Hyper-competitive Marketplace Research Articles

THE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE OF STORYTELLING: ENHANCINGCONTENT MARKETING AND ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

In todays hyper-competitive marketplace, brands are continually seeking innovative strategies to cut through the clutter and engage with their target audiences effectively. This research paper delves into the strategic significance of storytelling in the realm of content marketing and advertising campaigns. Drawing upon a comprehensive review of scholarly literature and empirical evidence, this paper explores how storytelling enhances audience engagement, fosters emotional connections, and ultimately drives tangible business outcomes. Through the analysis of case studies and industry benchmarks, this paper provides actionable insights for marketers seeking to leverage storytelling as a powerful tool for campaign success.

How do idiosyncratic deals influence innovation performance? From the perspective of coworker.

In the hypercompetitive marketplace, contemporary organizations incorporate the diversity of talents into job design (i.e., offering idiosyncratic deals), in order to meet the unique needs of talented employees and achieve the purpose of attracting, motivating, and retaining them. Based on the cognitive-affective processing system framework, this study aims to explore the effect of coworkers' perceptions of employees' idiosyncratic deals (CPEID) on coworker innovation performance, the mediating role of thriving at work, and the moderating role of humility. Two-wave data were obtained from 248 employees of 15 China firms. The findings suggest that (a) CPEID increase coworker innovation performance by fostering coworker learning; (b) CPEID decrease coworker innovation performance by undermining coworker vitality; (c) Coworker humility not only positively moderates the relationship between CPEID and coworker learning, but also positively moderates the indirect effect of coworker learning between CPEID and coworker innovation performance; and (d) the moderating role of coworker humility is not significant in the relationship between CPEID and coworker vitality. This study provides a theoretical explanation for whether CPEID have both positive and negative effects on coworker innovation performance, and extends boundary conditions of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). Besides, the findings inspire managers to make reasonable use of the positive role of i-deals.

An enhanced PSO algorithm to configure a responsive-resilient supply chain network considering environmental issues: a case study of the oxygen concentrator device.

In recent years, the hyper-competitive marketplace has led to a drastic enhancement in the importance of the supply chain problem. Hence, the attention of managers and researchers has been attracted to one of the most crucial problems in the supply chain management area called the supply chain network design problem. In this regard, this research attempts to design an integrated forward and backward logistics network by proposing a multi-objective mathematical model. The suggested model aims at minimizing the environmental impacts and the costs while maximizing the resilience and responsiveness of the supply chain. Since uncertainty is a major issue in the supply chain problem, the present paper studies the research problem under the mixed uncertainty and utilizes the robust possibilistic stochastic method to cope with the uncertainty. On the other side, since configuring a supply chain is known as an NP-Hard problem, this research develops an enhanced particle swarm optimization algorithm to obtain optimal/near-optimal solutions in a reasonable time. Based on the achieved results, the developed algorithm can obtain high-quality solutions (i.e. solutions with zero or a very small gap from the optimal solution) in a reasonable amount of time. The achieved results demonstrate the negative impact of the enhancement of the demand on environmental damages and the total cost. Also, according to the outputs, by increasing the service level, the total cost and environmental impacts have increased by 41% and 10%, respectively. On the other hand, the results show that increasing the disrupted capacity parameters has led to a 17% increase in the total costs and a 7% increase in carbon emissions.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00521-022-07739-8.

A heuristic-based hybrid algorithm to configure a sustainable supply chain network for medical devices considering information-sharing systems.

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, the crucial role of the sustainability concept has been highlighted more. Hence, managers’ attention has been attracted to the concept of sustainable supply chains. On the other hand, after the COVID-19 outbreak, the importance of medical devices and their demand has drastically enhanced, which has led to shifting the attention of researchers toward this industry. In this regard, based on the importance of the mentioned points, the current study configures a sustainable supply chain network for the medical devices industry. In this way, given the crucial role of the oxygen concentrator during the COVID-19 outbreak, the present study investigates the supply chain of the mentioned goods as a case study. Also, this research develops an efficient hybrid solution method based on goal programming, a heuristic algorithm, and the simulated annealing algorithm to solve the suggested model. Eventually, sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the influence of the crucial parameters of the model on the outputs, and managerial insights are provided. According to the achieved results, the suggested model and the developed hybrid method demonstrate a good performance which shows their efficiency.

Customer Satisfaction and Repurchase Decision: Evidence from Fast Food Restaurants

Service quality is a major determinant of customer satisfaction and consequently a repurchase decision in the fast food restaurants’ (FFRs) industry. Nevertheless, prompt and efficient services alone may not guarantee a restaurant a place in today’s hyper- competitive marketplace. Therefore, this study was conceived to examine the impact of food quality (FQ), service quality (SQ), perceived value (PV) and restaurant environment (RE) on customer re-purchase decision, mediated by customer satisfaction (CS). Data for the study were obtained from a sample of 320 consumers drawn from 12 FFRs in three major towns in Delta State, Nigeria. Multiple and hierarchical regressions were used to analyse the data generated. The findings indicated that FQ, SQ, PV and RE exerted positive and significant effects on CS and re-purchase decision. The results also showed that CS fully mediated the relationship between SQ and repurchase decision, but the meditational influence was only partially for FQ, PV and RE; implying that FQ, PV and RE have their own direct influence on RPD besides through SQ. Given the impact of FQ, SQ, PV and RE on CS and repurchase decision, restaurants’ managers need to continually improve on the quality of their services, environment and offerings to sustain the patronage of their clients in order to survive in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.

When Programs Collide: A Panel Report on the Competing Interests of Analytics and Security

The increasing demand for business analytics and cybersecurity professionals provides an exciting job outlook for graduates of information systems programs. However, the rapid proliferation of devices and systems that spurred this trend has created a challenging ethical dilemma for the individuals responsible for educating future generations of information technology professionals. Many firms collect and store as much data as possible in the hope that technology might uncover useful insights in the future. This behavior results in an ever-increasing challenge for those charged with protecting organizational assets and exerts pressure on executives seeking an analytical edge to remain profitable in a hyper-competitive marketplace. With this dilemma in mind, a recent panel discussion at the 14th Annual Midwest Association for Information Systems Conference explored the delicate balance between unleashing the power of analytics and securing the sensitive data it consumes while respecting consumer privacy. This paper reports on that discussion and its insights.

“Two Birds with One Stone”: Transmedia Serialisation in <em>Twin Peaks</em>

“Two Birds with One Stone”: Transmedia Serialisation in <em>Twin Peaks</em>

Why it is important to build an innovation strategy through the project management maturity model

Today, innovation is the main global economic growth booster, as well as representing a real need in all human matters. Private and public organizations must innovate to survive in a hypercompetitive marketplace that is changing profoundly and at an increasingly fast pace, conveying an ever-higher level of expectation, and linking social and technological fields that were previously separated. All organizations, public and privates; nonprofits; academia; professional associations; small and medium enterprises; and multinational industries have to develop their own missions in a highly complex scenario based on a large number of variables that are often unpredictable, dynamic, and managed by different owners. The market is affected by global crisis, not only economic and financial crisis but also crisis due to the reduced availability of natural resources; United States–European Union–North Atlantic Treaty Organization–Russia political tensions; social, ethnic, and religious issues; and different perceptions of values, quality, time, and cost. Consequently, it is more difficult to be innovative or to be recognized as an innovator, because the standards, the reference, and the metrics to measure this attitude have changed. In addition, it is more complicated to figure out how to create a sustainable development process. Studies on organizations show that innovation is achievable only through a strategic thought process and a specific risk-taking approach; it's feasible by implementing initiatives that aim at a global, integrated, and continuous modernization process, but it will and must infiltrate the whole value chain's phases and parameters [1] (e.g., people, processes, business models, offerings, and technology). Organizations, governing all these assets, can reach a real and concrete competitive position and create tangible benefits and values for all stakeholders and shareholders (Figure 1). Strategic initiatives should be carried out as projects, so they must refer to well-defined processes. They must benefit from support tools for their planning and execution and from teams with appropriate management and technical competencies and skills.

Do Internal Branding Efforts Help Ensure Positive Service Delivery Experiences?

Think of your last visit to a big box retailer. Did that experience live up to your expectations? Did the employees you encounter deliver great service? Or was your service experience something that would drive you to a competitor down the road? Branding is a major focus for all companies in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace. Firms have to continually focus on how to shape—and protect— the image of their brand. Indeed, companies have to play “brand defense,” monitoring social media for feedback that could quickly sour a brand’s image. For service companies, the branding equation is complicated and less controllable due to the human element involved in service delivery. All the positive “feel good” advertising in the world that builds-up a customer’s brand perception can be ruined in an instant if he or she encounters a “feel bad” employee. The importance of each customer’s interaction with every service employee was captured by Jan Carlzon, the former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (Carlzon, 1987). Central to the airline’s operational turnaround was the fact that Carlzon focused on making certain that Scandinavian Airlines’ customers had the best experience possible when they interacted with each employee during their individual journeys. He termed these interactions “moments of truth,” in which customers form their unique impressions—positive or negative—of the company and its brand through their interactions with employee. Scholars have noted that it is difficult for service company executives to overcome the inherent challenge of managing these “moments of truth” that enable front-line employees to spark a positive connection with customers (Beaujean, Davidson, & Madge, 2006) and how little research has been done on such interactions (Punjaisri & Wilson, 2007). Indeed, while we typically think of corporate branding efforts as aimed at external audiences, a recent research study examined the recently developed concept of internal branding. The study, coauthored by Thomas Baker and Adam Rapp (both of the University of Alabama), Tracy Meyer (University of North Carolina Wilmington), and Ryan Mullins (Clemson University), provides new insights into the importance of internal branding efforts in influencing a company’s critical frontline employees to provide brand-reinforcing levels of service.

A road map to new product success: warranty, advertisement and price

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, new product introduction is commonly viewed as a vehicle for profitably growing businesses, yet market success remains rare and new innovative products fail at stunning rates. Current corporate thinking identifies a number of potential reasons, one of which lies in the poor execution of marketing-mix strategies. In this paper, we analyze how best to structure the marketing strategy of a company to foster and leverage his innovative new product with a focus on three variables—namely warranty duration, advertising spending and selling price—and attempt to provide a theoretical explanation for factors that affect optimal trajectories of these variables over time. We also conduct a detailed numerical study in order to test which market- and product-related factors have the most influence on and best explain the company’s new product introduction strategy, and illustrate the associated profit impacts. Our analysis proposes a time-variant threshold on advertising spending that structures the company’s marketing strategy over time. Secondly, we point out that warranty duration and price collectively follow the pattern of the diffusion curve of the new product, but reach their maximum levels before the new product matures. We also provide guidance about the effect of such market- and product-related factors as referral power, failure rates and effectiveness of advertising spending on a company’s new product introduction strategy.

Génération CV par Jonathan Curiel

Society and Culture edited by Frederick Toner Curiel, Jonathan. Génération CV. Paris: Fayard, 2012. ISBN 978-2-213-66849-9. Pp. 315. 19 a. Are you curious about the struggles French twentysomethings can have trying to land a steady job? Interested in a portrait of the neoliberal work world? Wondering what it can be like for a chômeur to face down a potentially drab, precarious future despite a strong background? Read this comic Bildungsroman and you will see such trials and tribulations through the eyes of Clément Vialla, a business school graduate whose experiences reflect Millennials’concerns amid economic crises. Some may find this work too focused on the privileged few,as Clément has a top-flight initial trajectory and a reasonable number of connections. However, therein lies the bittersweet humor: Génération CV conveys the sacrifices and compromises necessary across the board in order to find satisfying work. Without preaching to the converted, Curiel builds on firsthand knowledge to depict the emotional rollercoaster of a yearlong quest to be “[e]nfin membre d’une tribu” (312). The novel’s convincingly presented premise is that the first-person narrator, having completed extended studies and an internship at the UN in New York, aims to land a coveted CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée), but appears to have hesitated between the public and private sectors and thus makes recruiters noncommittal in turn. Call him lazy or just realistic, he also resists the drudgery of short-term contracts and anything that requires him to be too quickly and single-mindedly “opérationnel” (24). Clément represents those in the 25–35 age bracket who must adapt to France’s hyper-competitive marketplace through selfcenteredness , intense focus on their professional lives, and a solid CV as “le nouveau fil directeur de l’existence”(309).At the same time, he may well be the disciple of civil servants for whom“la qualité de vie et la convivialité l’emportaient très largement sur l’espoir d’un intérêt de la vie professionnelle” (216). Clément lives up to his name by being more observant and quick-witted than aggressive or ruthlessly combative. He inspires compassion for his sufferings and keen awareness of the people and places that surround him, so much so that one could envision a film version of the book. The style and structure, meanwhile, guide us through all manner of amusing episodes while maintaining our empathy for the narrator, who both knows he cuts a sorry figure at times—pale, inactive, TV-obsessed—and delights in adapting his discourse to suit recruiters’ needs, for example when claiming to be both fluent in English and a hopeless “WORKALCOLIC”(185). Smoothly tracking his passage through a revolving door of interviews, Internet searches, networking efforts, and talks with friends, each chapter combines realistic scenes with engaging commentary about our intrepid job-seeker’s situation, while introducing aspects of the job search in areas such as marketing, communications, government, and finance. The open-ended epilogue hints at a 244 FRENCH REVIEW 88.2 Reviews 245 follow-up.A lively coming-of-age story relevant for students,teachers,and professionals of all sorts, including those entrenched in corporate structures and fellow travelers on “LinkedIn” (29). Southwestern University (TX) Aaron Prevots Downie, David. Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James. New York: Pegasus, 2013. ISBN 978-1-60598-432-2. Pp. xviii + 317. $27.95. Downie undertakes the French portion of the pilgrimage Way of Saint James from Paris to Roncesvalles, Spain, a distance of 750 miles, longer than the remaining distance to Santiago de Compostela. The title is catchy but misleading, since the only connection to the pilgrimage is the itinerary and the projected route, which is abandoned less than halfway through the trip. Nonetheless there is value to what is achieved, namely a detailed visit to a little-known region of rural France. Downie and his wife Alison Harris begin with a symbolic nod to the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris, a traditional French starting point of the pilgrimage. They take a train to Vézelay, bypassing the urban development...

Strategic Knowledge Arbitrage and Serendipity (SKARSE™) in Action

In today’s globalizing and hypercompetitive marketplace, knowledge, and learning are the only capabilities that can provide sustained competitive advantage. “Knowledge” is the content of learning and a firm gains competitive superiority either by knowing something that its competitors do not know or by having a certain type of knowledge that cannot easily be replicated. “Learning” is the process of gaining new knowledge, so that the firm is constantly accumulating and assimilating knowledge and this becomes the basis for creating and improving organizational routines. Learning is the also the basis of what strategists are calling firms’ “dynamic capabilities”, which enable them to build new competences in an evolutionary cycle to maintain an edge in an ever-changing industrial environment. This paper briefly explores conceptually and attempts to validate empirically the nature and dynamics of strategic knowledge arbitrage and serendipity (SKARSE™) as real options drivers (RODs). The author reviews and assesses how, why, and when SKARSE™ serve as high value-adding RODs and identifies critical success and failure factors in designing and implementing real options that leverage SKARSE™. He also examines the lessons learned from actual mergers and acquisitions. Finally, he addresses the operation of SKARSE™ in the context of a complex evolutionary ecosystem shaped by the dynamics of co-opetition, co-evolution, and co-specialization.

Assessing the Relationship among Six Sigma, Absorptive Capacity and Innovation Performance

Nowadays in the hypercompetitive marketplace companies try to adopt and apply many strategic approaches and initiatives that have proved its success to improve the competitive advantage, innovative abilities, and business performance in general. Thus, this study attempts to figure out the relationship between Six Sigma and innovation performance, and examine the mediating role of AC in this relationship. A questionnaire was used to collect the data from the manufacturing companies in Malaysia and Partial Least Square (PLS) was adopted to analyze the data obtained. Based on the literature review, the conceptual framework of this study is introduced. The hypotheses were tested and supported through the findings.

Staffing the global organization: “Cultural nomads”

AbstractThis article explores the evolution of international staffing in an increasingly globalized and hypercompetitive marketplace. As the issue of staff retention becomes critical in global organizations, it is important to understand the types of managers that may be on or assigned to overseas assignments. The purpose of this article is to present a conceptual model of types of expatriates and explore key decision making points along their potential evolution into global staff. This model emerges from several bodies of literature.

Business process outsourcing: A case study of Satyam Computers

The prominence of business process outsourcing (BPO) continues to intensify in today's hyper-competitive marketplace. Engaging in BPO can help an organization focus on its core competencies, while gaining specialized knowledge, skills, and processes in auxiliary spaces. The literature is laden with evidence that engaging in a BPO will help organizations secure financial, operational, and even strategic advantages. While there is little doubt that organizations can attain these benefits, few BPO arrangements work out as planned. Managing risks in BPO arrangements is paramount. In this case analysis, we describe a significant failure through chronological description of scandals that took place at one of India's largest outsourcing vendors, Satyam Computer Services. In describing the study, we draw attention to the fact that organizations need to (1) improve their sensing capabilities and keep abreast of strategic transformations at their outsourcing vendors, (2) be able to plan for and execute contingency plans, and (3) balance the risks and rewards of BPOs in terms of knowledge and capabilities dependencies.

Knowledge-Driven Creative Destruction, or Leveraging Knowledge for Competitive Advantage

In today's globalizing and hypercompetitive marketplace, knowledge and learning are the only capabilities that can provide sustained competitive advantage. ‘Knowledge’ is the content of learning, and a firm gains competitive superiority either by knowing something that its competitors do not know or by having a certain type of knowledge that cannot easily be replicated. ‘Learning’ is the process of gaining new knowledge, so that the firm is constantly accumulating and assimilating knowledge and this becomes the basis for creating and improving organizational routines. Learning is the also the basis of what strategists are calling firms' ‘dynamic capabilities’ (Tushman and Rosenkopf, 1992), which enable them to build new competences in an evolutionary cycle to maintain an edge in an ever-changing industrial environment. This paper explores conceptually and attempts to validate empirically the nature and dynamics of strategic knowledge arbitrage and serendipity (SKARSE) as real options drivers (RODs). The author reviews and assesses how, why and when SKARSE serve as high value adding RODs and identifies critical success and failure factors in designing and implementing real options that leverage SKARSE. He also examines the lessons learned from actual mergers and acquisitions. Finally, he addresses the operation of SKARSE in the context of a complex evolutionary ecosystem shaped by the dynamics of co-opetition, co-evolution and co-specialization.

Scheduling jobs on a single machine to maximize the total revenue of jobs

In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, many products like memory chips and computers are characterized by short life cycles and rapidly declining sales prices. This implies that the amount of revenue generated as a result of completing a product (job) may be decreasing as its completion time is delayed. In such an environment, there is a decided preference for the maximization of product revenues as an important objective. Based on the assumption that the decreasing rate of revenue is dependent on their product types, we intend to develop a searching algorithm and some heuristic algorithms to locate optimal and near-optimal job sequences, respectively, and thereby maximize total earned revenue.

Knowledge Management Implementation in SMEs: A Framework and a Case Illustration

In today's hyper-competitive marketplace it is pivotal for firms to master the art of integrating disparate sources of knowledge. Managing knowledge requires a complex combination of new tools, infrastructure, intellectual capital, processes, strategies, and their coexistence and integration with the existing ones. Although knowledge management (KM) implementation appears relatively risky and overwhelming, it starts with a few steps and requires assistance from inside and outside the organisation. This paper examines the implementation of KM from a dynamic capabilities perspective (Teece et al., 1997) and proposes a model that summarises the normative framework, which suggests that an organisation builds the requisite infrastructure to be in a position to embark on the path towards successful KM implementation. Based on a case study of a UAE based firm, this paper illustrates the utility of the framework as a guide in efforts to manage knowledge, draws practical recommendations for managers and policy makers enabling them to develop their organisations in the global knowledge economy. The paper also proposes ideas for future research.

Industrial modernisation initiatives: a technology transfer, organisational learning, and knowledge management perspective

Small manufacturing firms typically lack the necessary resources, such as money, information, and expertise, to upgrade their operations, resulting in low innovation rates, missed opportunities, and under-investment in productive technologies and best practices. In today's hyper-competitive marketplace, it is pivotal for firms to master the art of integrating disparate sources of knowledge. Managing knowledge requires a complex combination of new tools, infrastructures, intellectual capital, processes, strategies, and their coexistence and integration with the existing ones. The lack of adequate private assistance mechanisms for small firms has been sought to be compensated through public industrial modernisation initiatives across the US and the world to promote the diffusion and successful deployment of new technologies and business practices among small industrial firms. This paper uses three overlapping yet complementary perspectives that would motivate and direct a strategic reorientation of such public assistance initiatives.

Organizational survival within a declining industry: an analysis of a single sex boarding school

It is quite common for industries to quickly go from a state of stability to one of decline in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace. In this article, we examine research on organizational and industry decline, a topic often overlooked by researchers and practitioners. In particular, survival guidelines are provided for organizations within declining industries. Also, it is demonstrated how an organization can use such guidelines by examining a single‐sex boarding school that is currently facing such a dilemma. It is hoped that our observations and prescriptions for the boarding school may be helpful to other organizations that may be facing similar decline in their environments.