online scheduling on a single machine with linear deteriorating processing times and delivery times

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - This paper considers a class of problems with linear deteriorating jobs. Jobs are released over time and become known to the online scheduler until their...