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Details an empirical study of the measurement of stockout costs in a distribution system and examines the incidence of stockouts in the supply of spare parts to the motor trade. Comprehensive studies were conducted in three major car workshops in Sweden and cost data collected from a variety of sources, including structured observation, quasi‐experiments, interviews and secondary data from internal information systems. On the basis of this research, a typology of stockout cost situations has been constructed and central concepts and measurement models developed. Results reveal that stockout costs are measurable in the system under review; information about stockout costs can have a significant impact on managerial decision making.

This chapter focuses upon two types of interaction. One is the interaction between departments within the Danish Trademark and Patent Office (DKPTO). Additionally, the interaction between the DKPTO and firms is analysed. The chapter discusses in what ways an institution like a national patent office is important for product innovation, not just by providing an appropriability system for product innovations in firms, but additionally by improving the long-run capabilities of both firms and the DKPTO itself. The research builds upon interviews in the DKPTO, case stories from firms and of patent granting procedures.

With respect to internal competencies, it is found that no efforts were carried out to create environments for learning between the departments in line with the “learning organizations” described in earlier chapters. However, taking the tasks of the departments into account, the need for such efforts was not obvious. Links to external organizations are not only confined to industrial firms. Many firms, especially the large firms, would not mind if the tasks of the national patent system were moved to the EPO-level. On the other hand, in particular, small, new firms may feel more confident with a national patent office.

In this paper, we contribute to the understanding of how entrepreneurs can deploy their values to enable joint action of heterogeneous stakeholders. Such an understanding forms a critical endeavor to tackle grand challenges adequately. Building on sensegiving research, we conducted a single-case study of an entrepreneurial initiative that tackles gender inequality in Lebanon which has been successful in mobilizing heterogeneous stakeholders who ordinarily would not collaborate with each other. We find that the values of the founders were pivotal for the initiative’s success as those values activated latent values of stakeholders through processes of contextualization and enactment. We subsume these processes under the label value-driven sensegiving. As a result of value-driven sensegiving, heterogeneous stakeholders could make sense of the founders’ aspirational vision and the role they could play in it, which paved ways for tackling grand challenges collaboratively. Our study provides insights into the centrality of values for mobilizing heterogeneous stakeholders across boundaries. Therefore, it contributes to the body of work on sensegiving, societal grand challenges, and new forms of organizing.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that costs reduction is no longer a complete indication of performance and should not be attained at the expense of the firm’s sustainable social responsibility and environmental aspects. The question of whether outsourcing is a “blessing” or a “lesson” remains unresolved in the minds of practitioners and researchers alike. The literature is replete with the up- and down-sides of outsourcing, all going in different directions, making it very cumbersome particularly for practitioners to articulate when and what to outsource (if at all) and how to contain or mitigate outsourcing downsides.

Outsourcing as a two-edged sword can be value creating strategy or a firm’s soft spot. This paper focusses on the latter through a review of sourcing in two leading multinational companies: Benetton, in the fast fashion industry, and Nestlé, in the food industry.

Benetton experienced the biggest catastrophe in the garment industry, the Rana Plaza collapse. Nestlé went through the horse meat scandal, perhaps one of the most complex food crime cases in history. Both cases illustrated the strategic vulnerability that arises from the international outsourcing of production.

Clearly, production costs are no longer a complete indication of performance as the two cases unveil. Management control systems should be especially vigilant when outsourcing transfers social and environmental responsibility from one contract to another in a global business context. Monitoring costs cannot be outsourced when it comes to sustainable social responsibility and environmental aspects.

Firms can leverage relationships with stakeholder groups, activists and NGOs to help them to monitor their international operations. Institution-based trust to protect brands, increased integration and control are necessary mechanisms.

Indeed, global outsourcing in any industry should transfer not only industrial operations but also credible and responsible social and environmental benchmarks.

The purpose of this study is to examine role stress over the course of an alliance between supply chains. This study examines ambiguity as antecedent to multiple organisational outcomes.

This study subsequently uses a time series design that uses a close replication of the authors’ initial study. The design affords the opportunity to examine the dynamics associated with the evolution of the alliance.

This study recognises that the relationships developed by collaborating firms are enacted by downstream entrepreneurs in the supply chain, yet this observation is rarely incorporated into interfirm research. The authors illustrate that the alliances have a significant downstream influence on operations at the retail level.

This longitudinal research has the potential to reduce common method variance and enhance causal inference. The second limitation concerns the simultaneous collection of the predictor and criterion variables. The third limitation is the use of single informants as the primary vehicle for the analysis of the theoretical model when prior research indicates that multiple informants offer enhanced reliability and validity.

The findings contribute to the management theory of business entrepreneurship and strategic alliances and research on supply chains.

This study underscores the need to examine alliances via time series. Research that attempts to generalise from data collected at a single point in time is unlikely to be able to capture the dynamics associated with the development of a joint venture and offers limited opportunity to make inferences about the causal order of relationships. The model based on longitudinal data reveals that the stage of an alliance influences the level of vertical control and ambiguity and the effect of control on role ambiguity.

This chapter analyzes what happens to media use when everyday life is suddenly disrupted, focusing on how the COVID-19 pandemic transformed work, socializing, communication and everyday living. The empirical case is changing media use in Norway during the pandemic, building on a qualitative questionnaire survey conducted in early lockdown, and follow-up interviews eight months later. Expanding on the ideas of destabilization of media repertoires developed in the former chapter, this analysis discusses transforming media repertoires as more digital, as less mobile (but still smartphone-centric) and as essentially social. The chapter further explains new concepts for pandemic media use practices, such as doomscrolling and Zoom fatigue.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of dimensions of brand authenticity (continuity, credibility, integrity and symbolism) in the relationship between evaluations of imperfect experiences and satisfaction within a service experience context. Building on prior research arguing for the subjective evaluation of service experiences as well as for the use of signals during dynamic experiences that build a shield to protect a brand, it assumes that service experiences range across a continuum of experiential perfection/imperfection.

Two Web-based surveys, one pilot (N = 231) and one main (N = 349) have been conducted. The survey methodology was complemented by a (moderated) structural equation modelling approach taken for the data analysis.

The findings indicate that imperfect experiences in a restaurant context have a negative influence on satisfaction. Brand continuity, credibility, integrity and symbolism authenticity weaken the negative relationship between imperfect experiences and satisfaction, but this effect seems to depend on the type of experiential imperfections.

The current study provides theoretical and preliminary empirical evidence explaining how dynamic interactions with customers can impact subsequent static experiences. The authors found that the strength of the relationship between imperfect experiential elements and satisfaction does not only depend on perceived brand authenticity and does not always weaken when brand authenticity is present.

Playing online games is a highly gendered consumption activity. While female players are objectified and harassed within the gaming community, male players tend to be stigmatized through unfavorable stereotypes. More than a label of players, ‘gamer’ forms an identity that can grant membership in gaming communities. The gamer identity is defined through consumption, yet material elements have been granted a minor role within studies of gender identity in video games. Through 41 play-along interviews with children and youth aged 10–24 years, this article seeks to understand how consumption patterns shape and reinforce gender identities in games, and by which market mechanisms gendered consumption patterns are maintained. By drawing on Social Identity Theory, the findings suggest ‘legitimate’ gaming is associated with gendered expectations for the choice of gaming consoles, types of games, and in-game products. These expectations are organized within a hierarchy among players, where certain consumption patterns are assigned greater value. When female players adhere to these consumption patterns, they may face harassment and strategic disadvantages. Additionally, transactional interactions between genders and household dynamics imply female dependence. These gendered consumption patterns are encouraged and enabled through market mechanisms such as game design and marketing ideas. The findings are discussed in terms of how gendered consumption influences membership in the gaming culture and encourages the promotion of inclusion in game design and gaming platforms.