Business faces formidable challenges in the 1990s. With thesechallenges will come greater requirements for relevant marketinformation, quality offerings, increased productivity…
Abstract
Business faces formidable challenges in the 1990s. With these challenges will come greater requirements for relevant market information, quality offerings, increased productivity, leadership, and consumer orientation. As new technology and computers are designed to help meet the ever‐increasing information needs of society, personal, professional, and industrial consumers will search for better ways to identify the computers and related high‐tech products which will enable them to meet their individual and organizational needs. In this search, consumers will look for traditional brand name recognition of new products, user friendliness, functionability, and product positioning that meets their individual expectations. Examines the emergence of brands in the marketing of computers and related high‐tech products so as to explore the trends of developments in this vital area.
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Edward Crowley, Jamie Burton and Judith Zolkiewski
This paper aims to investigate the role of servitization intent in the servitization process, and specifically the role dissonance (at an organizational level) in servitization…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the role of servitization intent in the servitization process, and specifically the role dissonance (at an organizational level) in servitization intent can play in creating barriers to the servitization effort. Servitization intent is defined as the desire to achieve a future state of increased servitization.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses elite interviews and secondary data to explore servitization intent and its role during the servitization process. It examines the resistance to change resulting from a misalignment of the executive intent to servitize, and the organizational intent to retain the existing manufacturing business model. By encompassing data from companies representing a significant portion of the total industry (as measured by revenue), the study provides an industry level perspective of servitization intent and alignment.
Findings
Servitization intent and three key managerial challenges related to servitization intent that act as barriers to servitization were identified: lack of servitization intent, overcoming the manufacturing mindset associated with the organizational intent and the constraints resulting from managerial experience. Servitization intent and its associated managerial challenges were present at an industry level with consistent findings being shown across the major firms in the industry studied. A number of managerial strategies for overcoming these barriers were identified.
Research limitations/implications
The research focuses on a single industry; the findings, potentially, have application across a broad range of industries.
Practical implications
A key management implication from these findings is the need for a clear understanding of the organizational intent in relation to servitization in addition to the need to bring this organizational intent in alignment with the executives’ servitization intent.
Originality/value
This research makes a contribution by identifying the misalignment between servitization intent in different levels of the organization during the servitization process and the mechanisms that can improve alignment and help effect servitization.
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Marcia Annisette and Philip O'Regan
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence and endurance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) as an all‐Ireland body formed in the context of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence and endurance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) as an all‐Ireland body formed in the context of political and religious upheaval. It seeks to explore the motives for the north‐south accounting alliance and the strategies adopted by the institute to negotiate the destructive and divisive forces of the wider socio‐political environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A multitude of archival material is used to reconstruct the post‐formation activities of the ICAI. Sources were drawn from: the ICAI archive in Dublin: Minute Books 1 and 2 covering the period from 1888 to 1921, Annual Reports, 1888‐1922; minute books of other contemporary English accountancy bodies; contemporary professional press and census records stored at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast.
Findings
The early ICAI was an overwhelmingly Protestant/Unionist dominated body seeking to maintain Protestant hegemony at a time when the power of this class was being gradually eroded. Cognizant of the likely vulnerability of such a body existing in the catholic‐nationalist south, and the need to strengthen such a position through a northern alliance, the ICAI from its inception was envisaged by its southern architects as an all Ireland institution. The fact that there were only a relatively small number of members acted as an inducement, particularly for Protestant members, to maintain unity.
Originality/value
The professionalization of accountancy in Ireland has been relatively under‐researched and the debates about the diffusion of the English professional model have virtually bypassed it.
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Maike Andresen, Vesa Suutari, Sara Louise Muhr, Cordula Barzantny and Michael Dickmann
Marian Crowley-Henry, Edward P. O'Connor and Blanca Suarez-Bilbao
This micro-level study unpacks the recruitment and retention of international professionals to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study highlights the influence of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This micro-level study unpacks the recruitment and retention of international professionals to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study highlights the influence of the founders' international experience when applying organisational-level (meso) policies and practices. With their insider experience as skilled migrants, we share how the founders in each of the SMEs mobilised career capital into human resource management (HRM) strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
Combining literature on SMEs and skilled migrants' careers, we draw upon intelligent career theory to illuminate the recruitment and retention of self-initiated expatriates and skilled migrants in SMEs. With three SME case studies as samples–one micro, one small and one medium-sized organisation in Ireland–we consider the influence of the founders' international experience in the design and application of formal and informal HRM strategies (at the organisational level) that are operationalised to recruit and retain international talent to/in these organisations.
Findings
The HRM practices in the three SME cases in this paper, each run by migrant founders, vary from formalised (for our medium-sized organisation), semi-formalised (for our small-sized organisation) to ad hoc and tailor-made (for our micro-sized organisation). These particular SMEs were often more receptive to hiring other migrants. The important role of the three SME case studies' skilled migrant founders and their own international career experiences was apparent in the particular HRM approaches they adopted. The relevance of intelligent career theory when applying micro-level findings at the meso-organisational level is shown.
Originality/value
The paper presents how the international experience of founder–managers, in turn, impacts on the HRM practices and policies that are implemented to recruit and retain international employees. The study highlights how both organisation size and founder-manager international experience influence the degree of customisation of HRM practices and policies in SMEs, specifically pertaining to the recruitment and retention of self-initiated expatriates and skilled migrant employees. The heterogeneity within the sub-categories encompassed under the umbrella label of SME is emphasised; validating our case study approach, where nuance and detail of the specific organisation can be shared.
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Blanca Suarez-Bilbao, Maike Andresen, Marian Crowley-Henry and Edward P. O'Connor
Externalities influence the career trajectories of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and their respective career crafting. This study aims to explore the international career…
Abstract
Purpose
Externalities influence the career trajectories of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and their respective career crafting. This study aims to explore the international career crafting of SIEs (encompassing their proactive career reflection and construction), taking the combined external influences of complexity, chance and change into consideration.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a qualitative (interpretative) approach, combining career crafting and the chaos theory of careers (CTC) to further understand, from an individual standpoint, the impact of externalities on the career crafting strategies of 24 SIEs who have relocated within the European Union.
Findings
The authors show that SIEs' proactively craft their careers to varying degrees and with varying frequency. The CTC – incorporating complexity, chance and change – allows for a more nuanced understanding of SIEs' career crafting.
Originality/value
This paper applies the concept of career crafting to an international context, exploring the impact of externalities on SIEs' careers. In this way, the authors combine two previously separate theories, extend the application of career crafting to an international career context and emphasise the role of temporality and the whole-life view of career in SIEs’ career crafting approach.
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The purpose of this conceptual article is to examine the role of villainification and heroification in social studies through critically analyzing the author’s place-based…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this conceptual article is to examine the role of villainification and heroification in social studies through critically analyzing the author’s place-based encounters with three civil war narratives.
Design/methodology/approach
The article describes the author’s critical reflections on three narratives involving confederate figures and examines theoretical and pedagogical implications.
Findings
The article introduces a spectrum of ethical judgments which plots villainification and heroification on opposing ends. The author advocates for more nuanced ethical judgments that contextualize decisions as understandable or defensible based on evidence. The term understandable reflects a concept of being able to explain (i.e. demonstrate understanding) why a curricular figure made certain choices without agreeing with or supporting those choices. The term defensible denotes the existence of evidence that provides a rationale for a choice such that the person making the ethical judgment would feel comfortable making (i.e. defending) the same choice.
Originality/value
The article introduces a theory of nuanced ethical judgments in social studies that maps onto existing literature on heroification, villainification and place-based education. Pedagogical implications for social studies education are also identified.
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Michael Szenberg, Aron A. Gottesman and Lall Ramrattan
To assess not how Samuelson's individual models contributed to human knowledge but the very true foundation on which they rest, namely, sound theory, facts, and philosophy.
Abstract
Purpose
To assess not how Samuelson's individual models contributed to human knowledge but the very true foundation on which they rest, namely, sound theory, facts, and philosophy.
Design/methodology/approach
This article has placed Samuelson as a philosopher seeking the truth, and as a theoretical contributor to the many sub‐disciplines of economics.
Findings
Shows that his truths bear the evidence of reality, and that his theoretical contributions are not different in kind from the logical theorists. Demonstrates how easily one could formulate a Samuelsonian impossibility theorem that places his thought on the level of the mathematical research started by Hilbert and concluded by Kurt Godel.
Originality/value
The literature that has assessed his contributions in this regard is fragmented, and myopically sparse, leaving gaps to be filled in by a paper such as this.
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Jerome J. Crowley Sr., chairman of The O'Brien Corporation, South San Francisco, Calif., recently died. He was 77 years old.