This volume presents a set of innovative approaches to international management theory and practice. It disseminates the most important results of scientific research in the organisation management field to professors, management consultants, researchers and managers at an international level. It is structured in four sections, covering the main areas of interest in management: management of change, innovation and quality; knowledge management and intellectual capital; entrepreneurship, SMEs and social enterprises; and university governance and management. The book is aimed at management experts who aspire to use the latest methods, techniques and practices of organisational leadership, as well as students and others who are interested in the promotion and implementation of best practices in entrepreneurial management.
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.In this book, the authors present a challenge for future research to build a stronger, more complete understanding of entrepreneurial phenomena. They argue that this more complete picture of entrepreneurial phenomena will likely come from scholars who undertake at least some trailblazing projects; from scholars who broaden the range of research questions, the potential outcomes of entrepreneurial action, and the selection and combination of research methods; and from researchers who avoid the endless debates about the margins of the field and its sub-fields or about whether one theoretical or philosophical lens is superior to another. This book offers suggestions for future research through a variety of topics including prosocial action, innovation, family business, sustainability and development, and the financial, social, and psychological costs of failure. It promises to make an important contribution to the development of the field and help academics, organizations, and society make useful contributions to the generation of entrepreneurial research.
If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.
This book presents current developments in smart city research and application regarding the management of manufacturing systems, Industry 4.0, transportation, and business management. It suggests approaches to incorporating smart city innovations into manufacturing systems, with an eye towards competitiveness in a global environment. The same pro-innovative approach is then applied to business and cooperation management. The authors also present smart city transportation solutions including vehicle data processing/reporting system, mobile application for fleet managers, bus drivers, bus passengers and special applications for smart city buses like passenger counting system, IP cameras, GPS system etc. The goal of the book is to establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge among researchers and professionals working on smart city research and application. Features contributions on a variety of topics related to smart cities from global researchers and professionals in a wide range of sectors; Presents topics relating to smart cities such as manufacturing, business, and transportation; Includes expanded selected papers from EAI International Conference on Management of Manufacturing Systems (MMS 2016), EAI Industry of Things and Future Technologies Conference – Mobility IoT 2016 and International Conference on Smart Electric Vehicles and Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (SEVNET).
PURPOSE: The analysis of the literature shows that the attempts to conceptualize the strategic aspects of the network bring a significant impact on the development of research on organizational networks. This article aims to analyze the new trends in strategic management, and in particular on the possibility of exploring the network approach in strategic management, through the existing literature and the presentation of the new contributions of the following articles published in the current issue. METHODOLOGY: The article is descriptive in character; thus it is based on a literature review and its constructive critics. A narrative literature review was used to present the main assumptions and features of the network approach in strategic management, along with an indication of emerging trends and new directions. Also the identification of theoretical foundations for understanding the processes of strategic change in inter-organizational networks and the proposition of the way to understand network strategy were presented. FINDINGS: The research included in this issue shows that from a network perspective, business strategy plays an important role in guiding the development of individual relationships and networks. Exploring the network approach in strategic management allows one to adopt the category of network strategy, which can be described through the coexistence of cooperation and competition. IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE: Considerations lead to the conclusion that the business strategy must be expressed in terms of potential changes in the network in which the company operates, taking into account its current and selected position in the network. Despite the fact that the current state of research on organizational networks in the theory of strategic management shows that this approach is already quite well established, on the basis of the analysis of research results concerning the conceptualization of strategic aspects of the network, the existing problems and limitations were identified. ORIGINALITY AND VALUE: The main problems related to the exploration of the network approach and the resulting consequences for the definition of the network strategy were indicated. Also, the combination of an organizational and economic approach with the logic of competitive advantage and relational annuity. The demonstration that the network perspective in strategic management allows for a more complete understanding of the strategic behavior of modern enterprises. Keywords: network, network strategy, network approach, strategic management Table of Contents Network approaches and strategic management: Exploration opportunities and new trends 7 Beata Barczak, Tomasz Kafel, Pierpaolo Magliocca Networks and network strategies: New theorization based upon a systematic literature review 37 Rossella Canestrino, Amir Forouharfar Direct and moderation effects on U.S. apparel manufacturers’ engagement in network ties 67 Nancy J. Miller, Carol Engel-Enright, David A. Brown Mapping of a science and technology policy network based on social network analysis 115 Esmaeel Kalantari, Gholamali Montazer, Sepehr Ghazinoory Synergetic effects of network interconnections in the conditions of virtual reality 149 Kateryna Kraus, Nataliia Kraus, Olena Shtepa Complexity, continuity, and strategic management of buyer–supplier relationships from a network perspective 189 Martin Pech, Drahoš Vaněček, Jaroslava Pražáková Interfirm network structure and firm resources: Towards a unifying concept 227 Jesse Karjalainen, Aku Valtakoski, Ilkka Kauranen
If there are concepts that have huge academic literature and are of outstanding practcal signifcance in corporate practce, then business performance is certainly one of them. However, the authors of this special issue add interestng and excitng elements to our knowledge regarding business success and performance in many ways. This special issue underlines that business success, which has both fnancial and social components, depends to a great extent on the knowledge, skills, and cooperatve skills of people in the organizaton, and their openness to the world of external and internal stakeholders. The behavior of people, when heavily influenced by the values of the organizaton and its associated business ethics, has a major impact on business success. This is also true for ethically and socially controversial industries, such as pharmaceutcal, alcohol and tobacco. The research results of the authors in this special issue show that different organizatonal frameworks and solutons can lead to the success of a business. There is, of course, no single, infallible “recipe” leading to success. However, developing project management skills and applying a project management approach within an organizaton can increase the organizaton’s entrepreneurial ability. The key feature of such a soluton is that the organizaton becomes more open to stakeholders and processes in its local environment. This also means that an organizaton’s ability to innovate, and improve the efciency of its innovaton processes, increases. It is an excitng feature of the special issue that most of the studies deal with a specifc area of the global economy, namely Central and Eastern Europe. Empirical research carried out in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and a comparatve analysis of them, is a valuable contributon to the increasingly rich literature dealing with this region, as well as the academic literature in the more general sense. The frst paper by Majra Hodžić and Helena Hrůzová, “A study of project management practces in the Czech Republic,” addresses the importance of project management for organizatons’ innovaton and performance. Based on the example of the Czech Republic, Hodžić and Hrůzová study current practces used in the feld of project management and underline the importance of stakeholders’ main demands and requests, and the level of use of project management methods. The results that are presented provide practcal implicatons, especially for new start-ups wantng to boost their compettveness and innovatveness, by displaying success factors for project management and the necessity for innovaton in this area. The subject of project management is contnued in the second paper by Katarzyna Grzesik and Katarzyna Piwowar-Sulej enttled “Project managers’ competencies and leadership styles from the perspectve of organizatons functoning in Poland.” Grzesik and Piwowar-Sulej discuss the signifcance of project managers’ different competencies and project leadership styles, which are especially important nowadays considering the increasing dynamics of the organizatons’ environment. The needed and adopted competences are compared between the strictly project-oriented organizatons (implementng projects for external clients) and organizatons that manage projects for internal purposes. The authors identfy competencies which are important for organizatons’ success in the area of project management and may, in turn, lead to beter business performance. The importance of human capital for organizatons’ performance and compettve advantage is addressed in the third paper by Łukasz Bryl called “Human capital orientaton and fnancial performance. A comparatve analysis of US corporatons”. In the paper, Bryl verifes whether human capital orientated organizatons generate a positve or even above-average fnancial performance due to: higher skills of employees, greater motvaton and, thus, higher overall effectveness. The paper has signifcant practcal implicatons for both managers aiming at increased compettve advantage and investors in terms of the possible directons of stock market investments aimed at achieving above-average returns. Financial success and high performance may also be gained by innovatveness. In the fourth paper, “An innovaton capability development process for frms in developing countries: A theoretcal conceptual model,” Gezahegn Tesfaye and Daniel Kitaw analyze the problem of innovaton capability development. The much-needed complexity of the analysis is reflected by combining both the technical and the fnancial aspects of innovaton capability development. The proposed model identfes three key innovaton capability constructs and is of practcal value, especially to organizatons from developing countries, as it helps to progress the innovaton capabilites more effectvely. The ffh paper by Włodzimierz Sroka and Richard Szántó, “CSR and business ethics in controversial sectors: analysis of research results,” addresses the issue of organizatons’ performance from a different perspectve, namely the partcular obligatons toward society or the environment consttuted by corporate social responsibility. Based on the example of controversial sectors of the economy (pharmaceutcal, tobacco and alcohol) Sroka and Szántó examine the scale and scope of the use of business ethics principles and practces in Poland and Hungary. The analysis provides not only signifcant fresh insights in this feld but also shows that business ethics have an influence on business success and the corporate image of organizatons. The sixth paper, “The themes of entrepreneurship discourse: A data analytcs approach” by Philip T. Roundy and Arben Asllani, considers the importance of the language used by entrepreneurs. Roundy and Asllani identfy fve dominant themes in entrepreneurship discourse which address, among other things, technology and professional investments. The analysis of the most recurring themes in entrepreneurship discourse, and their change over tme, sets directons for future research and indicates the importance of entrepreneurship discourse for organizatons’ business success. We would like to thank all the authors for their contributon to this special issue and for sharing their research. We believe that this new research represents a valuable input to our knowledge regarding business success and organizatons’ performance. We also want to thank the reviewers whose comments contributed to the improvement of the papers and the whole of this special issue. We hope the artcles presented here will be of interest to readers, scholars and researchers around the world, and that they will inspire them on to further scientfc and practcal research in the feld of business performance.
This book explores diverse dimensions of innovation in business and finance from a micro as well as macro perspective through various case studies and analyses of trends. The previous decade is known as the era of digital transformation and innovation. The rise of new technologies is having an impact on the global trends and leading to innovation in business and finance. In this competitive market, businesses and financial institutions must be responsive to the trends in order to survive and thrive, governments must cope with the complex and uncertain environments by being smart, transforming service delivery, and implementing smart governance practices, and entrepreneurs and investors are faced with alternative sources of finance and investment. However, keeping up with these trends and innovations is fraught with its own set of challenges. Thus, it is important to analyze new and emerging technologies and innovations through a myriad of disciplinary lenses. This book not only expands conceptual understanding of digital transformation and innovation by presenting strong empirical evidence, but also by adding to the vigorous worldwide policy discussion on how to assist businesses in the digital transition. The book will be useful to scholars and researchers of business management, financial management, business economics, international business, human resources, and marketing. It will also be of interest to entrepreneurs, policymakers, academicians, and practitioners in the field.
This book contains a collection of scientific chapters addressing the emerging trends in IT and telecommunications, as well as the issues that accompany them in business. It addresses issues in cyber applications, ICT solutions and innovative cyber know-how, and demonstrates how high-tech IT communications resources can be used to improve business production, sales and service strategies, supply chains and logistics. The book is based on articles from ICCMIT’20, extending their approach to specific chapters. The chapters cover issues such as financial management, technological upgrades, Industry 4.0 and the trend towards sustainable development. It utilizes examples of technologically advanced enterprises developing under Industry 4.0 assumptions at the stage of digital transformation, which integrate digital technologies and business processes. In addition, this book discusses issues related to cyber risk management and the implementation of a number of safeguards for digitized enterprises. Enterprises that orient themselves towards technological innovations find that they can reach customers faster, are more effectively managed and can achieve a competitive advantage over other businesses. This book will be a great aid to professionals in such companies, both in IT departments and in the management team.
An international approach! Events – future, trends, perspectives provides insights into many of the recent developments within the diverse event industry. International scholars and experts with backgrounds in multiple related fields have taken up exciting research topics and offer perspectives, thoughts and views on a number of current and future issues and challenges. The topics are as diverse as the industry itself and include discussions on gender and diversity, disruptive technologies, sustainability, psychological effects, the co-creation of experiences, the future of event education and many more. Vivid case studies and best practice examples are used to illustrate current and future developments and to spark discussion and debate amongst scholars, practitioners and students alike. The Corona crisis (Covid-19) is having a massive impact on the events industry. Due to the editorial deadline of this book in February 2020, this topic could not be considered in this edition. We ask for your understanding.
