Durable Relationships Research Articles

Developing and Nurturing Strategic Capabilities

Brief discussion of resources and capabilities, their importance, and their role in the creation of competitive advantage. Excerpt UVA-S-0167 January 11, 2010 DEVELOPING AND NURTURING STRATEGIC CAPABILITIES Strategic management involves creating uncommon value for all stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, and suppliers. Managers focus on the means and resources needed to develop products and services that provide desirable and distinctive benefits for as many stakeholders as possible; organizations work to deliver consistently uncommon value through integrated systems of durable relationships, resources, and routines. As systems are developed, managers work to strengthen and guard the processes and knowledge underpinning these combinations to retain, protect, and enhance this value to their stakeholders and to ensure that competitors will find them difficult to replicate. Capabilities may involve deceptively simplistic, routine procedures or policies, or codified, detailed analytical frameworks or tools. Managers can best add value when they address: Which combinations of elements are necessary to create the most value for stakeholders? How can our organization develop these combinations? What investments need to be made to achieve product and service superiority in the eyes of multiple stakeholders? How can these bundles of knowledge and resources be paired with complementary systems within and outside of the organization? With these questions as guides, managers can focus on the resource and knowledge investments necessary to produce superior products or services, and thus, competitive advantage. Accounting for Capabilities A simplified model of value creation involves (1) an organization’s use of inputs, (2) the processes used to refashion those inputs into outputs, and (3) the placement of these outputs in the marketplace. Accounting measures can approximate the raw material inventory an organization holds in its warehouses, the labor output (measured in hours) to produce a finished product, and the piece and market values of final products. An organization’s capabilities, however, are valued assets that may not appear on its balance sheet. An approach to measuring capabilities involves critically evaluating whether they are valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable (VRIN attributes). Integration with Other Strategy Frameworks . . .

Down the Alleyway: Courtyard Tenements and Women’s Networks in Early Twentieth-Century Beijing

This article examines the formation and operation of lower class women’s social network in the ghettoized courtyard neighborhood in early twentieth-century Beijing. Drawing evidence from criminal case files, the author argues that courtyard tenements provided a gendered urban space within which women formed, extended, and maintained a flexible and dynamic web of durable relationships. Motivated largely by individual circumstances and objectives, this neighborhood network remained personalized, individualized, and “ego-centered.” The network neither came into existence for any type of political movements nor did it entail wider female solidarity, but the physical geography of the courtyard tenements and the development of these neighborhood networks offered lower class women some immediate protections and buffers when they were under emotional, domestic, or economic crisis. This article argues that these interpersonal relationships forged within a complex urban space were an important resource to enable women to rise out of the intense state control and economic turmoil in the tumultuous decades of reform and revolution.

Cultural Models of the Coast in Australia: Toward Sustainability

Cultural models of the coast affect—and are affected by—our marine ethics, frameworks for coastal ownership, and management practices. The coast can be seen as an ecosystem with intrinsic values, a commodity that can be bought and sold, a community place where people meet, a landscape with aesthetic appeal, a productive system that generates profits, a property to be managed, or a spiritual realm that relates to proper order and reverence. Each of these cultural constructions interacts with the others and this can create conflicts over rights and responsibilities. Each construction has implications for who should manage the coast, to what ends, and by what means. This article explores the negative and positive implications of seven cultural models to the Australian coast and makes suggestions about the value of Australian Indigenous and sustainability perspectives to a durable human relationship with the coast. Examples are drawn from recent coastal developments in Australia, such as Native Title debates, the marine protected area process, and Coastcare.

Global networks of clusters of innovation: Accelerating the innovation process

This article presents a framework for understanding new patterns of innovation and commercialization that are most easily observed in Clusters of Innovation (COI) and in the global connections established among them. We define COI as environments that favor the creation and development of high potential entrepreneurial ventures. COI are characterized by heightened mobility of resources (principally people, capital, and information—including intellectual property); increased velocity of business development; and a culture of mobility that leads to an affinity for collaboration, development of durable relationships, and the formation of Networks of Clusters of Innovation (NCOI). These networks are distinct sets of relationships. When the connections progress to the point of mutual dependence and business integration among participating enterprises, such covalent bonds form tightly interrelated business communities, or Super-Clusters of Innovation (Super-COI). In this article, we analyze the characteristics of COI and the nature of the relationships that arise between them to form NCOI and Super-COI. Further, we present an integrated model to better understand the global innovation system.

Chapter Four: Regional Relationships: India, China, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Regional maps

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Chapter Two: Pakistan After 9/11

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Conclusion: Prospects and Policies

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Introduction

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Chapter One: The Nature of Pakistan

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Glossary

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Chapter Three: Internal Conflicts

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Notes

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state? Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today. Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Community engagement in health research: two decades of experience from a research project on HIV in rural Uganda

To describe how a research project on HIV epidemiology in rural Uganda has engaged the community over the past two decades, describing activities, opportunities and challenges that have arisen. The review draws on the experience of the authors as investigators involved in the project at various times since its inception in 1989, and on project documents and peer-reviewed publications. The project attracts community interest, participation and support mostly through community groups. The three main areas of activity are: health care and promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and community development aimed at poverty reduction. Key opportunities arise from the long-term joint commitment of the project and the community over nearly 20 years, and the potential to accommodate research beyond HIV. Challenges arise from participation fatigue, countered by innovations for the community and investment in capacity development for staff, and from the need to balance community development expectations and the project focus on HIV research. Judged by criteria of longevity, acceptance, and scientific output, community engagement in this HIV research project in rural Uganda has been successful. The experience from this project contributes to the collective documentation and analysis of case studies from various research projects in developing countries which identify good practices from multiple stakeholder perspectives.

La calidad de la relación: un concepto emergente. El caso de un establecimiento comercial

Relationship marketing bothers about maintaining stable and durable relationships with the customers. The relationship quality is an emergent concept that tries to measure the value of a customer throughout the time. The literature review reveals that the indicators which determine that construct are the satisfaction with the relationship, the customer confidence and the level of the buyer commitment. After identifying this construct as formative, the causal model is proposed. Results show that satisfaction is the principal determinant of confidence and affective commitment. And confidence is the only direct antecedent of cognitive commitment.

Estrutura de relacionamento entre instituições de pesquisa do campo de Ciência e Tecnologia no Brasil

Neste estudo, mapeamos a estrutura de relacionamento entre instituições de pesquisa no campo de Ciência e Tecnologia no Brasil, analisando 688 artigos publicados no Enanpad e no Simpósio de Gestão da Inovação Tecnológica, entre 2000 e 2005. Com base em co-autoria, verificamos que o campo se configura como uma grande rede em que mais da metade das instituições está conectada, criando capital social. Ainda, algumas destacam-se por apresentar grande número de colaboradores, por serem pontes entre diferentes grupos e por manterem a durabilidade das relações, havendo indícios de homofilia, cujas localização geográfica e papel institucional condicionam as relações entre pares. Por fim, existe influência da cooperação na produtividade das instituições.

The controversial Americanisation of the Italian mechanical industry after the Second World War: the case of Necchi

This paper analyses the process of Americanisation of the Italian mechanical industry after the Second World War, focusing on the case of Vittorio Necchi Spa, the main Italian sewing machine producer. The transformations of Necchi during the 1950s clearly demonstrate the way the processes of diffusion of a new managerial culture developed within an industrial sector with a big relative weight in the Italian economy. They show also that the adoption of new practices depended on the constitution of a propitious institutional environment, which could evolve in a complex dissemination system. The paper suggests a firm-level interpretation of this knowledge transfer, underlying the relevance in the explanation of the concrete processes of cross-country diffusion of managerial practices of elements like the enterprises' power structures, the specific carrier pathways of the managers involved, their ability to establish durable relationships with the main managerial culture production centres and the attributes of the knowledge that each firm regarded as strategic in different periods. In the case considered, even in a favourable institutional environment, where the spreading of managerial US practices, boosted by the US aid administration, was largely a demand-driven process, the adoption of new practices depended on the legitimisation strategies of the managers and on the adaptability of new technological and organisational schemes to the firm's historical path.

Accounting for control and trust building in interfirm transactional relationships

This paper theorises the accounting-control-trust nexus in interfirm transactional relationships. In the context of such relationships, accounting has predominantly been conceptualised as a control technology. However, in our paper we analyse stable and durable relationships as being the results of interaction between control and trust building. Such an analysis calls for an additional conceptualisation of accounting as a trust building technology. Furthermore, we explain the interaction between accounting for control and accounting for trust building in the context of a process of embedded agency. Accounting for control is underpinned by a governance structure, which includes accounting structures that have the potential to act as safeguarding and incentivizing devices with the aim of aligning long-term interests. The governance structure is flanked by trust from the institutional environment of the transactional relationship. Accounting for trust building originates from voluntary local decisions to show commitment to the relationship. It takes the form of ad hoc calculations and accounts and becomes a device for relational signalling. Adequate interaction between accounting for control and accounting for trust building results in stable and durable interfirm transactional relationships.

Measures of the Therapeutic Relationship in Severe Psychotic Illness: A Comparison of Two Scales

A durable therapeutic relationship is central to mental health practice. The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) and the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) are established instruments for measuring such a relationship. The project aimed to test the correlation between the two scales for patients with severe psychotic illness treated in an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team. Ninety-one patients of an ACT team and their key-workers were recruited to complete the measures. Seventy-one patients (78%) completed the scales, and key-workers completed scales for every eligible patient. Both groups rated the relationship positively. There was a strong and significant correlation between the patient version of the WAI and the HAQ. There were significant but much weaker correlations between the patient-rated WAI and HAQ and the key-worker WAI. The patient version of the WAI and the HAQ seem to measure the patient's view of the relationship equivalently. The HAQ is simpler and easier to administer than the WAI.

The Competitive Challenge in Banking

The increasingly competitive environment poses challenges to bankers. This paper emphasizes relationship banking as a prime source of the banks' comparative advantage. The proliferation of transaction-oriented banking (trading and financial market activities) does however seriously challenge relationship banking. Competition from financial markets may well destabilize (traditional) durable relationships. However, we argue that, contrary to what many believe, banks may optimally respond by increasing relationship-specific investments. These observations echo the insights generated by fundamental research in the area of financial intermediation, and seem consistent with banks' recent strategic choices. We subsequently analyze the implications for the competitive positioning of banks. To this end, we discuss the rationales and empirical evidence regarding the recent consolidation and conglomeration trend in the financial sector, and the implications for both the industrial structure and the optimal internal organization of banks. We also discuss the potential disaggregation of the value chain via joint ventures or outsourcing.