Christian Zabel and Daniel O’Brien
The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the role of dynamic capabilities, specifically the sequence of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities, in highly…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the role of dynamic capabilities, specifically the sequence of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities, in highly uncertain, emerging technology environments. Focusing on the extended reality industry, the study aims to understand the antecedents to these dynamic capabilities, their sequential nature, and their subsequent impact on innovation and company performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a survey of 130 German companies in the extended reality sector, we built a structural equation model that explores the relationship between dynamic capabilities, their antecedents, and their effect on innovation and company performance.
Findings
The analysis suggests that sensing capabilities positively influence seizing and transforming capabilities, while seizing directly contributes to transforming. Transforming capabilities are linked to improved innovation performance, which in turn boosts company performance. Organizational ambidexterity, market orientation, and technology orientation are found to be crucial antecedents, accounting for 33.1% of the variance in sensing capabilities.
Originality/value
This research illuminates the interdependence of dynamic capabilities in highly uncertain business environments, such as emerging technology markets. It contributes original insights by elucidating the sequential nature of dynamic capabilities and identifying their vital antecedents. It also enlarges the understanding of how dynamic capabilities impact firms’ innovation performance.
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This paper is the first to use the individual level, longitudinal catch-up growth of boys and girls in a historical population to measure their relative deprivation. The data is…
Abstract
This paper is the first to use the individual level, longitudinal catch-up growth of boys and girls in a historical population to measure their relative deprivation. The data is drawn from two government schools, the Marcella Street Home (MSH) in Boston, MA (1889–1898), and the Ashford School of the West London School District (1908–1917). The paper provides an extensive discussion of the two schools including the characteristics of the children, their representativeness, selection bias and the conditions in each school. It also provides a methodological introduction to measuring children’s longitudinal catch-up growth. After analysing the catch-up growth of boys and girls in the schools, it finds that there were no substantial differences between the catch-up growth by gender. Thus, these data suggest that there were not major health disparities between boys and girls in late-nineteenth-century America and early-twentieth-century Britain.
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Wenqing Li, Nathan Petek and Hassan Faghani
When products are differentiated, applying the standard critical loss formula to assess whether it is profitable for a hypothetical monopolist to impose a common price increase…
Abstract
When products are differentiated, applying the standard critical loss formula to assess whether it is profitable for a hypothetical monopolist to impose a common price increase can lead to delineating an antitrust market that is too broad by setting a critical loss threshold that is too low. This error is particularly likely to occur when the products exhibit very different per-unit profits, own price elasticities, and cross price elasticities. In particular, different per-unit profits are a necessary condition for this error to occur and this difference is more likely to be driven by an asymmetry in prices than by an asymmetry in costs when own price elasticities are moderate in magnitude. In contrast, differences in the quantity sold of each product do not tend to lead to errors in market definition. Given the issues associated with the standard critical loss analysis, critical loss analysis with asymmetric price increases and the gross upward pricing pressure index are practical alternative approaches for conducting market definition analysis when products in a candidate market are differentiated.
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G.D. Janaki Ram, C. Robinson, Y. Yang and B.E. Stucker
Ultrasonic consolidation (UC) is a novel additive manufacturing process developed for fabrication of metallic parts from foils. While the process has been well demonstrated for…
Abstract
Purpose
Ultrasonic consolidation (UC) is a novel additive manufacturing process developed for fabrication of metallic parts from foils. While the process has been well demonstrated for part fabrication in Al alloy 3003, some of the potential strengths of the process have not been fully explored. One of them is its suitability for fabrication of parts in multi‐materials. This work aims to examine this aspect.
Design/methodology/approach
Multi‐material UC experiments were conducted using Al alloy 3003 foils as the bulk part material together with a number of engineering materials (foils of Al‐Cu alloy 2024, Ni‐base alloy Inconel 600® AISI 347 stainless steel, and others). Deposit microstructures were studied to evaluate bonding between various materials.
Findings
It was found that most of the materials investigated can be successfully bonded to alloy Al 3003 and vice versa. SiC fibers and stainless wire meshes were successfully embedded in an Al 3003 matrix. The results suggest that the UC process is quite suitable for fabrication of multi‐material structures, including fiber‐reinforced metal matrix composites.
Originality/value
This work systematically examines the multi‐material capability of the UC process. The findings of this work lay a strong foundation for a wider and more efficient commercial utilization of the process.
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Michael L. Miozza and David C. Wyld
This article explores the growing rise of behaviour‐based safety programmes in the workplace as a means of preventing on‐the‐job injuries. In it, the authors delve into the…
Abstract
This article explores the growing rise of behaviour‐based safety programmes in the workplace as a means of preventing on‐the‐job injuries. In it, the authors delve into the history of both incentive‐based and behaviour based safety programmes, exploring the administrative, political, and practical issues involved with each. The authors then present an analysis of a survey conducted of over a hundred practicing safety executives in the United States. While no significant differences were found between survey respondents based on the size or nature of their organisation, the authors did find that tenure on the job was positively correlated with increased receptiveness to the efficacy of behaviour‐based programmes. In the end, it was concluded that success with both behaviour‐based and incentive‐based safety efforts are dependent on top management’s support of such efforts, both through personal involvement and example setting and through provision of the necessary organisational resources to promote workplace safety.
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The wastage that occurs owing to defective knowledge of the conditions affecting the quality of fruit carried in refrigerating chambers on board ship, and the attempts which are…
Abstract
The wastage that occurs owing to defective knowledge of the conditions affecting the quality of fruit carried in refrigerating chambers on board ship, and the attempts which are being made to solve the problems involved, formed the subject of a joint contribution to the Section of Engineering by Dr. Ezer Griffiths and Mr. Edgar A. Griffiths.
This paper seeks to explore how workers engage in informal online communities for work‐learning. Although online communities may facilitate learning and knowledge creation, much…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to explore how workers engage in informal online communities for work‐learning. Although online communities may facilitate learning and knowledge creation, much of the literature is situated in formal online courses, suggesting a need to better understand the nuances of more informal learning spaces online.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 11 own‐account self‐employed workers (contractors and consultants who do not have staff).
Findings
Participants engaged in ways that fit with expectations, leveraged fluidity, played with boundaries, and meshed with work. These workers attempted to (re)configure online spaces to create the degree of connection and learning needed, although not always successfully. This study explores how participants participated in much less pedagogically inscribed spaces and foregrounds several issues related to online engagement: managing exposure, force‐feeding community, and navigating multi‐purpose spaces.
Research limitations/implications
There are indications that these workers are moving toward more networked architectures of online participation. How the notion of online community continues to evolve warrants further research.
Practical implications
Although turning to an online community is sometimes the only viable learning option, online presence brings challenges to be addressed by practitioners and policy makers, including attending to the nature of relationships in and between different cyberspaces, information and media literacies required, and the implications of such extensive connectivity between people and their web‐technologies.
Originality/value
By exploring how adults reach out to others in “informal” online communities for learning purposes, this paper encourages researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and citizens to consider tensions and questions associated with cyberspace collectives.
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In US political reporting, the top story has become the public opinion polls that purport to state the voters’ evaluations of potential candidates, current office holders or the…
Abstract
Purpose
In US political reporting, the top story has become the public opinion polls that purport to state the voters’ evaluations of potential candidates, current office holders or the impact of current events. Many politicians, in turn, often develop their campaign positions in response to the polls. This discussion aims to address how year after year, despite increasing spending by news organizations to predict election results, the polls are repeatedly unable to predict election outcomes. Excuses are made, while the misuse and misunderstanding of marketing research spreads to other types of public organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Points out the contradictions between public opinion polling predictions of election results and actual events, with explanations of the usually unstated qualitative limitations to survey data.
Findings
Qualitative research bias could have a greater impact on outcomes than statistical margins of error, although it is only the latter that is reported or discussed by the news media.
Practical implications
This abuse and misuse of marketing research lowers the credibility of all marketing research, and the people in marketing research, should speak out. The pollsters want to keep their methods as having a mystical value as they sell their research information to the public and other data users. At worst, this is a misleading selling of marketing insight to the public and research experts should start to speak out, encouraging journalists to report more properly the reality of public opinion polls.
Originality/value
The popular metaphor of public opinion polls has been to call them a “snapshot” of public views. This offers a more realistic metaphor of survey data, an impressionistic painting that is influenced by numerous researchers or respondent biases that cannot be controlled.