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Article
Publication date: 9 September 2013

Stefan Wilhelm, Stefan Gueldenberg and Wolfgang Güttel

Customer knowledge has not yet been recognized as a possible source of strategic competitive advantage in expansion of the knowledge-based view. The purpose of this paper is

2209

Abstract

Purpose

Customer knowledge has not yet been recognized as a possible source of strategic competitive advantage in expansion of the knowledge-based view. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to gain initial insights into the strategic dimension of customers knowledge in order to enable companies to define, identify and motivate the right customers and work with them together on a strategically successful level.

Design/methodology/approach

The following single case study is based on semi-structured interviews with nine employees and strategic customers as well as a document analysis in an entrepreneurially oriented smaller firm equipped with limited resources.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that strategic customers take on a valuable position within the company. It appears that the strategic customer is more aware of his/her value than the company itself. A definition and first criteria of strategic customers could be determined and a systematic identification of strategic customers is possible with the help of this study.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is an empirical contribution to the existing customer knowledge management literature and aids in gaining further insight into the definition, identification and motivation of strategic customers. A definition is derived based on a literature study and developed further through the results of the empirical analysis. An additional result of the empirical study showed that customer oriented knowledge management is a promising bridge between the knowledge- and market-based view.

Originality/value

The apparent lack of resources in entrepreneurially oriented smaller firms can be overcome through the addition of external knowledge resources, which the paper refers to as strategic customers.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 17 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

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Article
Publication date: 23 August 2013

Susanne Durst and Stefan Wilhelm

This paper seeks to propose and discuss a knowledge management tool which has been designed to enable small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to obtain information about the…

896

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to propose and discuss a knowledge management tool which has been designed to enable small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to obtain information about the concentration of relevant knowledge with certain individuals respectively in certain departments.

Design/methodology/approach

The tool represents an outcome of the authors' ongoing research activities related to the danger of knowledge loss due to turnover or long-term absence. A static knowledge map was developed based on a series of semi-structured interviews with 14 organization members from a German medium-sized enterprise operating in the printing sector. To apply this knowledge map to a broader range of SMEs a knowledge management tool has been developed. As underlying framework, the IC classification scheme and the concept of social capital were utilized.

Findings

The knowledge management tool helps smaller firms to calculate a “knowledge at risk” score, which gives them a better understanding of their critical organization members and what is making them critical.

Practical implications

The tool's outcome can illustrate the potential danger of organizational turnover, which hopefully triggers the development and implementation of specific replacement/retention measures in a timely manner.

Originality/value

A tool is proposed that identifies indispensable organization members within SMEs. The tool's strength is its simple but powerful nature which does not require long-term preparation and/or training.

Details

Measuring Business Excellence, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1368-3047

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Article
Publication date: 13 July 2012

Susanne Durst and Stefan Wilhelm

An ignorance of knowledge attrition caused by employee exits is considered as careless and can lead to considerable consequences regarding both a firm's financial capital and

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Abstract

Purpose

An ignorance of knowledge attrition caused by employee exits is considered as careless and can lead to considerable consequences regarding both a firm's financial capital and intellectual capital, or in other words an ignorance of the danger of knowledge loss is associated with a missing or improper succession planning. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how a medium‐sized firm copes with the danger of knowledge loss due to employee exit or long‐term absence.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were obtained through semi‐structured interviews with 14 organization members from a German medium‐sized enterprise operating in the printing sector. These participants represented different departments and positions.

Findings

The findings demonstrate the influence of a precarious financial situation on activities related to knowledge management and succession planning. Although the organization members are aware of obvious needs for improvement within the firm, their actual scope of action is centered on the execution of current orders.

Research limitations/implications

The data are cross‐sectional and were collected in one organization. Future studies should consider longitudinal designs across multiple organizations.

Practical implications

Based on the findings some suggestions were derived that may help firms facing similar circumstances.

Originality/value

The study's findings provide fresh insights into how an established firm tackles the issue of knowledge attrition and its likely implications for the firm's performance.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Available. Open Access. Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 August 2024

Qian Wang, Anette Hallin, Stefan Lång and Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen

This study responds to the need in social entrepreneurship research for more empirical studies to clarify the meaning of social value. Specially, it aims to explore the meaning of…

1978

Abstract

Purpose

This study responds to the need in social entrepreneurship research for more empirical studies to clarify the meaning of social value. Specially, it aims to explore the meaning of social value communicated on social media (SoMe) within the local context of a social enterprise (SE).

Design/methodology/approach

A multimodal social semiotic approach was applied to several hundred Facebook posts of a Finnish SE providing elderly care solutions, complemented by secondary data from high-quality press sources.

Findings

Building on Young’s (2006) dimensions of social value and Hidalgo et al.’s (2021) theorisation of social capital in social entrepreneurship, the authors find that an SE draws on multiple levels of social capital on SoMe to express the meaning of the social value it creates.

Research limitations/implications

Although limited to one case, this study provides a deep contextual understanding of how SEs can give meaning to social value and leverage social capital on SoMe to do so.

Practical implications

The authors offer a contextually embedded framework for SEs to communicate social value through media. This approach enables SEs to engage stakeholders more effectively and improve the quality of support for local initiatives.

Social implications

Improvements in SEs’ ability to communicate social value will increase their legitimacy, thus enhancing their prospects to survive and create sustained social value.

Originality/value

The authors strengthen the theoretical underpinnings of social value by being among the first to empirically describe its connection to social capital in an SE, thereby deepening previous studies on subjective social value. Methodologically, this study is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to apply social semiotics to research on SEs.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

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Article
Publication date: 26 October 2018

Philipp C. Sauer and Stefan Seuring

This study aims to investigate the under-researched role of the sub-supplier’s direct environment in achieving compliance with multi-tier sustainable supply chain management…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the under-researched role of the sub-supplier’s direct environment in achieving compliance with multi-tier sustainable supply chain management (MT-SSCM) objectives.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on conceptual research, this study aims to generalize the characteristics of multi-tier supply chains in light of institutional theory and supply chain (SC) uncertainty to enhance the understanding of their complex interrelationship.

Findings

A three-dimensional framework is built around the supply and demand uncertainty as well as the pressures for sustainability exerted by the supplier’s direct environment to propose ideal constellations for the application of MT-SSCM. Moreover, research directions and implications for the alteration of suboptimal constellations are developed.

Practical implications

Incorporating the supplier’s environment in the choice of MT-SSCM practices couples the sustainability priorities of the focal firm and the supplier. This enables a more complete picture of the sustainability objectives and sustainable development aims of the SC partners.

Originality/value

On the basis of institutional theory, the study extends current MT-SSCM concepts by including the supplier’s direct environment in the choice of ideal management practices in a particular SC setup. It provides a definition of a multi-tier SC as an institutional field and a number of research implications regarding MT-SSCM as well as generic SSCM. Moreover, the proposed framework helps SC managers to understand the complex interplay of the SC partners’ sustainability aims and provides implications for choosing the most suitable MT-SSCM practices.

Details

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, vol. 23 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1359-8546

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 1985

Tomas Riha

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…

2713

Abstract

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 12 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

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Book part
Publication date: 4 December 2009

George Steinmetz

Anthropologists have long discussed the ways in which their discipline has been entangled, consciously and unconsciously, with the colonized populations they study. A foundational…

Abstract

Anthropologists have long discussed the ways in which their discipline has been entangled, consciously and unconsciously, with the colonized populations they study. A foundational text in this regard was Michel Leiris' Phantom Africa (L'Afrique fantôme; Leiris, 1934), which described an African ethnographic expedition led by Marcel Griaule as a form of colonial plunder. Leiris criticized anthropologists' focus on the most isolated, rural, and traditional cultures, which could more easily be described as untouched by European influences, and he saw this as a way of disavowing the very existence of colonialism. In 1950, Leiris challenged Europeans' ability even to understand the colonized, writing that “ethnography is closely linked to the colonial fact, whether ethnographers like it or not. In general they work in the colonial or semi-colonial territories dependent on their country of origin, and even if they receive no direct support from the local representatives of their government, they are tolerated by them and more or less identified, by the people they study, as agents of the administration” (Leiris, 1950, p. 358). Similar ideas were discussed by French social scientists throughout the 1950s. Maxime Rodinson argued in the Année sociologique that “colonial conditions make even the most technically sophisticated sociological research singularly unsatisfying, from the standpoint of the desiderata of a scientific sociology” (Rodinson, 1955, p. 373). In a rejoinder to Leiris, Pierre Bourdieu acknowledged in Work and Workers in Algeria (Travail et travailleurs en Algérie) that “no behavior, attitude or ideology can be explained objectively without reference to the existential situation of the colonized as it is determined by the action of economic and social forces characteristic of the colonial system,” but he insisted that the “problems of science” needed to be separated from “the anxieties of conscience” (2003, pp. 13–14). Since Bourdieu had been involved in a study of an incredibly violent redistribution of Algerians by the French colonial army at the height of the anticolonial revolutionary war, he had good reason to be sensitive to Leiris' criticisms (Bourdieu & Sayad, 1964). Rodinson called Bourdieu's critique of Leiris' thesis “excellent’ (1965, p. 360), but Bourdieu later revised his views, noting that the works that had been available to him at the time of his research in Algeria tended “to justify the colonial order” (1990, p. 3). At the 1974 colloquium that gave rise to a book on the connections between anthropology and colonialism, Le mal de voir, Bourdieu called for an analysis of the relatively autonomous field of colonial science (1993a, p. 51). A parallel discussion took place in American anthropology somewhat later, during the 1960s. At the 1965 meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Marshall Sahlins criticized the “enlistment of scholars” in “cold war projects such as Camelot” as “servants of power in a gendarmerie relationship to the Third World.” This constituted a “sycophantic relation to the state unbefitting science or citizenship” (Sahlins, 1967, pp. 72, 76). Sahlins underscored the connections between “scientific functionalism and the natural interest of a leading world power in the status quo” and called attention to the language of contagion and disease in the documents of “Project Camelot,” adding that “waiting on call is the doctor, the US Army, fully prepared for its self-appointed ‘important mission in the positive and constructive aspects of nation-building’” a mission accompanied by “insurgency prophylaxis” (1967, pp. 77–78). At the end of the decade, Current Anthropology published a series of articles on anthropologists’ “social responsibilities,” and Human Organization published a symposium entitled “Decolonizing Applied Social Sciences.” British anthropologists followed suit, as evidenced by Talal Asad's 1973 collection Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. During the 1980s, authors such as Gothsch (1983) began to address the question of German anthropology's involvement in colonialism. The most recent revival of this discussion was in response to the Pentagon's deployment of “embedded anthropologists” in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. The “Network of Concerned Anthropologists” in the AAA asked “researchers to sign an online pledge not to work with the military,” arguing that they “are not all necessarily opposed to other forms of anthropological consulting for the state, or for the military, especially when such cooperation contributes to generally accepted humanitarian objectives … However, work that is covert, work that breaches relations of openness and trust with studied populations, and work that enables the occupation of one country by another violates professional standards” (“Embedded Anthropologists” 2007).3 Other disciplines, notably geography, economics, area studies, and political science, have also started to examine the involvement of their fields with empire.4

Details

Political Power and Social Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-667-0

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Article
Publication date: 6 August 2024

Svetlana Castre-de Chabot, Salomée Ruel, Anicia Jaegler and Stefan Gold

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) on social inclusion within upstream supply chains, targeting a notable literature gap in modern SCM discourse. By delving…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) on social inclusion within upstream supply chains, targeting a notable literature gap in modern SCM discourse. By delving into this critical, yet underexamined, domain, this study spotlights the pressing need to incorporate social inclusion practices, particularly as global supply chains face increased scrutiny over their social ramifications. It examines social inclusion’s intricacies, offering practical insights for industry professionals to adopt, so that trustworthy social inclusion practices can proliferate across their upstream supply chains, thereby making a substantial contribution to both theoretical understanding and practical application.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing five search queries across two leading academic databases, this investigation reviewed 86 articles that examined social issues related to social inclusion in the upstream supply chain. Via content analysis, this study aims to answer essential research questions and employs statistical bibliometric analyses to investigate the collected data further.

Findings

This study’s findings establish a definition of social inclusion within the upstream supply chain and present a conceptual framework delineating levers and indicators for evaluating such practices. Through rigorous analysis, it becomes apparent that mechanisms such as supplier compliance, collaboration and development are crucial for promoting social inclusion; however, their importance differs at various levels of suppliers in multi-tiered supply chains. Furthermore, a methodological matrix is introduced for assessing social inclusion practices’ efficacy, equipping practitioners with a roadmap for developing and executing strategies that extend social inclusion efforts throughout the supply chain, as well as emphasising these levers through monitoring, assessment and application of six specified indicators.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the dialogue surrounding upstream supply chain management by spotlighting social inclusion practices, addressing the literature gap in comprehending how social inclusion dynamics operate within upstream supply chains and outlining a distinct direction for forthcoming research. By highlighting the pressing importance of enhancing social inclusion practices, this study not only enriches the theoretical landscape but also lays the groundwork for subsequent empirical studies aimed at deciphering the complexities and practical hurdles associated with the efficient execution of these practices.

Details

The International Journal of Logistics Management, vol. 35 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-4093

Keywords

Available. Content available
Book part
Publication date: 8 March 2019

John Scott

Abstract

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The Emerald Guide to Max Weber
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-192-6

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Article
Publication date: 4 February 2019

Sofia Garcia-Torres, Laura Albareda, Marta Rey-Garcia and Stefan Seuring

This paper aims to examine how companies enact traceability in their global supply chains (SCs) to achieve sustainability goals and how this so-called traceability for…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how companies enact traceability in their global supply chains (SCs) to achieve sustainability goals and how this so-called traceability for sustainability (TfS) can contribute to (sustainable) supply chain management ([S]SCM). For this, the paper focuses on the paramount example of the apparel industry.

Design/methodology/approach

This study presents an integrative and systematic literature review of 89 peer-reviewed journal articles on the confluence of traceability and sustainability in global apparel SCs. It comprises content analysis and abductive category-building based on previous literature.

Findings

A conceptual framework emerges to describe TfS as an evolving cycle, comprising three dimensions: governance, collaboration and tracking and tracing. Resources and capabilities literature set the foundations for conceiving TfS as a distinctive meta-capability construct. Hence, besides being associated to increased performance, risk management and SC process transformation, TfS ultimately blurs boundaries and integrates non-traditional SC actors into the same ecosystem with important implications for sustainability and (S)SCM. This study refers to the industrial upgrading potential of global SCs to explain how leveraging enabling technologies for TfS may help to improve the triple-bottom-line (TBL) performance of the actors in the broad ecosystem while reducing the risks associated to those technologies. Thus, TfS can contribute to (S)SCM and to TBL sustainability within and beyond SC boundaries.

Originality/value

This study conceptually frames (S)SCM exploring TfS as a meta-capability and contributes to the underexplored question of how to achieve sustainability in global SCs.

Details

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1359-8546

Keywords

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