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The objective of this paper is to understand the perspectives of the chief executive officer (CEO), chairman and managing director of Sasken Technologies Limited, Shri. Rajiv C. Mody who co-founded this high-technology firm, which has survived three decades of turbulence in technology and the market. This is an interview-based study focused on South Asian CEOs, with the goal of better understanding the cultural elements of strategic leadership and organizational values and its influence on organizational competitiveness and survival.

The paper uses primary data from one in-depth interview and supplements the analyses with secondary sources of data. The literature on the cultural dimension of long-term orientation (LTO) is discussed for understanding its possible linkage with strategic leadership, organizational values and thereby organizational competitiveness and survival.

This study found that the national cultural dimension of LTO of the South Asian leadership, as embedded, nurtured and practiced in the organization's values by the strategic leadership, plays an important role in explaining the organizational competitiveness and survival of South Asian firms while facing challenges and opportunities in a turbulent global business context.

This paper offers the perspective of a chairman and CEO of a high-technology firm with global experience and with a South Asian base of operations. His experiences in managing the organization add value to the discussion on managing business in South Asia.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of the organizational changes related to the production‐planning process that facilitate application of form postponement (FP), an increasingly popular operations‐design principle meant to alleviate the negative impact of product variety and customization on operational performance.

To achieve the theory‐building objective, a multiple‐case study involving four cases in the machinery industry was designed. In the inductive theory‐building process, the authors borrowed from the information‐processing theory to further corroborate the internal validity and generalizability of the findings.

The theory proposed by the author indicates that greater utilization of lateral relations in the production‐planning process, higher production‐planning frequency, greater degree of self‐containment of the production‐planning task, and simplification of the production planning‐related environment favor application of FP.

The level of analysis of the theory is the production‐planning process of a product family within a company. Future research could extend inquiry of the organizational antecedents of FP at both higher and lower levels of analysis, such as the organization as a whole or the individuals participating in the production‐planning process.

The theory supports managerial decision making by suggesting how to redesign the organization part involved in the production‐planning process of a product family in order to apply FP. The difficulty and cost of this organizational redesign effort should be taken into account when companies consider FP implementation.

Past research has focused on changes to product design and to the manufacturing and supply chain process that enable FP. This paper augments the understanding of FP enablers by developing the first model of organizational antecedents of FP. It also responds to calls for more research integrating insights from organization theory and operations/supply chain management.

We provide a comprehensive synthesis and extension of the real option (RO) literature on joint ventures (JVs), contributing in three main areas. First, we examine major alternative theoretical perspectives on JVs – learning, bargaining, transaction cost and agency theory – to elaborate how they complement or contradict RO predictions. Second, we compare arguments and variables used to explain different JV stages – initial RO explicitness and equity shares, JV stability, and performance consequences – and highlight research opportunities. Third, we discuss and extend research about behavioral aspects of making RO (JV) investments. Overall, we offer new predictions and suggestions for a better integration within the RO literature, and between RO and related literatures on JVs.

The purpose of this study is to expand the notion of differentiation by developing and testing a typology of brand benefit differentiation.

Brand concept maps were used to identify three types of differentiation. The effects of the types of differentiation on benefit evaluation and brand attachment were tested in two follow-up studies using path analysis.

A comparison of the association maps of four international brands showed instances of all three types of benefit differentiation – categorical, graded and structural benefit differentiation. The tests of effects revealed that categorical benefit differentiation had negative effects, whereas structural and graded differentiation had positive effects on benefit evaluation and brand attachment, respectively.

The findings suggest that other types of benefit differentiation are more important than uniqueness. Future research should test the relevance and usefulness of the typology for other brands and consumer segments.

The new typology opens new opportunities for the differentiation of brands. Brand managers should avoid a myopic focus on uniqueness. Rather, they should analyze networks of benefit associations in detail for all three types of differentiation identified in this research and strengthen the level of structural and/or graded differentiation.

This research demonstrates, for the first time, the importance of two types of differentiation other than uniqueness. It also supports previous studies showing the negative effects of uniqueness on variables related to brand equity.

In this paper, we conduct a conceptual and bibliographic analysis of the literature that deals with the international strategy of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with particular attention to SOEs from emerging economies (EEs). We first review the state of the art in defining the concepts of EEs and SOEs. We then conduct a detailed bibliographic analysis of the literature pertaining to SOEs’ involvement in international activities, whether as outward foreign investors or as potential local partners of inward-investing multinational enterprises. The analysis covers general trends in the literature, prominent research questions and outcome variables, use of theories, and choices pertaining to methodology (type of research and effects, empirical contexts). We document a literature that is fast-growing and well balanced in some respects. In other respects, we advance recommendations pertaining to (a) consistency and precision in the use of the concepts of “state-owned enterprise” and “emerging economy”; (b) search for specific evidence on the outward activities of EE SOEs in less-developed economies and even in other EEs, and on their performance; (c) understanding of relative propensities of local SOEs and inward investors to collaborate, and what happens when SOEs encounter each other across borders; (d) opportunities to strengthen the theoretical foundations and contributions of this research; and (e) minding the mix of home and host countries in studies and avoiding undue generalization from what has become a predominantly China-centric literature.

The purposes of this study are to introduce the concept of service quality (SQ) in E-Supply chain management (E-SCM) and its impact on increasing customer satisfaction (CS) and provide insightful enhancements to the literature. In addition, the paper also examines the influence of SQ of E-SCM on CS in online shopping.

After a comprehensive literature review, four key factors for measuring the E-Supply chain (process control, interaction with supplier, management support and focus on customers), four key factors for measuring CS (informing customers, attention to customers’ needs, staff performance accuracy and easy access to services) and four factors for measuring the quality of identification services (assurance, accountability, tangibility and reliability) were selected. The proposed conceptual model was then presented. This model was validated by data collected through a survey of 150 respondents to identify CS, including that of customers of online websites in Iran. The sample data was analyzed using SPSS21, after which the interrelationships between the model and factors were examined based on the partial least square-structural. Model fit indices were then calculated for the data set. The proposed model was validated by using factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques.

The results indicated that E-SCM has a direct impact on CS. The effect of SQ was also confirmed. A positive and significant relationship was identified between E-SCM and CS, E-SCM and SQ, as well as SQ and CS (P> 0.05).

The first limitation was to convince respondents to cooperate with the researchers. The second one was the lack of research-related background due to the subject being relatively new.

This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first empirical analysis on the CS assessment of SQ of E-Supply Chain in online shopping. This important link to online shopping has rarely been explored. It is expected that by filling this gap, this study will help in strengthening online shopping, which needs a change in the marketing area.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

Mergers and acquisition are a very common part of business strategy. However, it is not clear if and how these processes affect customers. This study aims to assess banking M&A from the marketing perspective, by analyzing its impact on the customer loyalty.

The study employed a purposive sampling method for collecting data from 232 respondents using a self-administered questionnaire. Variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for testing the proposed structural model.

Results show that M&A integration does influence customers' perception of key variables like customer–company relationship, and their loyalty after the M&A. Findings highlight the relative importance of these variables and the potential influence of some moderators (customer orientation, speed of integration and communication). The most important antecedent of loyalty in a M&A situation is service quality followed by company image, products and prices, sales channels and sales force.

This paper explores the impact of M&A on clients by using customer survey data, an area that is still an under-explored field, in relation with the total number of articles on M&A that are published each year.

We study the decision-making process behind business model change, focusing specifically on the tactics managers employ to gain support for such changes. We first argue for the prominent role of middle management in business model change, and second, we revisit the literature on issue selling and championing as they may apply to business model change decision-making. We subsequently analyze the case of a business model change initiative in the Dutch water authority sector, revealing two specific tactics that middle management employed to obtain top management’s agreement to business model change: leveraging external agreements and continuously informing top management. We discuss how these findings extend and in some ways suggest a rethink of the literature on organizational change. Finally, we describe the specificities of business model change that distinguish it from other types of change. In sum, this paper demonstrates the interest of research at the nexus of business models and organizational change.