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Atmospheric dependent, gas sensitive resistors seem to be good candidates for detecting critical air pollution levels. Recently, great progress has been made in the development of various sensor types, but less attention seems to be paid to the integration of sensor elements with different characteristics. The aim of this international project is to develop a smart hybrid gas multi‐sensor module for environmental applications, i.e. by combining classical thick‐ and thin‐film elements with polymer‐film based sensors and also a signal processing ASIC within a single package, which should be useful for all sensor types. The module should enable multi‐sensor operation as well, when connected to an intelligent signal‐processing unit.

Recent market volatility has provided a fundamental challenge to those arguing for the central role of intellectual capital as a source of organisation value. Using perceptual data relevant to the importance of intellectual capital as a source of enterprise value gathered in two studies conducted before and after the recent market ‘downturn’ respectively, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the continuing and central importance of intellectual capital. The findings from these two studies also demonstrate consistency in the composition of the human, internal and external components of intellectual capital. The Irish software/telecom sector provides an ideal research frame work for any such investigation. In recent years Ireland has established itself as the largest software exporter in the world and this sector has been one of the primary engines of growth in an economy that has experienced real growth of over 40% in 6 years, a rate unparalleled in the developed world.

The confusion over what counts as “strategic” is widely acknowledged to be a problem for both research and practice. The paper aims to develop a robust definition of “strategic decisions” and a classifying tool that distinguishes them from grand tactical, tactical, and other organizational decisions.

An extensive literature review focused on the leading journals is carried out. Articles having “strategic decision” in the abstract are retrieved from EBSCO Host and ProQuest One Academic databases. Definitions of “strategic decisions” are critically assessed and classified to form the trigger and basis of the development of new definition.

The literature review identifies five approaches by which strategic decisions are defined, and their limitations are exposed. The proposed definitions of “strategic,” grand tactical, and tactical decisions, and the novel classification tree, used to distinguish those decisions, are shown to be more accurate and robust than those previously offered in the literature.

New definitions of “strategic,” grand tactical, and tactical decisions are offered; and a new classifying tool is developed.

The literature on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), cultural differences between organizations have frequently been identified as one of the main challenges in the process of post-merger integration (PMI). Existing research has explored a broad variety of cultural differences in perceptions, such as those relating to expectations, norms, values and beliefs within the respective organizations, and how these affect the process and success of PMI. However, less attention has been paid to the relevance of the macro-societal context to PMI. The ambition of this article is, therefore, to advance our understanding of how macro-level societal factors define organizational cultures and affect the success of PMI.

We draw on social systems theory as devised by Niklas Luhmann, assuming that organizations are always embedded in the macro-level societal context of distinctive realms of social reality—such as the economy, politics, religion and the arts—that make up the so-called “function systems”. Looking at the case of the integration of a Brazilian technology start-up into a market-leading corporation, we analyze the dominant orientations towards these function systems, and the changes in these orientations over time.

The results suggest that differences in organizational culture in PMI can be partly explained by differences in orientations to the function systems. Moreover, forcing dramatic changes of orientations towards the function systems within a merged entity can severely damage its raison d'etre in the first place, potentially leading to, in some sense, an account of “culture murder”.

This article is unique in demonstrating that organizations are multifunctional systems whose culture is defined by the highly specific and potentially varying degrees of importance they place on individual function systems and that knowledge or neglect of these functional profiles may seriously affect the success of post-merger integration. Against this backdrop, the article presents a multifunctional profiling method that may easily translate into PMI management tools.

The opportunity for mutual benefit across Europe to develop low‐cost MCM technologies arose from recognition of the scientific skills and design and prototyping capabilities in organic and inorganic circuits in countries of Central Europe. As a result, the leading research institutions and small/medium‐size enterprises of Hungary, Romania and Slovenia together with relevant institutions of the UK and Belgium proposed and received approval for a European Union INCO‐Copernicus project “Cheap multichip models” to establish fast prototyping low cost multichip module (MCM) technology facilities. The project commenced in May 1997.

The organizational culture–performance link is fundamental to organization development and building a high-performance culture is a responsibility of leaders. The claim of a culture–performance link is most visible in the 1980s (e.g. In Search of Excellence) but is replaced by skepticism by the 1990s. Using conclusion validity as the framework, the purpose of this paper is to synthesize cross-disciplinary literature in organization studies and the emerging sub-field of organizational economics to lay a foundation to establish the link rigorously.

The drivers of conclusion validity – internal validity, external validity and construct validity – guided the literature search and review. The author began with the concepts of organizational culture and performance, examined the organizational economic literature for the causal culture–performance link (internal validity), reviewed the organization studies literature on the debates in the measurement of organizational culture (external and construct validity) and examined the debate if organizational culture can be managed (internal validity).

Organizational economics (which conceptualizes organizational culture as shared beliefs) shows that cultures that are more homogeneous, encourage teamwork and have a clear mission, enhance organizational performance. In measuring culture, survey instruments using the process-oriented approach can rely on these results to strengthen their construct validity. In the search for the organizational culture–performance link, non-cultural factors affecting performance have to be included as control variables.

The weaknesses of early research on the organizational culture–performance link become clear when examined with the conclusion validity framework. This clearness shows the way toward a rigorous empirical analysis.

This review provides guidance for researchers to evaluate published studies on the organizational culture–performance link. It also helps researchers to design new studies with stronger conclusion validity.

The concept of strategy has lost its meaning. It is widely inflated and conflated with related notions and the consequences of that are unsettling for both practice and research. The purpose of this paper is to restore the lost meaning of strategy.

The paper exposes the inadequacy of the current definitions of strategy. It, then, suggests a more robust one based on a list of necessary dimensions of a good definition derived from an extensive review of the literature and ends with triggers for further reflection.

The multidimensionality of the proposed definition better reflects the complex nature of the strategy concept and restores its lost meaning. This makes it more robust than previous definitions in protecting the integrity of the concept of strategy from the creeping of insignificant concerns and “surplus” meaning.

The new definition offers a new angle from which to reexamine the relationships between a number of usually paired concepts such as intention and action, planning and emergence, control and learning and formulation and execution.

The newly proposed definition has the potential to trigger creativity and to limit the practice of bad strategy.

The proposed definition raises the standard of what strategy is, avoids the sources of confusion, and reduces the chances of ascribing surplus meaning to the strategy concept.

This paper expands theory on strategists by investigating how non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms strategize. In focus is the strategizing of two groups of non-executive strategy professionals: a corporate strategy team and eleven business strategists employed in each of the incorporated units.

A case study design was employed to explore privileged accessed data to gain first-hand in-depth qualities of strategists' work. The design was characterized by phenomenon driven immersed participatory insider research with retrospective reflection and theorizing. Data includes strategies, interview data, calendars, meeting minutes, workshop material and observational field notes.

Non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms are either employed at the corporate center or in the peripheral businesses. Based on this location and their individual experiences they assume an exclusive content or an inclusive process strategizing orientation. In practice, the groups strategize tightly together.

Case studies are useful in explorative research providing thick descriptions. While empirically rich, the results of this study are limited by the context of one single case. Future research is encouraged to confirm, contradict and refine the results presented.

The insights from this study can help organizations regarding how to employ strategy professionals in multi-business firms.

This paper contributes to a recognized need to explore strategists' work. In contrary to the majority of existing research, focusing on senior management and/or strategy formulation, this paper highlighted non-executive strategy professionals' strategizing.

The paper aims to develop a strategic conceptualization and measurement scale of organizational resilience to support researchers examining how small firms prepare and respond deliberately to general disruptions in the operating environment over more extended time frames.

The paper uses a four-step process to develop, present and test (for predictive validity) a scale of strategic organizational resilience for frequent events or those needing long-term responses.

The resulting seven-factor measurement scale of organizational resilience consists of readiness, slack, problem-solving, flexibility, connectedness, adaptiveness and proactiveness.

The literature on organizational resilience explains how organizations recover from rare but catastrophic events by focusing on adaptation principles and short-term survival. The broader conceptualization presented here enables the study of organizational resilience in small-medium size enterprises (SMEs) across more frequent and pervasive events, such as financial crises, industry downturns and other forms of structural change and technological disruption. This is operationalized in a measure that includes new strategic factors associated with forward-planning and more traditional operationally focused elements.

Liberalisation and deregulation of financial markets, lower currency volatility and the introduction of the euro have reduced transaction and bankruptcy costs for multinationals in Europe. Internal European transfers of cash have become easier and cheaper. This has enabled the centralisation of cash management activities. The centralisation at headquarters of multinational enterprises has also opened the road to financial disintermediation. These trends may have helped to create conglomerate benefits in Europe. The case of the cash management at the Netherlands‐based Royal Philips Electronics is used to illustrate these tendencies.