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The purpose of this paper is to show that necessary condition hypotheses are important in operations management (OM), and to present a consistent methodology for building and testing them. Necessary condition hypotheses (“X is necessary for Y”) express conditions that must be present in order to have a desired outcome (e.g. “success”), and to prevent guaranteed failure. These hypotheses differ fundamentally from the common co‐variational hypotheses (“more X results in more Y”) and require another methodology for building and testing them.

The paper reviews OM literature for versions of necessary condition hypotheses and combines previous theoretical and methodological work into a comprehensive and consistent methodology for building and testing such hypotheses.

Necessary condition statements are common in OM, but current formulations are not precise, and methods used for building and testing them are not always adequate. The paper outlines the methodology of necessary condition analysis consisting of two stepwise methodological approaches, one for building and one for testing necessary conditions.

Because necessary condition statements are common in OM, using methodologies that can build and test such hypotheses contributes to the advancement of OM research and theory.

In organizational research the object of study is often a process, that is, a complex of events and activities that unfolds over time. In this chapter we focus on temporally ordered configurations, which can be defined as those configurations in which conditions occur in a specific temporal order. We illustrate the aims, characteristics, and limitations of several approaches that have been proposed as tools for the analysis of temporal order. Our illustration involves an analysis of the “gestation activities” of nascent entrepreneurs, that is, persons involved in the creation of a new firm. We aim to identify temporal sequences of gestation activities that generate or allow a successful outcome of the gestation process, while an occurrence of the same activities in another temporal order will not generate or allow that outcome. First we discuss Event Structure Analysis and Optimal Matching and conclude that these approaches cannot provide the kind of analysis that we are aiming at in this chapter. Then we discuss Temporal Qualitative Comparative Analysis, for which our analysis points to technical limitations that constrain its application. We then present and discuss an alternative approach, Temporal Necessary Condition Analysis.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly considered a central tenant of marketing strategy and a source of competitive advantage within the retail sector. As such, it may affect a supermarket’s customer, employee, and other stakeholder attitudes and behaviours. This research explores how a supermarket’s involvement in CSR activities may influence employee engagement and how this may manifest itself in positive employee behaviours. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and consequently, employee propensity to exhibit intervention behaviours to prevent in-store retail crime.

This research uses a phenomenological approach through semi-structured in-depth interviews with shop-floor employees of a national supermarket chain.

Findings suggest that external and internal CSR practices of supermarkets are important in shaping organisational engagement behaviours among employees. Additionally, heightened employee engagement may have a significant impact on employee propensity to engage in shoplifting prevention behaviours. A conceptual model is developed based on these findings.

Retail managers should fully communicate CSR practices to employees to increase employee engagement and consequential shoplifting intervention prevention behaviours.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and specifically, shoplifting prevention behaviours. Second and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may aid retailers in developing and communicating CSR strategies that engage employees and consequently lead to shoplifting prevention behaviours.

This paper aims to explore current management attitudes towards benchmarking and its implementation within small business‐to‐business service firms in order to enhance a deeper understanding of benchmarking within such contexts.

The paper uses in‐depth case analysis of small architectural services to collect empirical data on benchmarking initiatives, attitudes, key characteristics and constraints on benchmarking.

Findings suggest that there are significant variations in the receptiveness of small business‐to‐business firms towards the adoption of benchmarking. There may be an inherent distrust of benchmarking, as it is primarily perceived as being a tool for larger organizations, where productivity improvements are the main driver. Evidence of perceived constraints in both the implementation of benchmarking and in the definition of what constitutes best practice highlighted a cultural difficulty for small architectural firms when adopting a business process orientation. Traditionally, when evaluating their services, architectural practices are oriented towards professional design criteria, often with creative rather than business process priorities. Results suggest less cumbersome measurement models than key performance indicators (KPI) are needed to allow organically developing firms, such as architectural services, to apply benchmarking and quality ideas flexibly.

Research on current management attitudes towards benchmarking or actual implementation of benchmarking techniques in small business‐to‐business service firms is scarce. This paper addresses this by developing a deeper and richer contextual understanding of benchmarking within such contexts.

This paper analyzes citations from the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using Google Scholar in April and May, 2013.

This study assesses the success of the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using citation analysis. Four citation metrics are used. The four citation metrics are: (1) total citations since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (2) citations per author since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (3) citations per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013, and (4) citations per author per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013.

The top 20 authors for each citation metric, the top 20 faculties for each citation metric, and the top 20 doctoral programs for each citation metric are determined. Furthermore, the top 20 articles are determined using two citation metrics and the H-index for Advances in Management Accounting is computed.

Potential doctoral students, current doctoral students, “new” Ph.D.s with an interest in management accounting, current management accounting faculty, department chairs, deans, other administrators, journal editors, and journal publishers will find these results informative.

Boundary spanners link their internal organization with its external environment. In the present research, the authors study supply managers who build a bridge between a large original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and its network of suppliers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how boundary spanners mediate between internal (buyer) and external (supplier) managers in supplier development (SD) initiatives.

This paper adopts a qualitative case method to study an OEM pursuing multiple SD initiatives with multiple suppliers simultaneously. Data consist of interviews and non-participant observations conducted over a period of 14 months.

The findings of this paper highlight the mediation tasks that emerge at the organizational interface in advanced SD undertakings. Based on the analysis, this paper demonstrates how the nature of three core boundary-spanning activities, information mediation, reaching compromises and strategic communication, differ in four general SD conditions.

The present paper advances the understanding of individual-level buyer–supplier tensions in SD. It makes a theoretical contribution that sits in the intersection between boundary spanning and SD.

This paper increases managers’ knowledge of a range of required SD mediation activities and provides an overview of where they unfold.

This paper breaks new ground by creating knowledge that extends beyond four dominant trends in SD research: SD as organizational-level behavior, SD as a generic set of activities, SD as a single performance improvement area and SD as a dyadic management task.

Recognizes that the employment service is an industry in which the employment agency is now more than just a service – it is now a business. Acknowledges that human resource management planning is key to match employee competency for an employer, as without employees nothing gets done. Looks at what employment agencies provide, e.g.: regular employment; contract services; temporary to hire; and payroll services. Concludes that employment agencies and human resource professionals should be in tandem to help the organisation to best use its process for change continuously.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate inter-organizational coordination (IOC) patterns between the buying firm, design agency, and component supplier in new product development (NPD) projects and to identify the determinants of these approaches.

Seven NPD projects are examined using the multiple-case study method. Data are collected from five design agencies, two buying firms, and two suppliers in Italy and the Netherlands.

Building on organizational information-processing and resource dependence theories, and based on the case study findings, four patterns of IOC approaches are proposed: buyer as mediator, buyer-designer partnership, designer as integrator, and team design activities. Two determinants of these approaches are suggested: the degree of novelty of the product/project (radical vs incremental) and the design approach (user oriented vs design driven).

Although the NPD projects are chosen from a wide variety of industries, the relatively small number of cases limits generalizability. The four IOC approaches proposed in this study should be tested in wider samples, possibly by means of the survey method.

The findings suggest that practitioners need to understand the determinants of the different IOC approaches to manage joint NPD projects most effectively. The authors also suggest that practitioners pay attention to the distinct roles of different types of suppliers while deciding on the appropriate coordination mechanisms to adopt. Finally, the results illustrate that buying firms need to consider empowering a supplier in an incremental NPD project if the supplier has a very distinctive capability that does not exist in the buying firm.

Previous research primarily focusses on dyadic-level buyer-supplier relationships in NPD projects. In this study, the authors adopt triads as the unit of analysis and specifically focus on cases that involve both component suppliers and design agencies.

The greater availability of life‐sustaining technology, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the medical, legal and moral pressures to use them, often enable the prolongation of lives of older people. The dying process can be extended regardless of quality of life. Further, there is much public debate on the increasing emphasis on individual rights and personal autonomy in the dying process. This qualitative study examined older people's perspectives on end‐of‐life decision‐making and advance care planning. A sample of 12 older people living in the community was recruited and studied in‐depth. A semi‐structured interview explored patients' conceptualisations of decision‐making in the later stages of life and the significant others they would like involved in the process. The data were analysed using ‘content analysis’. The resulting broad categories, themes and sub‐themes formed the foundation of an emerging model of older people talking about end‐of‐life care. Finally, results were discussed with regard to practice and policy development.