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The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with attempting to maintain a healthy traditional diet for newcomers living in the North End neighbourhood of Winnipeg, Canada.

In this mixed-methods photovoice study the researcher used food photographs taken by participants to facilitate in-depth, semi-structured interviews with newcomers living in the area of interest. Community workers involved in food and newcomer programming were also interviewed. Qualitative data from the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Food security status of newcomer participants was also determined using The Household Food Security Survey Module.

Newcomer participants reported many struggles, including low incomes, gardening challenges and little access to culturally acceptable foods. Community worker interviews, field notes and an environmental scan of community resources also revealed a lack of social inclusion/support and few food and nutrition resources for newcomers.

Newcomers to Canada experience high rates of food insecurity and diminishing health status associated with length of time in Canada. This study demonstrates an imminent need for additional resources and programmes in this inner city community in order to decrease food security rates and help newcomers in Winnipeg to eat healthy traditional diets and avoid a decline in health.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the specific ways in which market orientation of an organization contributes to the creation of organizational competencies that lead to superior performance.

Survey data from 159 acute care hospitals were statistically analyzed to test the research hypotheses.

Market orientation makes a significant contribution to the creation of a number of organizational competencies which, in turn, lead to superior performance in the areas of cost containment, growth in revenue, success in retaining patients, and success of new services.

Given the changing competitive landscape in the health care industry, managers of these organizations are increasingly being forced to recognize organizational competencies so that they can leverage them for market success. A set of competencies leads to the organization becoming market orientated. Market orientation, in turn, leads to organizational success in a variety of areas.

Since Shapiro’s vexed question, “What the hell is market‐orientated?” several marketing scholars have revamped their concepts and found empirical evidence to demonstrate the superior performance of firms closest to their new prescriptions. This paper questions the ontology of market orientation and the evidence used to support it. It also challenges supporters of market orientation to show why it would be in the social interests to adopt it, even if their arugments concerning its efficacy were to be accepted.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

Senior dietician Moira Slater BSc, SRD describes how a dedicated and enthusiastic team improved the quality of life among elderly patients by introducing healthy eating with a novel approach

Prior research has argued that business practices within English football clubs are amateurish and outdated due to the comparatively small size of clubs and the restrictive nature of the cartel-like industry they compete in. But is this true for large EPL clubs (i.e. those with high market valuation and large number of employees)? Do these clubs have the ability to pursue alternative business strategies, and if so, do their organizational structures, cultures, and behavioral norms support the strategic directions they have chosen to pursue? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper evaluates survey responses from 35 executives and business managers within three large EPL clubs. The study utilizes previously validated scales to examine issues of organizational structure, culture, and behavioral norms.

Despite operating within a closed industry, large EPL clubs are not all pursuing identical business strategies. Consistent with contingency theory, the organizational structure, culture, and behavioral norms of large EPL clubs are, for the most part, in line with what the authors would expect to find in successful, large conventional product or service businesses. However, all of the clubs included in this study appear to be following hybrid models each demonstrating characteristics of several alternative competitive strategies simultaneously.

This initial study is limited to responses from 35 business executives and managers within three EPL clubs.

Although EPL clubs operate within a cartel-like industry, this study shows that business managers within these clubs do have a degree of latitude in choosing between alternative competitive strategies. In order to successfully implement a chosen strategy, business managers must insure that the organizational structure, culture, and behavioral norms within the club’s business group are aligned with the overarching objectives of that strategic choice.

Grounded in open systems and contingency theory, the authors challenge the conventional wisdom that because large clubs are in the business of sport they are somehow fundamentally different from other large businesses.