Abstract
In this paper, we recognize that technological trajectories can be modeled as a series of problem-solving activities, manifesting the cyclical pattern of divergence–convergence knowledge ...flow. This recognition is applied to study the technological development of the thermal inkjet print head, using main path analysis and an assignee cross-citation network. Our analysis shows that the thermal inkjet print head experienced three cycles of divergence–convergence knowledge flow. Each of the cycles was evidently characterized by a problem of most concern and a referred solution. Our research contributes to explaining why, when, and how trajectories diverge and converge cyclically.
•A model is proposed for design of a sustainable medical supply chain.•The inherent epistemic uncertainty of parameters is taken into account.•LCA-based social impact assessment method is integrated ...in the model.•LCA-based environmental impact assessment method is also integrated in the model.•An accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm is designed to solve the model.
This paper proposes a multi-objective possibilistic programming model to design a sustainable medical supply chain network under uncertainty considering conflicting economic, environmental and social objectives. Effective social and environmental life cycle assessment-based methods are incorporated in the model to estimate the relevant environmental and social impacts. An accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm utilizing three efficient acceleration mechanisms is devised to cope with computational complexity of solving the proposed model. Computational analysis is also provided by using a medical industrial case study to present the significance of the proposed model as well as the efficiency of the accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm.
Disruption events like pandemic crises and natural disasters are unpredictable and therefore, most organizations are implementing an emergency plan to mitigate the unforeseen risks. This paper ...presents a research framework based on sustainability theory perspectives (i.e., crisis life cycle and management cycle). To test a research model that defines key variables, we assess and validate the hypothesized relationships using a large-scale survey. The respondents are from global food, pharmaceutical, and medical manufacturing companies (n = 301). We use a polynomial regression method coupled to response surface analysis. Results suggest that in the COVID-19 pandemic context, pandemic emergency planning dimensions are positively related to organizational performance metrics (e.g., sales, net profit, on-time orders, and quality) of the food, medical and pharmaceutical industries. The response surface analysis also shows that prudent firms implement triple sustainability practices--economic improvement practices, socially responsible practices, and environmental practices--to ensure their market competitiveness and corporate reputation during critical times. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented for future studies.
•A research model shows that pandemic emergency planning affects organizational performance.•It is a report about North American food, pharmaceutical, and medical manufacturing companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.•An advanced statistical analysis shows significant linear, quadratic and moderating effects of sustainability practices.•A crisis like COVID-19 pandemic occurs once in a while but competitive performance and firm’s reputation last far beyond.•Firms mobilize their organizational capabilities to dynamically face challenges and judiciously deliver long-term results.
Contested multilateralism Morse, Julia C.; Keohane, Robert O.
Review of International Organizations,
12/2014, Volume:
9, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
“Contested multilateralism” describes the situation that results from the pursuit of strategies by states, multilateral organizations, and non-state actors to use multilateral institutions, existing ...or newly created, to challenge the rules, practices, or missions of existing multilateral institutions. It occurs when coalitions dissatisfied with existing institutions combine threats of exit, voice, and the creation of alternative institutions to pursue policies and practices different from those of existing institutions. Contested multilateralism takes two principal forms:
regime shifting
and
competitive regime creation.
It can be observed across issue areas. It shapes patterns of international cooperation and discord on key security concerns such as combating terrorist financing, halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and banning certain conventional weapons. It is also evident on economic issues involving intellectual property, on environmental and energy issues, and in the realm of global public health. The sources of dissatisfaction are primarily exogenous, and the institutions used to challenge the
status quo
range from traditional treaties or intergovernmental organizations to informal networks, some of which include non-state actors. Some institutions are winners from the process of contested multilateralism; others may lose authority or status. Although we do not propose an explanatory theory of contested multilateralism, we do suggest that this concept provides a useful framework for understanding changes in regime complexes and the strategies that generate such changes.
Many important issues in business-to-business markets involve price discrimination and negotiated prices, situations where theoretical predictions are ambiguous. This paper uses new panel data on ...buyer-supplier transfers and a structural model to empirically analyze bargaining and price discrimination in a medical device market. While many phenomena that restrict different prices to different buyers are suggested as ways to decrease hospital costs (e.g., mergers, group purchasing organizations, and transparency), I find that: (i) more uniform pricing works against hospitals by softening competition; and (ii) results depend ultimately on a previously unexplored bargaining effect.
•OEM with significant brand image advantage has cost saving under Turnkey.•LSP puts more sustainable efforts given OEM’s insignificant brand image advantage.•The dual profit source structure inflects ...LSP’s outsourcing preferences twice.•Turnkey could simultaneously improve profitability and environmental performance.
Emerging markets have witnessed the logistics volume surge along with economic growth, which also brings environmental issues such as packaging waste. Therefore, many responsible logistics service providers (LSPs) are observed to put efforts in developing sustainable logistics. Such efforts improve the LSP’s brand image to expand the market potential, and benefit the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who use the LSP’s logistics service. In this paper, we consider an OEM and a LSP’s preferred outsourcing structures by incorporating the LSP’s sustainable efforts and the competition with the OEM when it has the self-branded business. The introduction of sustainable efforts alter the LSP’s cost structure, and eventually, the supply chain parties’ preferences over the OEM’s procurement outsourcing. For the OEM, the bundled outsourcing (outsourcing both procurement and logistics functions to the LSP) does not necessarily yield a lower procurement cost than only outsourcing the logistics, because the LSP possesses sufficient service pricing flexibility. Interestingly, the LSP prefers the OEM’s bundled outsourcing when the OEM’s brand image advantage is either not significant or very significant. The driving force is the tradeoff between the profits from product sales and outsourcing services. Lastly, we compare the environmental performances under alternative outsourcing structures, showing the simultaneous improvement of the OEM’s profits, the LSP’s profits, and the environmental performance is achievable when the OEM outsources the bundled functions of procurement and logistics.
This paper investigates how innovation intermediaries promote institutional change to facilitate public procurement of innovation (PPI). Several of the PPI implementation challenges reported in prior ...research originate in the institutional architecture underpinning demand articulation, and innovation procurement and adoption processes. We conceptualise innovation intermediaries as institutional entrepreneurs who seek to create new institutions or adjust existing ones to support PPI implementation. We report the results of two case studies of intermediaries facilitating PPI in the UK defence and health sectors, respectively. We contribute to PPI intermediation literature by showing that intermediaries address prevalent institutional failures through four types of institutional entrepreneurship activities: boundary spanning; advocacy; design of change; and capacity building. We elucidate, in particular, the role of individuals within intermediaries, as agents who learn about failures and adapt their institutional work over time. In doing so, these managers go beyond the remit and goals of the organisations they represent. The findings add to our understanding of how intermediaries support demand articulation for PPI by showing that their institutional work is also aimed at designing generic methods and processes to improve what is asked for, and how. We furthermore reveal conditions influencing the effectiveness of intermediaries' efforts to realise institutional change, thereby extending research on institutional entrepreneurship in PPI settings.
•Institutional failures impede public procurement of innovation.•Innovation intermediaries, as institutional entrepreneurs, address these failures.•Intermediaries' managers span boundaries, advocate and design changes and help build capacity for innovation procurement.•Managers learn about failures and intervene beyond the remit of their organisations.•Internal and external conditions influence intermediaries' ability to realise institutional change.
•Introduces the notion of anchor-entrepreneurs as catalysts for industry emergence.•Discusses the impact of pioneering entrepreneurs on the emergence of new industries.•Fleshes out the key generative ...processes by which an anchor-entrepreneur can foster the formation of an industry.•Develops a genealogical approach to the analysis of Italy's Biomedical Valley.•Advances a novel entrepreneurship-based framework for understanding the early evolution of an industry.
Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing.
•The weak one may not always set a price higher than the dominant one.•The developer is motivated to shift consumers to the weak one as her high margin.•We identify key factors which substantially ...influence each party's choice.•Both parties choosing the rejection strategy is never a pure strategic equilibrium.•An increase in the cost difference induces rejection strategy for the dominant one.
Platform-hardware business models (e.g., integrating a software technology platform into a hardware device such as a smartphone) have been widely applied in various industries. This study investigates the response of competing original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) when the developer strategically updates the platform quality. Consumers have two-dimensional valuations of the product: one valuation for the device provided by the OEM and another valuation for the platform provided by the developer. The developer offers two types of agreements: acceptance and rejection of preinstallation of core services that profit the developer. OEMs can preinstall the core services and pay nothing to use the platform, or they can pay a wholesale price for the platform and reject the installation of the core services. We propose a game-theoretic model to examine the strategic agreement choices of dominant and weak OEMs when the developer strategically offers an updated platform quality to enhance a weak OEM's competitiveness. We find that the developer benefits from the OEMs’ acceptance only when the exogenous wholesale price for the dominant OEM is low and the cost difference is moderate. Also, when the research and development (R&D) efficiency is high, an increase in the cost difference induces a conversion from acceptance to rejection for the dominant OEM, and an opposite outcome for the weak OEM. One OEM's installation acceptance may enhance or weaken the advantage of the other OEM's acceptance for the consumer surplus, depending on the value of the R&D efficiency. Several extensions are examined to complement the basic model, and implications behind each strategic choice are revealed.
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