1,721,076 research outputs found
Viability Conditions and Market Shaping
No full textPurpose - Practitioners and academics are increasingly recognising proactive market shaping as a suitable strategy to navigate the increasingly unpredictable operating environment (cf. Harrison & Kjellberg, 2016; Kindström et al., 2018; Nenonen & Storbacka, 2018). Market systems are characterised by plasticity (i.e. the markets’ ability to both take and retain form: Nenonen et al., 2014). Not surprisingly, most of the existing market-shaping studies focus on how a focal actor can induce a market to take a new form which is seen to be beneficial (i.e. viable) from his or her perspective. However, there is almost no research on how aspiring market-shapers should approach the market’s ability to retain form – even though market-shaping strategies aim at creating market
systems that retain their novel form, at least temporarily. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine under which conditions market-shaping strategies result in a viable system for the focal actor (i.e. able to survive over time: Barile and Polese, 2010) by adapting to the changing environment (von Bertalanffy, 1968).
Design/methodology/approach - We examine this process using an emergentist and systems approach, in which a market is seen as a system and market shaping is seen as activities that deliberately augment and steer the conditions under which the emergence of a new market takes place (i.e. the taking of form), and the conditions under which the emergent new properties of the market are viable and able to be maintained (the retaining of form). In this context we define emergence as an ongoing process that generates new emergent properties (e.g. entities, structures, concepts, qualities, capacities, mechanisms) from a structure of actors and relationships (Barile and Polese, 2010) where the whole is more than the sum of its constituent parts (Capra, 1996; Peters, 2016). In our illustrative case example, we look at a single longitudinal case over a ten-year period. Specifically, the wooden high-rise building market in Finland between 2008 and 2018. This market was able to emerge at a particular point in time and retain its form, even though the actual technology necessary to produce the laminated wood products necessary for high-rise building had been known about for some years.
Findings - Systems operate within conditions (e.g. process design, information technology, management behaviour, feedback systems, market structure, resource density, environment). While there are many systems conditions, only a vital few may be needed to make substantial viable change and self-regulation possible. The capacity to retain form in markets is often explained in
terms of mechanisms (i.e. formalization, institutionalization, routinization, and materialization: Nenonen et al 2014) operating under specific conditions. We highlight in our case example instances where such mechanisms and conditions help explain the viability of the market from the perspective of the focal actor.
Originality/value - While much of the literature and research on creativity, innovation, and cocreation shows that access to new and novel resources are fundamental for success, we know less about the more mundane aspects of maintenance and utilisation. We explore how these aspects support the viability conditions needed for systems to not only take but also to retain form over time
Service ecosystem dynamics: a conceptual framework to describe phase transitions
No full textPurpose – The aim of this paper is to examine service ecosystems dynamics from a managerial perspective in order to generate an improved understanding of ecosystem emergence and phase transitions.
Approach – This conceptual paper adopts the theoretical lens of systems theories and, in particular, “Viable Systems Approach”, to provide a conceptual framework able to integrate concepts related to ecosystem emergence and institutional theory based on the structure/system paradigm. A case study from healthcare sector is provided to illustrate the conceptualizations.
Findings – The provided framework permits a clearer understanding of the different adaptation processes shown in the service ecosystem dynamics, and their relationships with ecosystems stability, instability, need for new order parameters and emergent properties. Information and entropy are introduced as the main variables describing the service ecosystem dynamics.
Research implications – By analyzing the role and changes of service ecosystem structure in facing emergence, this paper paves the way to further theoretical and practical studies on service ecosystems phase transitions.
Originality/value – This paper is one of the first researches that conjugates systems theory and service ecosystem perspective in observing the dynamics of service ecosystems. The focus on structures opens up considerations on service ecosystems design and management
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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Viability mechanisms in market systems: prerequisites for market shaping
Full text linkPurposeThis paper develops a conceptual framework based on the identification and examination of the mechanisms (termed “viability mechanisms”) under which market-shaping activities yield the emergence of a viable market: one able to adapt to the changing environment over time while remaining stable enough for actors to benefit from it.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs extant literature to build a conceptual framework identifying viability mechanisms for market shaping and a case illustration examining how a viable market for Finnish timber high-rise buildings was created. The case exemplifies how the identified viability mechanisms are practically manifested through proactive market-shaping.FindingsThe proposed conceptual framework incorporates four viability mechanisms identified in the extant literature: presence of dissipative structures, consonance among system elements, resonance among system elements, and reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. It illustrates how these mechanisms are manifested in a contemporary case setting resulting in a viable market.Practical implicationsFirst, firms and other market-shaping organizations should look for, or themselves foster, viability mechanisms within their market-shaping strategies. Second, as failure rates in innovation are extremely high, managers should seek to identify or influence viability mechanisms in order to avoid premature commercialization of innovations.Originality/valueThis research identifies how these viability mechanisms permit markets to emerge and survive over time. Further, it illuminates the workings of the non-linear relationship between actorlevel market-shaping actions and system-level market changes. As such, it provides a “missing link” to the scholarly and managerial discourse on market-shaping strategies. Unlike much extant market-shaping literature, this study draws substantively on the syste
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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