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What is your company's customer retention rate? How many customers are price defectors? Have you identified barriers that prevent customers from switching to a competitor? In this article, the author outlines a game plan to increase customer retention.

Most service companies do not measure or monitor quality on a regular basis. Like manufacturers, they should standardize their product—service quality—to attain a competitive advantage.

There is a game of chance played in corporate boardrooms that would intimidate even the most seasoned Las Vegas high roller. The players know the odds of success are low, but they keep at it because the game is the most exciting and honorable one around. The game is corporate venturing.

National and organizational innovation is currently at the forefront of media discussion and is viewed as critical to economic development. While the argument for investment is universal, how it should be orchestrated is uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to bring together the three major related components of information and communication technology (ICT), knowledge management processes (KMP) and innovation, to explore empirically the constituents of ICT and KMP that improve innovation within Australian enterprises.

The method is a quantitative survey of 148 industry managers. The data was refined through confirmatory factor analysis. The hypotheses were evaluated by regression equations and parameter estimates. The findings were identified by the magnitude of the effect sizes.

The study’s evidence illuminated how specific components of ICT and KMP impact on particular aspects of innovation. The findings indicate key emerging relationships and then propose a conceptual model validated by the analysis of the survey evidence. The study identifies that investment in ICT and KMP has a positive impact on innovation performance. A particular finding is that information or data capture technologies have the most significant positive consequence for innovation.

The modeling can be used by managers as a guide to mapping ICT and KMP to specific innovation outcomes. In a modified form, it could be applied as a self-assessment instrument for managers in organizations.

This is a valuable addition to current literature, as it is unique in bringing these three key components together, confirming their instrumental impact, and indicating the differentiated investment strategies that can be implemented to achieve specific and unique innovation agendas. In addition, some refined constructs, which were developed as part of this study, provide a pre-tested, validated survey instrument for further research.

This paper develops an instrument of organizational agility. The instrument is utilized to assess the extent to which Ras Al Khaimah government agencies have adopted agility and to examine its impact on the achievement of strategic outcomes and employee satisfaction.

The dimensions of agility are determined using factor analysis. The reliability of the dimensions is tested based on the Cronbach alpha coefficient, while the predictive validity of the instrument is assessed using correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. The extent to which Ras Al Khaimah government agencies adopted the dimensions of agility is assessed using one-sided T-test, and the difference between the levels of adoption of the dimensions is determined using one-way ANOVA. The relationships between agility the dependent variables of achieving strategic outcomes and employee satisfaction are assessed using multiple linear regression.

The paper determined two valid and reliable dimensions of organizational agility, namely leadership and strategic sensitivity and resource fluidity. Culture, a third reliable dimension found through factor analysis was found to influence agility indirectly. Government agencies have adopted the two dimensions that are found to increase the achievement of strategic outcomes and employee satisfaction.

This paper provides a valid and reliable measure for assessing organizational agility. This measure includes both enablers and capabilities. It adds to the limited empirical research on agility, particularly in the Arab world. The paper focused on local government agencies and its findings may not be applicable in other sectors.

The measure can serve as an effective agility self-assessment tool for organizations, enabling them to identify areas for improvement and specific practices they need to adopt to enhance their agility. This, in turn, allows them to become more responsive to changes, achieve strategic outcomes and improve employee satisfaction.

This paper has important research and practical implications. It provides a valid and reliable measure of organizational agility with both enablers and capabilities. This measure can help organizations become agile and achieve higher strategic outcomes and employee satisfaction.

Military organizations participating in current expeditionary missions face new challenge associated with dilemmas common to asymmetric warfare. Apart from dilemmas faced by local government, populations, and organizations, military organizations struggle with their task environment, performance, and main and supportive processes. Complementing doctrinal innovations in this area, the chapter proposes a generic model linking these processes to value creation, and it examines specific changes introduced by asymmetric warfare. Notable changes include the increasingly dialectic, constructivist, and discordant nature of organizational processes. Moreover, asymmetric warfare challenges singular definitions of military organizations' and their members' professional identity, and demands ongoing, in-depth learning.

Drawing on resource orchestration theory, this paper aims to empirically investigate the relationships between digital transformation (DT), triple-A supply chain capabilities (i.e. agility, adaptability and alignment) and sustainable performance. The research focuses on the pharmaceutical industry, which best represents a business environment characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Data were collected at different echelons of a globally oriented pharmaceutical supply chain, with the focal company located in the Netherlands. Empirical data were analyzed with partial least squares – structural equation modelling.

The findings reveal that DT enhances the triple-A supply chain capabilities. Nevertheless, not all three capabilities are necessary to improve overall sustainable performance. The results highlight that, among the three, only supply chain agility and adaptability significantly mediate the relationship between DT and sustainable performance.

This research supports the literature affirming that not all the triple-A supply chain capabilities equally affect sustainable performance. Moreover, it deepens the understanding of how orchestrating the triple-A capabilities at a firm level fosters overall sustainable performance, facing resource scarcity and investments in DT.

The vulnerability of customers to malware attacks through weak supplier links has prompted a need for collaboration as a strategic alternative in improving supply chain cybersecurity (SCC). Current studies overlook the fact that the effectiveness of cybersecurity strategies is dependent on the form of interfirm relationship mechanisms within which supply chain digital assets are embedded. This paper analyses the association between interfirm collaborative cybersecurity management capabilities (ICCMC) and cybersecurity parameters across a supply chain and proposes an agenda for future research.

A systematic literature review (SLR) is conducted, employing text mining software to analyse content extracted from 137 scholarly articles on SCC from January 2013 to January 2022.

The co-occurrence analysis strongly confirms the potential of ICCMC to reinforce SCC. Furthermore, we establish that relational factors could have multiple roles: as antecedents for ICCMC, and as factors that directly affect SCC parameters. The analysis reveals knowledge gaps in SCC theory grounding, including a fragmented and sparse representation of SCC parameters and the potential presence of an omitted variable – SCC – that could improve subsequent testing of causal relationships for theory development.

The paper’s contribution is at the intersection of interfirm collaboration and mandating cybersecurity requirements across a supply chain. Our paper contributes to closing a social-technical gap by introducing social aspects such as the Relational View and the importance of developing ICCMC to reinforce SCC. We offer a method for testing co-occurrences in SLRs, a comprehensive definition of SCC, and a framework with propositions for future research on increasing the effectiveness of collaborative cybersecurity management. We position collaboration as a necessary condition for the transition from cybersecurity of a firm to cybersecurity across a supply chain, and its ecosystem.

There is an increasing interest in the supply chain’s digitalization, yet the topic is still in the preliminary stages of academic research. The academic literature has no consensus and is still limited to research assessing the supply chain’s digitalization of organizations. This study aims to explore the supply chain digitalization drivers to understand the emerging phenomena. More specifically, the authors devised from the literature the most common factors in assessing the readiness in scaling supply chain digitalization.

This study followed a five-phased systematic literature review (SLR) methodology in this research: designing, analyzing, conducting, writing and assessing the quality of the review. The SLR is beneficial for justifying future research regardless of the complex process that requires dealing with high-level databases, information filtering and relevancies of the content. Through analysis of 347 titles and abstracts and 40 full papers, the authors showed and discussed the supply chain digitalization: transformation factors.

The results generated three main themes: technology, people and processes. The study also generated ten subthemes/primary drivers for assessing the readiness for supply chain digitalization in organizations: IT infrastructure, cybersecurity systems, digitalization reskilling and upskilling, digitalization culture, top management support, digitalization and innovation strategy, integrated supply chain, digital innovation management, big data management and data analytics and government regulations. The importance of each factor was discussed, and future research agenda was presented.

While the key drivers of the supply chain digitalization were identified, there is still a need to study the statistical correlation to confirm the interrelationships among factors. This study is also limited by the articles available in the databases and content extraction.

This study supports decision-makers in understanding the critical drivers in digitalizing the supply chain. Once these factors are studied and comprehended, managers and decision-makers could better anticipate and allocate the proper resources to embark on the digitalization journey and make informed decisions.

The digitalization of the supply chain is more critical nowadays due to the global disruptions caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the surge of organizations moving toward the digital economy. There is a gap between the digital transformation pilot studies and implementation. The themes and factors unearthed in this study will serve as a foundation and guidelines for further theoretical research and practical implications.