This study uses a group of informants and applies a step-by-step empirical process to examine the applicability of the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic-capability view (DCV) to environmental ...volatility. Through examining 253 Taiwanese firms, this study finds that the explanatory power of DCV exceeds that of RBV in volatile environments. Firms that possess dynamic capabilities can effectively enhance their competitive advantages, despite facing highly volatile environments. Nevertheless, the RBV is effective in some ways and firms with valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable resources still possess competitive advantages. This article closes with theoretical and practical implications.
Purpose
This paper aims to verify the effect of organizational learning (OL) and two specific aspects of innovation, innovation speed and innovation quality, on competitive advantage.
...Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling has been applied to test the degree of influence of OL and innovation on two types of competitive advantage (differentiation and low-cost advantage) using data collected from 279 Chinese firms.
Findings
The findings show that innovation speed and quality play mediating roles in the relationship between OL and competitive advantage. In general, while innovation speed has greater effects on low-cost competitive advantage, OL and innovation quality have greater effects on differentiation competitive advantage.
Research limitations/implications
This paper offers directors/managers a deeper understanding of the factors necessary to promote competitive advantage in their firms.
Practical implications
This paper offers CEOs/managers a deeper understanding of the necessary factors needed to promote competitive advantage in their firms.
Originality/value
This paper provides practical and theoretical initiatives on innovation and competitive advantage that can be used to promote specific aspects of innovation and build up competitive advantage for relevant organizations.
Some scholars hold that dynamic capability (hereinafter DC) is one of the keys to achieving competitive advantage (hereinafter CA) and consequently, performance in strategic management. However, the ...definition and effects of DCs and the role of environmental dynamism are still under discussion. In the context of a Portuguese-like economy and from a strategic process perspective, this study defines dynamic capability as the potential to systematically solve problems, enabled by its propensity to sense opportunities and threats, to make timely decisions, and to implement strategic decisions and changes efficiently, thereby ensuring the right direction. Moreover, the ambidexterity view, exploring the indirect impact of exploitative and explorative capabilities, mediated by creativity and innovation competences (hereinafter IC) gives evidence of the influence on CA and firm's performance. Using an empirical study of 387 enterprises in Portugal, it was found that DCs, creativity and IC do significantly, positively, affect performance, while entrepreneurial orientation (hereinafter EO) is a moderator.
Combining the theses of "problemistic search" and "slack search," past research in the behavioral theory of the firm suggests that both low- and high-performing firms may engage in the same type of ...risk-taking activity. We counter this view with a consistent, motivation-based logic in the theory: low-performing firms are fixated on finding short-term solutions to immediate problems, so they have an increased probability of exhibiting deviant risk-taking behavior such as bribery, whereas high-performing firms are concerned about sustaining their competitive advantage in the long run and will more likely engage in aspirational risk taking such as research and development (R&D). Using a sample of 9,633 firm-year observations covering 2,224 listed companies in China, we find that, as a firm's performance falls further below its aspiration level, it has larger abnormal entertainment spending, an implicit measure of bribery expenditure, but not higher R&D intensity. However, as a firm's performance rises further above its aspiration level, it has greater R&D intensity, but not more bribery expenses. Legal development and industry competition moderate the relationship between performance feedback and risk-taking behavior.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to adopt the dynamic capability (DC) view as a theoretical framework to empirically investigate the relationships among human resource (HR)-related quality ...management (QM) practices: new product development (NPD) as a specific DC, learning orientation, knowledge integration, and strategic flexibility. Learning orientation and knowledge integration represent two antecedents of strategic flexibility, and strategic flexibility is the developed ability that facilitates NPD. Design/methodology/approach To empirically test the relationships, the authors used data from 236 European firms and performed structural equation modeling. Findings Results indicate that HR-related QM practices contribute to creating a learning-oriented company, integrating knowledge, and supporting successful NPD. Furthermore, knowledge integration is positively related to NPD through strategic flexibility. Practical implications This study is relevant for practitioners because it identifies key points in QM implementation that enable firms to be more strategically flexible and thus better able to regularly develop new products. Originality/value When organizations must sustain their competitive positions by continuously adapting to environmental changes, it is important to study not only how QM implementation is positively related to the firm performance on which a significant portion of the QM literature has focused but also to study whether QM implementation is related to strategic variables and can make a contribution to strategic processes. To fill the void in the HR and QM literature, this study offers an integrated framework with empirical support that identifies the role of HR-related QM practices in learning orientation, knowledge integration, strategic flexibility, and NPD.
In the light of The Paris Agreement (COP 21), global leaders reached a consensus to curtail the increase in global temperature up to 2.0 °C ideally 1.5 °C pre-industrial level. Likewise, it has ...become a pathway to accomplish long-term goals of achieving carbon neutrality. In this regard, this paper aims to explore the role of green process innovation and environmental orientation toward environmental performance for achieving the long-term goal of carbon neutrality. In addition, this paper also discovers a mediating role of green competitive advantage in said context. Using data from a survey among managers of equipment manufacturing sector, the study employed structural equation modeling technique and found that green process innovation, environmental orientation and green competitive advantage significantly influence environmental performance. Subsequently, mediation analysis indicated that green competitive advantage partially mediates the relation from green process innovation and environmental orientation to environmental performance. In light of the carbon neutrality targets, the study highlight that improving environmental performance through green process innovation and environmental orientation can be a way-forward for manufacturing sector to play its role to achieve carbon neutrality. The study concludes with theoretical and practical implications.
•This paper used data collected from managers.•Partial mediation of green competitive advantage has been found.•Green process innovation significantly improves environmental performance.•Environmental orientation considerably reinforces environmental performance.
A central question for researchers and practitioners is whether and how IT (information technology) can help build a competitive advantage in uncertain environments. To address this question, the ...present study seeks to empirically explore the relationship between IT-enabled dynamic capabilities and competitive performance. By drawing upon recent thinking in the strategy and IT management literatures, this paper argues that the impact of IT-enabled dynamic capabilities on competitive performance is mediated by organizational agility. Using survey data from 274 international firms and by applying structural equation modelling (SEM), outcomes suggest that IT-enabled dynamic capabilities facilitate two types of agility, market capitalizing and operational adjustment agility, which in sequence enhance competitive performance. The confluence of environmental factors is examined by fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results of fsQCA reinforce and refine findings of the PLS analysis concerning the limits and conditions to which IT-enabled dynamic capabilities add value.
Research Summary
The value‐based perspective emphasizes the importance of both value creation and bargaining for firm performance. While formal theoretical work has focused on value creation ...strategies, empirical evidence suggests that substantial performance differences also arise from heterogeneity in bargaining. We develop a model where rival firms choose value‐based innovation strategies to enhance either value creation or bargaining capabilities. We show a tendency for homogeneous strategy choices, with coordination on bargaining promoting firm value capture at the expense of overall industry value creation. We identify conditions for strategic heterogeneity, wherein a firm that enhances its bargaining capability risks the sustainability of its competitive advantage. Our model incorporates a natural distinction between incremental and radical value‐creating innovations, which influences the risk‐return tradeoffs faced by firms in their strategies.
Managerial Summary
A critical strategy choice for a firm's management is where to focus innovation efforts. Should it be on increasing the value the firm creates with other players, or on enhancing the firm's ability to bargain for a greater share of existing value creation? We develop a theory to inform such choices among rival firms. We show that there can be opportunities for rival firms to enhance their performance by coordinating innovation efforts on bargaining rather than on a race for value creation. However, the ability to coordinate on bargaining is undermined when value‐creating innovations allow firms to disrupt extant market structures, in which case the pursuit of high‐risk, high‐return value‐creating innovations may become attractive to individual firms even at the expense of overall industry profitability.
Brave new world: service robots in the frontline Wirtz, Jochen; Patterson, Paul G; Kunz, Werner H ...
International journal of service industry management,
11/2018, Letnik:
29, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Purpose
The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in the ...eighteenth century. Robotics in combination with rapidly improving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, big data and biometrics will bring opportunities for a wide range of innovations that have the potential to dramatically change service industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential role service robots will play in the future and to advance a research agenda for service researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, robotics and AI literature.
Findings
The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a definition of service robots, describes their key attributes, contrasts their features and capabilities with those of frontline employees, and provides an understanding for which types of service tasks robots will dominate and where humans will dominate. Second, this paper examines consumer perceptions, beliefs and behaviors as related to service robots, and advances the service robot acceptance model. Third, it provides an overview of the ethical questions surrounding robot-delivered services at the individual, market and societal level.
Practical implications
This paper helps service organizations and their management, service robot innovators, programmers and developers, and policymakers better understand the implications of a ubiquitous deployment of service robots.
Originality/value
This is the first conceptual paper that systematically examines key dimensions of robot-delivered frontline service and explores how these will differ in the future.
Improving performance through better processes should be the focus of quality professionals. Based on the IPO (Input-Process-Output) model, this study considers total quality management (TQM) as an ...input of the internal and external of an organisation and transformational leadership (TL) and executive ability (EA) as the mechanism (Process) to promote and coordinate internal-external elements for the organisation obtaining its sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) (Output). Taking samples in the southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan city for the questionnaire survey in this study, a total of 252 valid responses are collected and analysed to discuss the relationships among TQM, TL, EA and SCA. Reliability analysis, validity analysis, CFA and SEM are utilised for the analyses. The research findings are summarised as follows: (1) TQM significantly affects TL, EA and SCA. (2) TL and EA significantly affect a firm's SCA and each of them has the mediating effect between TQM and SCA. (3) Both of them have a serial mediating effect on the relationship between TQM and SCA. Implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.
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