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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between capabilities and renewal of organizational and business know-how in franchise networks.

This work uses a comparative case study of adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities to investigate knowledge renewal in 16 franchise networks.

The findings show that adaptive and innovative capabilities complement each other to foster know-how renewal. Furthermore, networks without internal R&D need to mobilize adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities to renew both organizational and business know-how. The findings also highlight that the three capabilities are interconnected.

The results of this research could provide insights for franchise networks to regenerate their knowledge base and ensure their long-term survival.

The underlying capabilities that explain organizational and business know-how renewal in franchises have not been investigated.

This chapter addresses ambidexterity at the individual level. Ambidexterity is defined as a company's ability to guarantee both short- and long-term successes by simultaneously exploring new market or new technological paths and improving existing products. We demonstrate that this ability can result from the evolution of social networks linking individuals involved in idea development. We used a longitudinal approach that combined case study and social network structure analysis of the R&D center of a semiconductor company. Six cases have been selected according to the level of disruption of the first idea generated and the end result in terms of exploration and exploitation. For these six cases, data have been gathered from monthly project reviews, press articles and listings of patents. Seventy-four interviews with key actors in the idea-development process have also been conducted.We mapped the relationships between actors who have contributed to the development of the idea through creative thinking and/or helped it to be accepted both internally and externally over three-year windows. Consequently, two network pictures are drawn for each case, and network structure indicators are computed for these two representations. We created a description of network evolution and the consequences of this process on the level of disruption of the ideas involved. This research demonstrated that different network structures and types of connections are relied upon depending on the explorative or exploitative objectives of teams of individuals.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The study provides evidence of how franchise businesses integrate various capabilities to renew their business and organizational know-how.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists, and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Correspondence and other materials pertaining to Selig Perlman may be found especially in Archival Volume 8 but also in Volumes 4 and 18B. Perlman was the author of a major history and a psychologically rich interpretation of labor and trade unionism in the United States (A History of Trade Unionism in the United States, New York: Macmillan, 1922 and Theory of the Labor Movement, New York: Macmillan, 1928). Published below, thanks again to the generous cooperation and permission of his son, Mark Perlman, is further correspondence, principally from Selig Perlman to his former student, Ben Solomon Stephansky.

Andreas Al-Laham has been holding the chair for strategic and international management at the University of Mannheim since September 2009. After his studies of economics and business administration at the Technical University of Dortmund he received his PhD (1996) and Habilitation (2000) degree at the same University, Faculty of Business Administration, Chair of Strategic and International Management. From 2000 to 2002 he worked as a visiting research scholar and visiting professor for strategic management and organizational theory at the J.L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada. Afterward he became professor of international management and business policy at the University of Stuttgart. In 2004 he took a professorship of strategic management at the CASS Business School, City University of London, UK. Up till today, he is visiting professor for General Management and International Strategy. Between 2006 and 2009 he held the chair for management and international strategy at the University of Kaiserslautern. He has written several books, for example! Strategisches Management. Theoretische Grundlagen-Prozesse-Implementierung (together with M. K. Welge), Organisationales Wissensmanagement. Vahlens Handbücher der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaft, Praxis des strategischen Managements (together with M. K. Welge and P. Kajüter) and Strategieprozesse in deutschen Unternehmungen. His current research focuses on evolutionary dynamics in the German biotech-industry, alliances and network dynamics as well as the internationalization of SME.

In the so-called digital age, there is a basic assumption that digitalization entails rapid and dramatic change in schools, education and society. However, a challenge for educational research is to clarify what digitalization precisely means. This paper aims to develop, test, and validate a digital transformation scale (DTS). More specifically, the aim is to validate digitization, digitalization and digital transformation as hierarchical levels of sociocultural learning in school and education by using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as a framework.

An exploratory factor analysis (EFA), with principal-axis factoring as an extraction method, was used to examine the number of factors underlying the data.

Results show that the three dimensions in the DTS questionnaire explain 68% of the variance and that all dimensions show high internal consistency (a >0.87). This means that the internal structure of the DTS corresponded to the internal structure of the theory.

The results show that the internal structure of the DTS corresponded to the internal structure of the theory and may be used quantitatively to analyze digital transformation in school organizations. However, further research is needed in other contexts and larger samples with the use of confirmatory factor analysis to develop knowledge in this area and the use of DTS.

This tool and theoretical construction could be used to discuss digital transformation in school and education, both local and in general. Seeing digitalization from a sociocultural perspective makes possible to conceptualize and discuss this as a process ranging from small technology investments on an individual level to digitalization as strategic and organizational development.

This DTS can be used quantitatively to study and analyze digital transformation in educational contexts and provides educational researchers with additional tools to articulate what they mean by digitalization.

The purpose of this paper revolves around the informal coming together of various doctoral students in the area of qualitative accounting and management research and the attempt to learn from their respective experiences. Together, the authors share personal reflections and valuable insights in revealing their vulnerabilities, aspirations and how they make sense of the PhD journey and their becoming as academics.

This paper builds on an open discussion and written reflections among the authors, who represent a diverse set of both doctoral students at various levels and recent graduates from different countries, schools and backgrounds.

The discussion highlights the struggles the authors experience as doctoral students, how they learn to cope with them as well as how they are socialized throughout their PhD journey. This allows them to take a critical stance towards increased productivity demands in academia and to embrace doctoral students as a powerful collective, whose aspirations may inspire a change of academic reality for the better.

While guidance on how to succeed as doctoral students is common, we seldom hear about doctoral students as particularly “fragile selves” (Knights and Clarke, 2014) who, as opposed to more established scholars, are more actively experiencing difficulties with finding their ways in academia. The authors are thus motivated to create a rare common voice of a group of doctoral students here by providing a more intimate account of the PhD journey.