The effects of sensing and seizing of market opportunities and reconfiguring activities on the organisational resource base

This study has important implications for marketing theory and practice. In an era of turbulent market environments, the organisational ability to sense and seize market opportunities and to reconfigure the resource base accordingly, has significant effects on performance. This paper uses a dynamic capability framework to explain more explicitly the intricacies of the relationship between sensing and seizing of market opportunities and reconfiguring the resource base (i.e. dynamic capabilities) and the resource base. We investigate how the attributes of dynamic capability deployment, timing, frequency and speed, influence the resource base. We test the proposed framework using survey data from 228 large organisations. Findings show that the timing and frequency of dynamic capability deployment have significant effects on the resource base.

The roles and importance of formal and informal sources of business support in young firms : evidence from the UK’s 2008 Federation of Small Business Survey

Objectives This research explores the relationship between young firms, their growth orientation-intention and a range of relationships which can be seen to provide business support. Prior-work Research indicates that networks impact the firm’s ability to secure resources (Sirmon and Hitt 2003; Liao and Welsch. 2004; Hanlon and Saunders 2007). Networks have been evaluated in a number of ways ranging from simple counts to characteristics of their composition (Davidsson and Honig 2003), strength of relationships (Granovetter 1973) and network diversity (Carter et al 2003). By providing access to resources and knowledge (from start-up assistance and raising capital, (e.g. Smallbone et al, 2003), networks may assist in enabling continued persistence during those times where firms may experience resource constraints owing to firm growth (Baker and Nelson 2005). Approach The data used in this research was generated in the 2008 UK Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) survey. Over 1,000 of the firms responding were found to fall into the category of “young”, ((defined as firms under 4 years old). Firms were considered the unit of analysis with the entrepreneur being the chief spokesperson for the firm. Preliminary data analysis considered key demographic characteristics and industry classifications, comparing the FSB data with that of the UK government’s own (BERR) Small Business Surveys of 2007 and 2008, to establish some degree of representativeness of the respondents. The analysis then examined networks with varying potential ability to provide support for young firms, the networks measured in terms of number, diversity, characteristic and strength in its relationship to young firm growth orientation. The diversity of business-support-related relationships ranged from friends and family, through professional services, customers and suppliers, and government business services, to trade associations and informal business networks. The characteristics of these formal and informal sources of support for new businesses are examined across a range of business support-type activities for new firms. The number of relationships and types of business support are also explored. Finally, the strength of these relationships is examined by analysis of the source of business support, type of business support, and links to the growth orientation-intention of the firm, after controlling for a number of key variables related to firm and industry status and owner characteristics. Results Preliminary analysis of the data by means of univariate analysis showed that average number of sources of advice was around 2.5 (from a potential total of 6). In terms of the diversity of relationships, universities had by far the smallest percentage of firms receiving beneficial advice from them. Government business services were beneficially used by 40% of young firms, the other relationship types being around the 50-55% mark. In terms of characteristics of the advice, the average number of areas in which benefit was achieved was around 5.5 of a maximum of 15. Start-up advice has by far the highest percentage of firms obtaining beneficial advice, with increasing sales, improving contacts and improving confidence being the other categories at or around the 50% mark. Other market-focused areas where benefits were also received were in the areas of new markets, existing product improvements and new product improvements, where around 40% of the young responding firms obtained benefit. Regression techniques evaluating the strength of these relationships in terms of the links between business support (by source of support, type of support, and range of support) and firm growth orientation-intention focus highlighted a number of significant relationships, even after controlling for a range of other explanatory variables identified in the literature. Specifically, there was found to be a positive relationship between receiving business advice generally (regardless of type or source) and growth orientation. This relationship was seen to be stronger, however, when looking at the number of types of beneficial advice received, and stronger again for the number of sources of this advice. In terms of individual sources of advice, customers and suppliers had the strongest relationship with growth, with Government business services also found to be significant. Combining these two sources was also seen to increase the strength of the relationship between these two sources of advice and growth orientation. In considering areas of support, growth was most strongly positively related to advice that benefited the development of new products and services, and also business confidence, but was negatively related to advice linked to business recovery. Finally, amalgamating the 4 key types and sources of advice to examine the impact of combinations of these types and sources of advice also improved the strength of the relationship. Implications The findings will assist in the understanding of young firms in general and growth more specifically, particularly the role and importance of specific sources, types and combinations of business support used more extensively by new young growth-oriented firms. Value This research may assist in processes designed to allow entrepreneurs to make better decisions; educators and support organizations to develop better advice and assistance, and Governments design better conditions for the creation of new growth-oriented businesses.

Service aggregators in business networks

This position paper examines the development of a dedicated service aggregator role in business networks. We predict that these intermediaries will soon emerge in service ecosystems and add value through the application of dedicated domain knowledge in the process of creating new, innovative services or service bundles based on the aggregation, composition, integration or orchestration of existing services procured from different service providers in the service ecosystem. We discuss general foundations of service aggregators and present Fourth-Party Logistics Providers as a real-world example of emerging business service aggregators. We also point out a demand for future research, e.g. into governance models, risk management tools, service portfolio management approaches and service bundling techniques, to be able to better understand core determinants of competitiveness and success of service aggregators.

The ideological context of business : capital

This chapter focuses on the major social ruptures and developments that are most significant in the historical emergence and development of Capital and, more precisely, on those ruptures that highlight the most significant ethical issues upon which Capital, as a form of social organisation, is premised. Capital is most often viewed as a system of relationships between “things”, like land, labour, machinery, money, and so on. But this is to obscure the human relationships within which Capital flourishes.

Attitudes to Formal Business Training and Learning amongst Entrepreneurs in the Cultural Industries: Situated Business Learning through "Doing with Others."

Presents arguments supporting a social model of learning linked to situated learning and cultural capital. Critiques training methods used in cultural industries (arts, publishing, broadcasting, design, fashion, restaurants). Uses case study evidence to demonstrates inadequacies of formal training in this sector. (Contains 49 references.)

Robot path planning in dynamic environments using a simulated annealing based approach

Mobile robots are widely used in many industrial fields. Research on path planning for mobile robots is one of the most important aspects in mobile robots research. Path planning for a mobile robot is to find a collision-free route, through the robot’s environment with obstacles, from a specified start location to a desired goal destination while satisfying certain optimization criteria. Most of the existing path planning methods, such as the visibility graph, the cell decomposition, and the potential field are designed with the focus on static environments, in which there are only stationary obstacles. However, in practical systems such as Marine Science Research, Robots in Mining Industry, and RoboCup games, robots usually face dynamic environments, in which both moving and stationary obstacles exist. Because of the complexity of the dynamic environments, research on path planning in the environments with dynamic obstacles is limited. Limited numbers of papers have been published in this area in comparison with hundreds of reports on path planning in stationary environments in the open literature. Recently, a genetic algorithm based approach has been introduced to plan the optimal path for a mobile robot in a dynamic environment with moving obstacles. However, with the increase of the number of the obstacles in the environment, and the changes of the moving speed and direction of the robot and obstacles, the size of the problem to be solved increases sharply. Consequently, the performance of the genetic algorithm based approach deteriorates significantly. This motivates the research of this work. This research develops and implements a simulated annealing algorithm based approach to find the optimal path for a mobile robot in a dynamic environment with moving obstacles. The simulated annealing algorithm is an optimization algorithm similar to the genetic algorithm in principle. However, our investigation and simulations have indicated that the simulated annealing algorithm based approach is simpler and easier to implement. Its performance is also shown to be superior to that of the genetic algorithm based approach in both online and offline processing times as well as in obtaining the optimal solution for path planning of the robot in the dynamic environment. The first step of many path planning methods is to search an initial feasible path for the robot. A commonly used method for searching the initial path is to randomly pick up some vertices of the obstacles in the search space. This is time consuming in both static and dynamic path planning, and has an important impact on the efficiency of the dynamic path planning. This research proposes a heuristic method to search the feasible initial path efficiently. Then, the heuristic method is incorporated into the proposed simulated annealing algorithm based approach for dynamic robot path planning. Simulation experiments have shown that with the incorporation of the heuristic method, the developed simulated annealing algorithm based approach requires much shorter processing time to get the optimal solutions in the dynamic path planning problem. Furthermore, the quality of the solution, as characterized by the length of the planned path, is also improved with the incorporated heuristic method in the simulated annealing based approach for both online and offline path planning.

Introduction to the Proceedings of the 1st EDOC 2009 Workshop on Service-Oriented Business Networks and Ecosystems (SOBNE '09)

The first Workshop on Service-Oriented Business Networks and Ecosystems (SOBNE ’09) is held in conjunction with the 13th IEEE International EDOC Conference on 2 September 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand. The SOBNE ’09 program includes 9 peer-reviewed papers (7 full and 2 short papers) and an open discussion session. This introduction to the Proceedings of SOBNE ’09 starts with a brief background of the motivation for the workshop. Next, it contains a short description of the peer-reviewed papers, and finally, after some concluding statements and the announcement of the winners of the Best Reviewer Award and the Most Promising Research Award, it lists the members of the SOBNE ’09 Program Committee and external reviewers of the workshop submissions.

Context change archetypes : understanding the impact of context change on business processes

The emergence of Enterprise Resource Planning systems and Business Process Management have led to improvements in the design, implementation, and overall management of business processes. However, the typical focus of these initiatives has been on internal business operations, assuming a defined and stable context in which the processes are designed to operate. Yet, a lack of context-awareness for external change leads to processes and supporting information systems that are unable to react appropriately and timely enough to change. To increase the alignment of processes with environmental change, we propose a conceptual framework that facilitates the identification of context change. Based on a secondary data analysis of published case studies about process adaptation, we exemplify the framework and identify four general archetypes of context-awareness. The framework, in combination with the learning from the case analysis, provides a first understanding of what, where, how, and when processes are subjected to change.

Means of achieving Business Process Management success factors

Business Process Management (BPM) in recent years has become a highest priority area for most organizations. Since this concept is multidisciplinary, success in this endeavour requires considering different factors. A number of studies have been conducted to identify these factors; however, most are limited to the introduction of high-level factors or to the identification of the means of success within only a specific context. This paper presents a holistic framework of success factors as well as the associated means for achieving success. This framework introduces nine factors, namely culture, leadership, communication, Information Technology, strategic alignment, people, project management, performance measurement and methodology. Each of these factors are characterized further by defining some sub-constructs and under each sub construct the means for achieving success are also introduced. This framework including means for achieving success can be useful for BPM project stakeholders in adequately planning the initiative and checking the progress during the implementation.

The managerial benefits of tax compliance: perception by small business taxpayers

Research undertaken in 2006 – 2007 investigated the perception of managerial benefits of tax compliance by small business taxpayers. Survey data from a sample of 300 small business taxpayers and responses to semi-structured interviews of owner managers were examined. The study found that a majority of small business taxpayers recognised that tax compliance activities led to better record keeping and to an improved knowledge of their financial affairs. However, there seemed to be a general reluctance by respondents to accept the idea that benefits could be derived as a result of complying with tax. The findings of this study are important as it is the first research that systematically investigated managerial benefits and their perception by small business taxpayers in Australia.

'Try hard' : Attitudes to advertising in online social networks

Advertising has recently entered many new spaces it does not fully understand. The rules that apply in traditional media do not always translate in new media environments. However, their low cost of entry and the availability of hard-to-reach target markets, such as Generation Y, make environments such as online social networking sites attractive to marketers. This paper accumulates teenage perspectives from two qualitative studies to identify attitudes towards advertising in online social network sites and develop implications for marketers seeking to advertising on social network sites.

Empowerment for lifelong learning : embedding information literacy into the business curriculum

Success in modern business demands effective information literacy to address the ever-changing business context. This context includes changes in Government policy reflected through legislation and regulations, developments in case law and expectations of professional associations and the public. Students require the skills to continue their own learning beyond the completion of their degree, since learning the subject content of a course alone sufficient. This paper considers the methods utilised to embed information literacy, in the context of generic skills and graduate attributes, into a Business degree’s curriculum. The paper describes how information literacy has been embedded in two sequential third-year Taxation Law courses, allowing for the explicit development of information literacy. Through the development of legal reasoning and research skills, students are empowered to continue their lifelong learning, which successful professional practice demands. The study will draw upon the experience of the course convener in designing, teaching and evaluating the courses, and on students’ experiences as illustrated through evaluation questionnaire responses and interviews. The findings of this study could be relevant to other business courses, especially company law and auditing.

Rivalry within and between strategic networks : an investigation of the United States Automotive Industry

As a consequence of the increased incidence of collaborative arrangements between firms, the competitive environment characterising many industries has undergone profound change. It is suggested that rivalry is not necessarily enacted by individual firms according to the traditional mechanisms of direct confrontation in factor and product markets, but rather as collaborative orchestration between a number of participants or network members. Strategic networks are recognised as sets of firms within an industry that exhibit denser strategic linkages among themselves than other firms within the same industry. Based on this, strategic networks are determined according to evidence of strategic alliances between firms comprising the industry. As a result, a single strategic network represents a group of firms closely linked according to collaborative ties. Arguably, the collective outcome of these strategic relationships engineered between firms suggest that the collaborative benefits attributed to interorganisational relationships require closer examination in respect to their propensity to influence rivalry in intraindustry environments. Derived in large from the social sciences, network theory allows for the micro and macro examination of the opportunities and constraints inherent in the structure of relationships in strategic networks, establishing a relational approach upon which the conduct and performance of firms can be more fully understood. Research to date has yet to empirically investigate the relationship between strategic networks and rivalry. The limited research that has been completed utilising a network rationale to investigate competitive patterns in contemporary industry environments has been characterised by a failure to directly measure rivalry. Further, this prior research has typically embedded investigation in industry settings dominated by technological or regulatory imperatives, such as the microprocessor and airline industries. These industries, due to the presence of such imperatives, are arguably more inclined to support the realisation of network rivalry, through subscription to prescribed technological standards (eg., microprocessor industry) or by being bound by regulatory constraints dictating operation within particular market segments (airline industry). In order to counter these weaknesses, the proposition guiding research - Are patterns of rivalry predicted by strategic network membership? – is embedded in the United States Light Vehicles Industry, an industry not dominated by technological or regulatory imperatives. Further, rivalry is directly measured and utilised in research, thus distinguishing this investigation from prior research efforts. The timeframe of investigation is 1993 – 1999, with all research data derived from secondary sources. Strategic networks were defined within the United States Light Vehicles Industry based on evidence of horizontal strategic relationships between firms comprising the industry. The measure of rivalry used to directly ascertain the competitive patterns of industry participants was derived from the traditional Herfindahl Index, modified to account for patterns of rivalry observed at the market segment level. Statistical analyses of the strategic network and rivalry constructs found little evidence to support the contention of network rivalry; indeed, greater levels of rivalry were observed between firms comprising the same strategic network than between firms participating in opposing network structures. Based on these results, patterns of rivalry evidenced in the United States Light Vehicle Industry over the period 1993 – 1999 were not found to be predicted by strategic network membership. The findings generated by this research are in contrast to current theorising in the strategic network – rivalry realm. In this respect, these findings are surprising. The relevance of industry type, in conjunction with prevailing network methodology, provides the basis upon which these findings are contemplated. Overall, this study raises some important questions in relation to the relevancy of the network rivalry rationale, establishing a fruitful avenue for further research.

Managing hostile environments : journalists and media workers : learning to survive the world's difficult, remote and hostile environments

The aim of this research is to examine the changing nature of risks that face journalists and media workers in the world's difficult, remote and hostile environments, and consider the 'adequacy' of managing hostile environment safety courses that some media organizations require prior to foreign assignments. The study utilizes several creative works and contributions to this area of analysis, which includes a documentary film production, course contributions, an emergency reference handbook, security and incident management reviews and a template for evacuation and contingency planning. The research acknowledges that employers have a 'duty of care' to personnel working in these environments, identifies the necessity for pre-deployment training and support, and provides a solution for organizations that wish to initiate a comprehensive framework to advise, monitor, protect and respond to incidents. Finally, it explores the possible development of a unique and holistic service to facilitate proactive and responsive support, in the form of a new profession of 'Editorial Logistics Officer' or 'Editorial Safety Officer' within media organizations. This area of research is vitally important to the profession, and the intended contribution is to introduce a simple and cost-efficient framework for media organizations that desire to implement pre-deployment training and field-support – as these programs save lives. The complete proactive and responsive services may be several years from implementation. However, this study demonstrates that the facilitation of Managing Hostile Environment (MHE) courses should be the minimum professional standard. These courses have saved lives in the past and they provide journalists with the tools to "cover the story, and not become the story."