Search results

This paper aims to focus on the challenges and characteristics of innovation performance measurement in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study is exploratory-descriptive and uses mixed-method research. Quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting data are used.

The paper contributes to the current understanding of innovation performance measurement by clarifying how this measurement is used and by defining what must be improved.

Appropriate measures can contribute to a significantly better understanding of innovation. However, studies on how innovation performance measurement is used in practice are scarce. The current state of knowledge of performance measurement in SMEs seems to be limited to studying SMEs from traditional performance measurement perspectives.

Work environments are undergoing a transition and COVID-19 accelerated this change. Prior studies have associated various physical, digital and social work environment elements with occupational well-being. However, holistic approaches to the social work environment to compare the effects of the different elements have received less attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of various social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being. The findings help organizations design their work environments and cultures for the post-COVID era.

The study builds on a quantitative survey with 1,057 respondents. The respondents were randomly selected, the answers were anonymous and the results were based on regression analysis.

The analysis indicated that working methods and practices, leadership and management practices, organizational communality and social interaction associate with hybrid worker well-being. Organizational values, reward systems and organizational structures yield no association with hybrid worker well-being.

The value of this paper is in that it investigates elements of the social work environment, presents a research model that examines the relationship of social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being and provides new empirical data on their implications in a comparative manner.

The purpose of this paper is to define measures that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can use for evaluating continuous innovation and to analyze types of SMEs, according to the innovation measures they use and their characteristics in terms of size and operational and financial performance.

The data were gathered with the help of a structured survey questionnaire from a cross-section of firms in both the manufacturing and service sectors in Finland. The data were analyzed in terms of factor and cluster analyses.

Three measures of continuous innovation and three types of SMEs were defined based on their continuous innovation measures. It was found that firms using all three types of innovation measures also register above-average financial and operational performance compared to those that do not.

This study attempts to improve the precision of performance measurement and the management of continuous innovation in firms by expanding and refining existing measurement guidelines and principles. In particular, this work approaches the subject of continuous innovation measurement from the standpoint of SMEs.

This study aims to investigate three relevant antecedents of digital transformation (digital orientation, digital intensity and digital maturity) and their influences on the financial success of companies.

Building on the strategic management and digital transformation literature, five hypotheses are developed to find the relationships between these antecedents and financial success.

Digital orientation and digital intensity alone do not contribute to the financial success of companies. Specifically, digital intensity serves as a negative moderator between digital orientation and financial success, meaning that it reduces the performance effects of digital orientation. Digital maturity acts as a mediator between digital orientation and the financial success of companies and between digital intensity and the financial success of companies.

This research contributes to the literature on strategic management and digital transformation by providing a further understanding of three relevant antecedents of digital transformation (digital orientation, digital intensity and digital maturity) and how they should be positioned alongside digital transformation settings to achieve financial success.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the connections between the capabilities of suppliers, buyer operations and the innovation performance of buyers in service-based supply chains. In particular, the authors use a construct of supplier capabilities comprising the capabilities needed to produce an online store and divided into capabilities related to the product, capabilities related to service delivery and capabilities related to the buyer-supplier relationship.

Data were collected with cross-sectional, random sampling from Finnish companies that have an active online store. A survey was used to collect data on managerial assessments of capabilities of a supplier, the operations of buyers and the innovation performance of buyers. Multiple regressions were used to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that capabilities related to the buyer-supplier relationship are positively connected with the innovation performance of the buyer, but those related to the product and service delivery do not significantly influence the innovation performance of the buyer. The results show that the moderating influence of buyer operations on the relationship between capabilities related to the product and the innovation performance of the buyer is negative. The moderating influence of buyer operations on the relationship between capabilities related to service delivery and the innovation performance of the buyer is positive.

Forming tight relationships with online store suppliers appears to be a successful way to attain innovation performance for online store operators. Online store operators should not expect supplier capabilities related to online store functionality and characteristics of online store delivery alone to improve their innovation performance.

Few studies use an e-business operations model to comprehend the role played by supplier capabilities in buyer innovation performance in service-based supply chains. Building on a resource-based view with inter-organizational management and e-business literature streams, the authors focus on three supplier capabilities and buyer operations to investigate their effects in terms of enhancing innovation performance.

This study aims to focus on the connection between digital business strategy and performance measurement and management (PMM).

The implications of digital business strategy and its dimensions with regard to PMM were investigated through a survey. The survey questionnaire provided 202 valid cases with a focus on senior management of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Strategic dimensions were identified from the literature on management in the context of digitalization to build a theoretical framework that highlights the mechanisms that companies should focus on when managing and implementing digital technologies successfully.

The aspects that comprise digital business strategy are grouped into five major dimensions: technological understanding, goals, resources, management and responsibilities. The study reveals a direct and positive relationship between goals and management related to digital business strategy and PMM.

The study contributes to the existing PMM literature in the context of digitalization.

The results indicate that if a company has excellent goals and management with regard to its digital business strategy, it uses PMM in a more successful and effective way.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to examine PMM in terms of managing digital business strategy by trying to determine the extent to which the elements of digital business strategy can be integrated effectively into PMM.

Work environments are undergoing a transformation where organizations have various spatial solutions at their disposal. However, organizations may have challenges in making the right decisions in a work environment change, when the spatial solution is only one dimension of the work environment. The purpose of this paper is to approach this problem in a holistic way and explain the relationship between work environment changes and the development of organizational performance in the activity-based work (ABW) environment.

The results are based on an extensive quantitative survey involving 471 participants. The survey was theory driven and built on former literature. The participants were randomly collected from the largest cities in Finland, and the data were analyzed with a regression analysis.

The results showed that ABW environments require no more attention to the different work environment dimensions when compared to other office types, with the exception of the social work environment; the changes of which have a relatively strong relationship with the development of organizational well-being. In the ABW environment, a change in the physical work environment has a stronger relationship with the development of organizational productivity and a change in the social work environment has a stronger relationship with the development of organizational well-being than a change in the other work environment dimensions.

This study yields empirical evidence of the relationship of physical, digital and social work environment changes with the development of organizational performance in the ABW environment. The value of this paper is that it offers a simple but holistic research model to distinguish the outcomes between the different work environment dimensions so that relevant expertise is applied to take concrete and targeted action.

Nowadays, maintenance companies form networks, where multiple organizations and actors can deliver value to the customers. Current literature does not take into account how the value created by the entire network can be measured. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap by identifying how the value created by the maintenance network as well as the participating individual organization can be measured simultaneously.

The research has been carried out using the qualitative research approach. The findings of the study are based on literature search as well as research processes carried out in two maintenance service networks.

The study presents a framework and propositions on how to measure network value in maintenance services. According to the results, the network value can be measured from the following five perspectives: financial capital, i.e., savings or growth; end customer capital such as the end customer satisfaction and recommending customers; network capital, i.e., know-how development and learning; sustainable capital such as business continuity and environmental safety; and relationship capital, such as reputation and new contacts.

Despite the increasing amount of literature on performance measurement in networks, theory is still lacking that reflects the complexity and dynamism when value is delivered to customers through maintenance networks. Significant novelty of the research is based on combining network, service, and value perspectives in performance measurement.

The purpose is to examine the connection between leadership and its proximal and distal outcomes on employee, team and organization-level outcomes. As a more practical endeavor, a leadership measurement is constructed and validated.

The study takes a quantitative approach, statistically analyzing 301 online survey responses to a survey of leader attributes and their organizational impacts.

This study shows that the impact of leadership is associated more with actionable behaviors than personality traits. More specifically, leader success leans on leader dependability, management mode, emotive skills and coaching style, which relate to organizational outcomes. Additionally, preventative conflict management belongs to immediate supervisory foci, whereas already escalated conflicts ought to be outsourced to e.g. HR. Further, the findings verify that management is even more about communication than previously understood. Interestingly, employee satisfaction does not predict willingness to stay and is therefore irrelevant as a predictor of employee retention. This verifies the role of satisfaction as a proximal outcome and a post-goal state. Finally, the role of psychological safety is incoherent and equivocal in relation to organizational outcomes.

As a practical ramification, we devise an instrument, the Leadership Impact Inventory, for (1) diagnosing the quality and effect of organizational leadership in an easy-to-adopt, cost-effective and quick manner and (2) analyzing the influence of various leadership dimensions on satisfaction and goals on individual, team and organizational levels.

This study expands the earlier body of research on leader influence to factors promoting not only proximal outcomes that are typically post-goal states but also distal outcomes. Further, it examines outcomes on all organizational levels, as an extension to prior studies which are typically limited to the entire organization. Finally, the study does not explore leadership as a force or process separate from culture but rather appreciates their synergy through the inclusion of cultural features. This is achieved by monitoring leader success with such subjective aspects describing employee experience and organizational culture that are associated with follower performance.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how organizations can exploit performance management through reflective practice to foster innovativeness and performance.

A conceptual framework has been designed to link the studied concepts and to explicitly indicate current research gaps in the area. Moreover, the authors have conducted interventionist case studies to understand the interconnections between theory and practice.

This study showed that there are many possibilities with which to exploit performance management through reflective practice to foster innovativeness and performance. The study has three main implications. First, reflective practice can be learned and developed. Second, reflective practice is connected to innovativeness and performance. Third, performance management through performance measurement systems can assist in targeting the reflective practice.

New forms of performance measurement and management are receiving increasingly amount of attention, because the traditional forms of managing organizations do not fulfill the needs of rapidly changing environment. Prior studies maintain that a performance measurement and management supports the periodic execution of the same routines in organizations where changes are small or non-existent. In these forms, the role of reflection as an individual, collective or organizational practice is emphasized.