1,720,977 research outputs found
Strategic and operational management of organizational resilience: Current state of research and future directions
Full text linkThis article uses both a systematic literature search and co-citation analysis to investigate the specific research domains of organizational resilience and its strategic and operational management to understand the current state of development and future research directions.
The research stream on the organizational and operational management of resilience is distant from its infancy, but it can still be considered to be in a developing phase. We found evidence that the academic literature has reached a shared consensus on the definition of resilience, foundations, and characteristics and that in recent years, the main subfield of research has been supply chain resilience. Nevertheless, the literature is still far from reaching consensus on the implementation of resilience, i.e., how to reach operational resilience and how to create and maintain resilient processes. Finally, based on the results of in-depth co-citation and literature analysis, we found seven fruitful future research directions on strategic, organizational and operational resilience
Competitive advantage implication of different Product Service System business models: Consequences of ‘not-replicable’ capabilities
No full textFor many companies, the servitization of business grounded on Product Service Systems is proving to be a winning value proposition based as it is on a distinctive mix of economically, socially and environmentally sustainable solutions aimed at satisfying customer’s needs.
This research investigates the conjoint effect of three potential sources of PSS’s competitive advantage: the type of PSS, i.e. a value proposition directed at a market segment based on specific customer behaviour, the core resources, competences and organizational processes on which the PSS’s business model is based and their level of protection from competitor’s replication.
We adopted a multiple case study methodology to take into account the complex interrelation of the variables characterizing the phenomenon investigated by sampling 10 companies and collecting data by means of semi-structured interviews. Results of within- and cross-case analysis reveal that Use-Oriented PSS business models gain a competitive advantage from physical resources and organizational processes, whether protected against replication threat or not, while Result-Oriented PSS business models from people competences. Human capital is fundamental also for Product-Oriented PSS business models, but companies can reach a competitive advantage only if protected against replication threat from competitors.
The paper contributes to the expanding PSS literature by identifying potentially distinctive factors of the PSS business model and by providing useful considerations on PSS competitive and strategic potential, with an in-depth analysis of success elements
Effectiveness and Adoption of NIST Managerial Practices for Cyber Resilience in Italy
No full textIn the last years the use of information and communication technology in organizations has become vital to the point that each menace to its continuous functioning is considered a noteworthy danger for each organization. Cybersecurity has the aim of protecting the organization from these events called cyber-attacks. The emergent cyber resilience management integrates cyber risk management (which is based on identifying, analyzing and mitigating risk of cyber-attacks) with the ability to front them, recover from them and adapt the organization to the new situation when unpredictable attacks occur, without regressing. Several guidelines have been developed to guide organizations in managing cyber resilience, the NIST framework suggested and organized IT and managerial practices among different reference cyber security standards offering a practical overview followed by companies all over the world. Practices and guidelines must be general and consequently they need to be adapted to the specific context in which the company is embedded. In order to identify the effectiveness of the suggested managerial practices and the way they are implemented in the Italian context, we conducted a multiple case study analysis interviewing 20 cybersecurity experts included in the official list realised by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development in 2019. Interesting insights emerged including the lack of disciplinary measures in case of any misconduct, the importance of investing in building a comprehensive awareness of people about cyber threats, the importance of log information for multiple reasons and the urgency for each organization of developing its own tailored policies
Web-application development projects by online communities: which practices favour innovation?
No full textPurpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose an in-depth analysis of online communities of practice that support the innovative development of web applications. The analysis is aimed at understanding the preeminent characteristics of communities of practice that can favour the process of innovation (conceptualisation and realization of a web application) and if these characteristics differ in the diverse phases of a software development project (requirement specification, design, implementation and verification).
Design/methodology/approach - The authors adopted a multiple case study research design, selected 29 communities of practice related to the development of web applications and classified them recognizing the different practices that refer to the different phases of the innovation process of web-applications software development. Finally, the authors focussed on seven communities comparing five important dimensions for each one.
Findings - The results of the empirical analysis show that the best practices are different, considering the different phases of the project, and that these practices can be strategies directed at members to attract them and also, strategies directed at the community to permit collaboration.
Originality/value - The paper proposes an important and new insight into the management of virtual communities of practice (VCoP). The authors supposed that the ways to manage a VCoP could depend on project phases. In particular, the management practices of community should differ according to the different project phases, i.e. requirements specification, design, implementation and verification of the software. Literature in this sense presented only research focussed on the different effects of virtualness on teams depending on the length of team duration and on communication efforts
Unveiling the complexity of PMBOK through process network analysis
No full textThe aim of the present research can be synthetized by the follow-ing research questions:How is the PM theory evolving? How did best practices, processes and knowledge areas change through time? Which are the most important best practices, processes and knowledge areas in PM theory? The results showed how the importance of specific processes changed trough time and allowed us identify PM practices, new or borrowed, that contributed to PM evolution
Teaching technical and behavioural competences in project management
Full text linkManaging projects is a complex issue and it implies leveraging on different competences. “Good” Project Management is achieved by leveraging properly on both technical and behavioural competences. We argue that addressing simultaneously and coherently both kinds of competences may pay off. This research is related to a massive training program conducted by an Italian Multinational Group that involved during 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 more than 700 Project Managers. Based on data collected during the development of this program, we aim at testing whether teaching both technical and behavioural competences simultaneously and jointly can improve the training experience and effectiveness
Product Service System competitiveness and economic performance: insights from multiple case studies
No full textThe aim of this work is that of investigating PSS actual contribution in reaching firms’ strategic goals, exploring if it really could be a successful proposal, bringing a competitive advantage thanks to concrete economic results, and making the PSS worth the efforts to implement and run it.
This aim derives in the following research question:
RQ: How could PSS bring to a competitive advantage for firms seeking new opportunities linked to sustainability themes?
To answer this research question the case study methodology has been adopted, to take into account the complex systems of variables characterizing the PSS phenomenon and its performance in terms of strategic goals and competitiveness. The case study is the preferred method to investigate an empirical topic by following a set of pre-specified rules and procedures; it allows a holistic and contextualized analysis, properly suited for exploratory research purposes, because it allows the identification of crucial variables while exploring a given phenomenon. In particular, this research employed a multiple case study design, because “it allows both an in-depth examination of each case and the identification of contingent variables that distinguish each case from the other” (Yin, 1984; Eisenhardt, 1989). Moreover, the essence of a case study is that it tries to illuminate a decision or a set of decisions: why they were taken, how they were implemented, and with what result (Schramm, 1971).
The study involved 9 firms selected in Italy and abroad, operating in different industries and involving different categories and types of PSS, i.e. product-oriented, use-oriented, result-oriented (Tukker, 2004), differing also in terms of dimensions. In this way it has been possible to address one of the main drawbacks evidenced, that is the absence of empirical studies involving and examining different realities inside the same phenomenon. One of the main advantages in investigating companies differing on the basis of more elements (like industry, dimension, and core business) was that of uncovering differences in performance attributable to one or more of these characteristics. An important element in conducting interviews was that of understanding if PSS was part of a pilot project, a consolidated reality, or was on the way to be dismissed from firm’s set of strategic choices, because analysing cases of failure was an important element of the research just as examining successful ones.Drawing upon cases analysed, what emerged is that the employment of PSS in emerging industries, like those exploiting sharing economy concepts (e.g. car sharing), has proved to be a successful competitive and strategic move in almost all organizations, also adopting different business models and PSS categories. For example, firms running car-sharing offerings, although presenting differences in prices, available cars and forms of renting/payment, they all encountered a good answer (and a rising number of subscriptions) from customers, showing that the most successful element lies in the car-sharing concept, rather than particular details of the business model employed.
On the other hand, companies operating in more traditional industries like construction management firms and those employing an Engineer-to-order approach, showed some important constraints in running a PSS, mainly linked to customers’ resistance to change traditional business models and lack of trust in an offer where they do not buy the product but its use.
An important result emerging is that there are no significant differences attributable to a specific industry or to firms’ dimensions, but one of the main constraints and obstacle emerging is that of path dependence, which seems to highly affect PSS adoption and success.
As already reported, customer perception appears to be a key element to ensure a successful implementation of PSS, and an important point is that it is strongly affected by “success stories”, e.g. a similar PSS business model, adopted elsewhere, and known to have experienced a good response from customers, positively affects the adoption and acceptance of the same model in other markets. This is for example the case of car sharing, whose acceptance has been, and still is, strongly affected by its earlier and successful adoptions, like those in northern European countries
Predicting the value of product service-systems for potential future implementers: results from multiple industrial case studies
Full text linkThe great impact played by Product/Service-Systems (PSS) on industry and academia can be motivated by the need for modernizing business models, carrying out internal companies' reconfiguration, enhancing environmental sustainability. Despite the large number of objectives pursued by PSS, sparks of criticism have recently emerged, as well as the results ensuing from PSS adoption have not been rigorously assessed. In particular, the authors highlight a lack of quantitative analysis concerning the service aspects of PSS and hurdles in service modeling and evaluation. The paper's objective is to contribute in this field by individuating factors, advantages and disadvantages that are not directly measurable in monetary terms by companies. This kind of assessment might result crucial, as the implementation of PSS-oriented strategies require a not negligible amount of commitment, besides propensity to risk. A first activity was carried out thanks to a pilot group of firms that have not implemented any PSS initiative so far, which have been exposed to business reconfiguration scenarios underpinning PSS. A model for generalizing pros and cons of future PSS implementation has been subsequently experimented by a larger group of industrial organizations. Such a model has represented the backbone for the creation of a tentative quantitative estimation tool, which assesses and forecasts the added value of services featured by the introduction of PSS and hence represents a candidate criterion for undertaking decisions concerning the implementation of PSS strategies. The paper clarifies which assumptions are introduced in order to achieve this result
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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