Volatile Business Environment Research Articles

Shared burdens: The General Average adjustment of the Jan Maria

The Jan Maria was a Dutch schooner that, in 1883, en route from the Baltic to its home port, was forced to jettison cargo during a fierce storm, which resulted in a General Average (GA) procedure. GA refers to a method that redistributes damages that were deliberately inflicted by the master, in order to save the ship and its cargo, among all those parties that benefited from the action. The report of this procedure of the Jan Maria has been preserved and is exceptional in its completeness. It offers a unique view on a complex procedure and also on the coping mechanisms of small-scale entrepreneurs in a volatile business environment. In this article, I will explain the principle and functioning of GA, and I will argue that, in spite of financial innovations like marine insurance, GA remained an important part of risk management.

ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF ENTERPRISES’ MARKETING MANAGEMENT

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the most current problems and issues in marketing management. As all enterprises deal with various difficulties in their business planning, implementation and control, these issues and problems have to be recognized, dealt with, and solved. Most of the business strains will have a lot to do with diverse marketing aspects, as marketing is the main link between enterprises and their markets and customers; strategically mappedand implemented marketing helps to create competitive advantage and pave the way for success, but different problems can endanger firms’ marketing process, thus in today’s volatile business environment marketing executives have to bear in mind and deal with various facets of the marketing in rapidly changing world.

ADOPTION OF MOOCS AND ONLINE TEACHING AMIDST THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, A STUDY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF STUDENTS AND FACULTIES IN INDIA

COVID-19 Pandemic has presented a slew of challenges to almost every industry bringing opportunities for few and challenges for others. The key to survival in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment is adapting and changing business processes to suit the new normal. Education industry has not been immune to this pandemic; it has brought a myriad of challenges and opportunities for the students and teachers community. Institutions around the world have adopted E-teaching methods to serve the students from an arm’s length; faculties have also taken lockdown period as an opportunity to sharpen their knowledge domain by pursuing various MOOC/Online courses. This study is an effort to understand consumer behavior in the adoption of E-learning/teaching among students and faculties. The objective of this paper was to create and test two regression models on the adoption of e-courses by students and adoption of online teaching/online learning among faculties. Additional objectives included assessing the difference in adoption of elearning/teaching between different groups of students/faculties on the basis of demographic factors.

Law and Technology: Company Law

In this chapter, we discuss areas of company law where technology has already played a part and also predict where it may soon transform legal practice. We focus on shareholder rights, share capital, informational costs, fundraising and artificial intelligence. The central theme, though, is that to prevent statutory obsolescence, laws should be drafted with enough flexibility to accommodate changes in technology. This will allow practitioners the leeway to push on the edge of the envelope and let market forces help in determining the most efficient ways of doing things in a volatile business environment.

The Effect of Incentives and Leadership Styles on Creative Performance

Introduction/Main Objectives: This study investigates whether the type of incentives offered and leadership styles interact to affect creative performance. Background Problems: Creativity is highly needed by companies to survive in a volatile business environment. Prior research found that management control systems and the leadership style were able to stimulate creativity. It is still unclear which type of incentives and leadership styles are able to stimulate creativity. Therefore, this research proposes a research question, what kind of management control systems and leadership style can improve creative performance? Novelty: This research focuses on comparing monetary and non-monetary incentives, based on competition, to produce the most creative ideas, but empirical studies into the context of creativity are still limited. Furthermore, this study investigates two different leadership styles and it sheds light on the fact that the leadership styles needed in a creative environment differ from those styles used in a non-creative environment. Research Methods: This study was conducted using a 2x2 between subject experimental design with two incentive treatments (tournament and recognition) and two leadership style treatments (directive and empowering). Finding/Results: Consistent with Lourenco (2016), monetary incentives (including tournaments) and non-monetary incentives (recognition) are substitutive. Furthermore, the empowering leadership style leads to a greater creative performance than the directive style does. The results indicate that, in the condition of a tournament incentive, empowering leadership is able to produce a higher creative performance than directive leadership can. Conclusion: There is no significantly difference between the effect of monetary incentives and non-monetary incentives on creative performance. This study’s result is consistent with the situational leadership theory, certain types of leadership are appropriate for certain environmental conditions. For improved creative performance, employees need to be empowered because they need the authority and freedom to develop ideas. This study provides knowledge about the impact of incentives and leadership styles on creative performance. Furthermore, this study provides practical knowledge for companies on how to improve creativity in the work environment by using certain incentives and leadership styles.

Using the analytic hierarchy process to design supply chains based on demand uncertainty and implied resource requirements

In today's volatile business environment, a single supply chain (SC) for a firm can be quite risky. The loss resulting from any disruptive operations, in a case with a single SC, can be much higher than costs of having a few resilient supply chains. For a firm to provide its customers with the desired responsiveness, a few supply chains should be developed. However, due to scarcity of resources, it would be impossible to indiscriminately provide top quality service to all customers. This study uses the Delphi method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to rank a firm's customers and to determine the implied resource requirements to fulfil customer orders. Using this information, a customer priority index (CPI) matrix is constructed. The CPI matrix is subsequently divided into four quadrants and for each quadrant, a unique SC strategy is formulated, considering the customer's importance and degree of scarcity of resources.

Corporate Learning Factories – Benefits, Challenges, and Success Factors of Learning Factories in Industry

In today's fast-changing and volatile business environment, human capital has become a major economic asset to creating business value and gaining competitive advantage as a business. Human capital can be advanced through training and education. Training in learning factories has proven to be an effective approach for industrial learning, especially in the field of manufacturing. Some companies have recognized this and have developed learning factories for their businesses, in this paper also referred to as corporate learning factories. Employee training and personnel development are time-intensive and costly processes for companies. With the learning factory approach, expenses and training time can be reduced significantly. However, in literature, there is a lack of how to develop and especially implement learning factories in a corporate structure. Above that, studies regarding the benefits, challenges, and success factors of learning factories in industries are lacking. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the importance of learning factories in personnel development, provide an overview of existing learning factories in industry, and present results conducted from interviews with three companies on benefits, challenges as well as success factors of learning factories in industry.

Information systems and change in project based organizations

Abstract Companies in highly competitive environments often adopt project management practices to manage their processes and activities in a quest to leverage flexibility. Doing so these companies usually become project based organizations (PBO). This paper aims to design new ways how PBOs respond to change and adapt their project based organization model. This paper adopts an action research methodology and explores the case of a company that faced several environment challenges and so was obliged to change its organizational and information systems processes. From the observed challenges and results, it became obvious that a PBO needs to implement portfolio, program and project management processes and adapt them to volatile business environments. The studied longitudinal case proves that information systems have a crucial role to support the PBO processes as part of an effective change process.

The building blocks of organizational resilience: a review of the empirical literature

PurposeResilience is critical for organizations in today's volatile business environment, yet some will survive (and even thrive) despite adversity, while others will perish. Why do some organizations handle adversity better than others? The past literature confirms the importance of specific resources, capabilities and structures in dealing with adversity. However, empirical research on organizational resilience remains highly diverse, and the available results have not yet been presented succinctly.Design/methodology/approachA literature review of empirical research on organizational resilience was conducted to summarize the diverse findings of 69 studies, focusing on the factors that lead to resilience.FindingsSeveral building blocks affect how organizations successfully anticipate, cope with and adapt to adversity. Anticipation entails environmental scanning, resilience plans, specific leadership behavior and resources. Coping necessitates particular leadership qualities, a certain organizational culture and innovation. Adaptation requires an organization to learn from adversity and initiate change processes, which influences its ability to anticipate adversity in the long run.Originality/valueBy exclusively analyzing empirical research on organizational resilience, this study summarizes and assembles the results into building blocks for organizational resilience. The findings elaborate on the composition of a concept that is known for its complexity.

International Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance of SMEs: The Mediating Role of Informal Institutional Framework

This article identifies the mediating role of informal institutional frameworks upon the relationship between the international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and their perceived financial performance, while operating within a volatile business environment. To reach the study’s aim, we conducted a regression analysis upon SMEs operating in Turkey and implemented structural equation modeling on the construct to specify the validity of the model. The findings are that the indicated relationship is indeed mediated by informal institutional frameworks. However, IEO and financial performance relationship is negative. The practical implementation of IEO activities is risky when target market financial conditions are difficult, and the nature of relevant informal institutional frameworks should be considered before full commitment to IEO activities.

Competencies of Production in SMEs in Assembly Industries in a Digital, Volatile Business Environment

SMEs are currently confronted with major challenges such as increasing uncertainty and volatility. In order to face these challenges, agility and digitalization can be implemented. Both concepts bring about numerous opportunities and new competency requirements. Currently, there are few scientifically based, practical training courses that focus on digitization and/or agility. The aim of this paper is to provide a roadmap for the development of the training concept. In this training, participants will be able to acquire theoretical content on a learning platform in a flexible way and they will be able to apply this knowledge in a learning factory. Based on a literature overview, requirements for such a training and the necessary skills in a digital, volatile business environment will be given.

Validation of a Lean Smart Maintenance Maturity Model

Rising complexity in industrial asset and maintenance management due to more volatile business environments and megatrends like Industry 4.0 has led to the need for a new perspective on these management domains. The Lean Smart Maintenance (LSM) philosophy, which focuses on both the efficient (lean) and the learning (smart) organization was introduced during the past few years, and a corresponding maturity model (MM) has been developed to guide organizations on their way to asset and maintenance excellence. This paper discusses use cases, in which the usability and the generic aspect of the LSM MM are validated by using data from three different asset management assessment projects in organizations with different types of production. Research results show that the LSM MM can be used as a basis for management system improvement, independent of production types such as one-of-a-kind industry, mass production and continuous production.

Augmenting customer loyalty through customer experience management in the banking industry

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the effect of customer experience management (virtual interaction, physical interaction and service interaction) on customer loyalty in the banking industry.Design/methodology/approachThe study followed an explanatory research design to sample 384 respondents. Stepwise regression analysis was used to validate the relevance of the study model.FindingsThe results indicated that there is a positive association between customer experience management and customer loyalty. The dimensions of customer experience management, namely virtual interaction, physical interaction and service interaction, were also found to be statistically significant in explaining customer loyalty behaviour.Practical implicationsThe study practically influences the way banks and other financial institutions gain competitive advantage through managing the experiences of customers in a volatile business environment. At a time when banks are no longer the only providers of financial services, the study offers a road map to reduce portfolio purchasing and switching behaviour through enhanced experience management at all customer touch points.Originality/valueThe study presents an augmented model of customer experience management which is linked to consumer loyalty.

The Effect of Training on Employees Performance: in Selected Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in Dawro Zone

In current era highly volatile business environment organizations are facing emerging challenges in form of acquisition and optimization of human resource. Being valuable and scarce capabilities, human resources are considered as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. The prosperity of an organization depends upon several factors but the most crucial factor that affects the organization performance is its employee. Human resources play an integral role in achieving an innovative and high-quality product/ accommodation. One major area of the Human Resource Management function of particular pertinence to the efficacious utilization of human resources is training and development. The consequentiality of training and development as a central role of management has long been apperceived. The one contribution a manager is uniquely expected to make is to give others vision and competency to perform.

Understanding the impact of supply-side decisions and practices on supply risk management

PurposeIn the era of market turbulence, sourcing specialists consistently face challenges to keep the availability of the material efficiently and effectively without any disruption. Sourcing strategies and planning have a huge impact on procurement performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among different sourcing strategies and supply risk management and performance and additionally, the role of procurement practices in different strategic settings.Design/methodology/approachThis is empirical research that collected data gathered from 223 procurement specialists working in various manufacturing firms through a structured questionnaire. Valid data is then analyzed through the structure equation modeling technique for hypotheses testing.FindingsThe findings of this study reveal that supplier development is a partial complementary mediator between multiple supplier strategy and supply-side risk management. While in a volatile business environment, strategic supplier strategy has a significant negative impact on supply-side risk management, and in this case supplier development acts as a competing partial mediator between the two. Contract management has resulted in an important mechanism to be deployed in a strategic sourcing strategy. It is also shown that supplier risk management is also associated with improved supply management performance.Practical implicationsThis paper establishes an explanation of theoretical and practical understanding of sourcing strategies and empirically shows that supplier development is the appropriate mechanism to deal with supply-side risk management, which in turn positively impacts on supplier management performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to supply chain risk management literature, especially in the context of strategic risk management and explains how a strategic decision can impact supply risk management. This provides a piece of empirical evidence regarding the use of well-established procurement practices to improve supply performance.

The impact of trust in leadership on organizational transformation

During periods of transformation or in other uncertain and volatile business environments, high levels of work engagement—the extent to which employees identify with their role in an organization—enable leaders to implement change more effectively. A study conducted in Bangladesh's banking sector explores the influence of transformational leadership on work engagement and examines the mediating effect of trust in that relationship. Taking place in a context of significant organizational change, the study shows that a transformational leadership approach enhances work engagement. It also shows that the influence that a transformational leader has on the level of work engagement is subject to the degree of trust that employees have in their leader. The findings highlight the need to foster bonds between leaders and their followers and to pay close attention to the most critical antecedents of trust in leadership.

Malaysia Risk Reporting Environment: Understanding of the Study

In today volatile business environment, the need for transparent information is arguably more needed than before. The internationalisation of company financial flows has caused risk reporting is becoming more important and recently become one of the most significant issues in financial markets. In Malaysia, past accounting scandals of Transmile and Port Klang Free Zone and the global financial crisis in 2007 – 2009 has triggered the market to pay special attention to company annual report especially their risk report. Due to pressure from professional bodies and government, the management and standard setters are working continuously to enhance company risk disclosure practice. The previous study also suggested despite the effort given by the responsible party to enhance disclosure practice, it was argued that current corporate disclosure is rather insufficient and yet to achieve a satisfactory level. Therefore, the objective of this study is to extend the current disclosure literature by discussing the problems of risk disclosure practice among listed companies in Malaysia. In addition, the study also intends to highlight the research questions and objective formulation.

Delineating entrepreneurial orientation efficacy on retailer’s business performance

PurposeIn today’s technology-led volatile business environment all established businesses are trembling and retailing is no exception. Exploration of the entrepreneurial side of retailers will expose the essential attitudes to survive in the new world order. The present study is an endeavor towards this end.Design/methodology/approachIn this descriptive research, a pre-tested entrepreneurial orientation questionnaire constructed by De Nobrega (2012) was adopted, and it was fine-tuned to suit for the retail environment. Initially, an exploratory study was organized, and it was followed by confirmatory factor analysis. Data collected were analyzed with SPSS 23.0, and the conceptual model was validated in AMOS 23.0.FindingsThe study evinces that the retailer’s entrepreneurial orientation is induced by five factors, namely, autonomy, risk-taking, innovation, competitive aggressiveness and pro-activeness. The study exposes the five dimensions and their ascendancy on business performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is operationalized in a small sample, confined to two types of trade, limited to small and medium retailers in Chennai and all the constructs are measured with the help of perceptual self-reporting scales.Practical implicationsThe study highlights that the art of spearheading retail business performance lies in attitude orientation. This work will propel retailers and trade bodies to nurture the entrepreneurial orientation.Social implicationsThe study emphasizes that boosting entrepreneurial mindset of retailers will enable them to achieve business progress and protects the grass root sector of the society.Originality/valueThis work is the very first study to identify and evaluate the impact of five-dimensional entrepreneurial orientation construct on small and medium retailer’s business performance. The present study is a pioneering empirical contribution to the Indian context.

Board heterogeneity and corporate performance: An insight beyond agency issues

In current volatile business environment, the owners of the corporations are worried about how diverse board composition influences the strategic performance of the corporations. Therefore, this st...

A Framework for Managing Innovation Cycles in Manufacturing Systems

Managing innovation cycles in manufacturing is a key challenge within a volatile business environment characterized by product diversity, individualization, digitalization, interdisciplinary teams and emerging technologies. Shorter product and technology life cycles demand proactive innovation and high efficiency of existing manufacturing technologies at once. A great range of approaches, models, and tools is available in scientific literature, yet managing innovation cycles in manufacturing is associated with great effort, willingness to take risks, strategic vision, and operational capabilities. This paper defines a framework for cyclic innovation management in manufacturing systems in order to enable manufacturing companies to manage technological innovation with ambidexterity.