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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the successful implementation of digitalization by exploring what characterizes strategy work undertaken by companies that have achieved digital transformation. Based on empirical data, the authors delineate five essential strategic actions that are prerequisites for digital transformation: discuss and communicate the vision and strategy; align resources and activities with the strategy; ensure a continuous focus on operational improvements and efficiency; create an orientation toward customer or user needs and expectations; and develop the competencies of top managers, middle managers and employees.

Between January 2021 and February 2022, the authors conducted a survey on strategy work in Danish organizations with 2,251 respondents. The respondents encompass top managers, middle managers and employees representing 1,164 organizations.

The authors identify five strategic actions that positively influence whether organizations incorporate digitalization into their strategy work. These strategic actions can support organizations in their strategy work regarding digital transformation and offer valuable insights and inspiration for leaders currently undertaking the journey of digital transformation.

Based on the empirical data, it is not possible to deem one action as more important than another in the context of digital transformation, as each action contributes significantly to facilitating the process. Given the nature of empirical data, the strategic actions reflect correlation rather than causation.

The empirical insights provide valuable practical guidance for leaders in managing digital transformation as a part of strategy work, which is typically discussed in a more conceptual manner. In addition, the authors identify new areas for further in-depth exploration in practice.

This paper aims to develop a strategy model which explains what organisations should focus on in their strategy work, both in terms of the environment and how the strategy is implemented. In addition, the purpose is to demonstrate how this can influence and improve the organisations’ performance.

The study uses different state-of-the-art strategy approaches to create and validate a solid and causal strategy model, which was validated by making use of a questionnaire.

The nature of strategy is complex, and organisations are indeed facing more complex tasks which require that internal resources are available to meet the environmental demands, develop an effective strategy for today and tomorrow, implement the strategy and execute the action plans. A model consisting of five areas divided up in strategy content (productivity, flexibility and innovation) and strategy process (execution and culture) has been validated, and the empirical results indicate that execution and innovation are the areas in which organizations face the greatest challenges.

Suggesting a new strategy model designed to evaluate companies’ strategy work.

The purpose of this paper is to study how operations strategy (OS) innovation occurs in a project-centred production and organisation.

A longitudinal case study encompassing the processes at the headquarters of the company and in two projects using lean.

The operation strategy development commences at a middle level in the organisation, is underpinned and embedded in production projects and only after several years becomes embedded in the corporate operation strategy. Projects use lean principles in a differentiated manner.

A qualitative case study provides insight into only a single occasion of change in OS. More case studies would probably reveal several paths of OS development. OS development need to be handled as emergent, political and with contributions from several managers and management levels, bridging the vertical divides between projects and headquarter.

A conscious and systematic vertical integration and interaction is crucial in project-based companies doing operation strategy development, something critically difficult at building contractors.

The present study contributes to the small body of studies of OS development processes, by providing insight in how project-based companies renew their operation strategy.

This paper aims to focus on how organisational capabilities, enhancing the dynamic capability perspective, evolve during a more than five-year offshoring process in four Danish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The strategic decision to offshore some manufacturing activities meant that capabilities were ruptured and had to be rebuilt.

The empirical investigation took the form of qualitative case studies with a longitudinal orientation focussing in on a few events in the four cases (strategic change in the sourcing configuration) as a process research design (Pettigrew, 1990; Van de Ven, 2007). Interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo.

The four cases followed distinct trajectories, but they all changed their routines regarding how to handle knowledge, including both technology and human resources. A need for specific human resources acting as boundary spanners arose, transforming both intra- and inter-organisational practices in all four cases. More complex activities were moved offshore to enhance the dynamic capabilities of the companies regarding both product development as well as specific processes, thereby transforming/reconfiguring the organisational capabilities of the companies. However, in the two small-sized cases, more complex/less routinised activities were backsourced, demonstrating a significant problem over time with the development of sufficient organisational resources to maintain seizing and sensing capabilities within these companies in comparison with the two other medium-sized cases.

The fact that most of the data were generated from an inside-out perspective, taking the point of departure in the core firms, can be viewed as a limitation. The authors’ data on the wider network are also limited. Finally, the authors’ interviews are conducted relatively infrequently when considering the length of the process.

The four longitudinal cases show that the longer-term offshoring journey does not involve a single path or a single best practice. The cases show captive as well as outsourcing arrangements and even enterprise transformations. The cases demonstrate a common focus on finding and nurturing core suppliers and core business processes, which can be characterised as continual learning and development of organising capabilities.

The study contributes to the growing body of research into dynamic (organisational) capabilities in an offshoring and SME context.

This paper aims to address the nature of sustainable enterprise excellence, what it is, its enablers and specific manifestations.

A sweeping model of sustainable enterprise excellence, resilience and robustness is introduced, along with its enablers. Among enablers, supply-chain proficiency, vertical trust, distributed leadership and neuropsychological measurement are cited. A method of strategy modeling is introduced that, if rigorously pursued, will improve enterprise strategy and, hence, also opportunity for better subsequent performance and impacts. Similarly, an approach for strategic alignment in a large, multi-level enterprise is presented.

There are many paths toward sustainable enterprise excellence. Regardless of the path, this anticipates enterprise pursuit of socially equitable, environmentally responsible and economically sound performance and impacts.

The present is the Anthropocene age, an era fraught with challenges largely of people's own making and related to climate change and various sorts of social strain. Organizations have the wherewithal to attack these challenges. Given the orientation of sustainable enterprise excellence, methods and models that advance sustainable enterprise excellence have the potential to combat these challenges.

Sustainable enterprise excellence provides models and methods for confronting significant challenges that societies and organizations alike are faced with. Various models and paths to sustainable enterprise excellence are suggested in this paper.

This article presents a theoretical investigation of the concept of ‘subject’ or ‘subject matter’ in library and information science. Most conceptions of ‘subject’ in the literature are not explicit but implicit. Various indexing and classification theories, including automatic indexing and citation indexing, have their own more or less implicit concepts of subject. This fact puts the emphasis on making the implicit theories of ‘subject matter’ explicit as the first step. A very close connection exists between what subjects are, and how we are to know them. Those researchers who place the subjects in the minds of the users have a conception of ‘subject’ different to that possessed by those who regard the subject as a fixed property of the documents. The key to the definition of the concept of ‘subject’ lies in the epistemological investigation of how we are going to know what we need to know about documents in order to describe them in a way which facilitates information retrieval. The second step therefore is an analysis of the implicit epistemological conceptions in the major existing conceptions of ‘subject’. The different conceptions of ‘subject’ can therefore be classified into epistemological positions, e.g. ‘subjective idealism’ (or the empiric/positivistic viewpoint), ‘objective idealism’ (the rationalistic viewpoint), ‘pragmatism’ and ‘materialism/ realism’. The third and final step is to propose a new theory of subject matter based on an explicit theory of knowledge. In this article this is done from the point of view of a realistic/materialistic epistemology. From this standpoint the subject of a document is defined as the epistemological potentials of that document.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the potential benefits of value chain analysis (VCA) improvement projects by evaluating their effectiveness for all chain members.

The study uses an action research approach to extend VCA methodology by implementing an improvement project developed through the VCA process, and the subsequent evaluation of this project using a combination of techniques.

The paper addressed a key research gap around the evaluation of improvement projects and has shown that the implementation of VCA, both as a guiding framework for developing interventions and a basis for evaluating their effectiveness, can provide significant benefits to all industry stakeholders.

The research focussed on evaluating the outcomes of a single project within an industry case study. While the diversity in different industry structures and the range of improvement projects possible makes it difficult to generalise the findings, the methodology and evaluation options make a valuable practical and theoretical contribution.

The case study highlights the advantages of improvement projects guided by VCA and offers a variety of evaluation options for both private and public sector VCA practitioners.

This study is one of the very few to evaluate the implementation of activities identified during the diagnostic phase of an agribusiness VCA.

Lead user experiments are increasingly applied in food-related innovation. The purpose of this paper is to: first, experiments should excavate new recipes, production processes and narratives for mussels with a specific regional origin and connotation. Second, the study should test a lead user set-up and investigate the commitment and potential benefits, not only for future mussel producers but also for the lead users themselves.

This study organized and evaluated a lead user experiment involving eight chefs and other food experts.

The experiment was successful in the sense that the lead users activated a considerable combinatory knowledge ability and creativity, and they could address issues of wider regional branding significance and contribute with catching narratives. The lead users found the experiment beneficial on several dimensions, providing the opportunity to reflect and undertake tests under respectfully inquisitive observation of others, and they also appreciated the opportunity openly to expose their own professionalism on various media that were organized as ingredients in this experiment.

The study accentuates the applicability of lead user experiments as supplements or alternative to other ways of informing product development processes and demonstrates a practical method.

The study contributes to the increasing methodological evidence in the field of lead user-based innovation and scrutinizes the issues in a wider food industry context.