Gilbreth, Inc.

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-185
Author(s):  
Florian Hoof

Chapter 3 focuses on the emergence of the consulting industry and discusses early visual consulting models. It describes them as intrinsic parts of marketing efforts undertaken by consulting companies to boost their business model. It specifically focuses on the case of the early corporate consulting firm Gilbreth, Inc., which developed its “lab-based consulting” approach, with a significant use of film and media, as the firm’s main unique selling proposition. Gilbreth, Inc. strategically used a broad range of different visualization techniques—including motion studies conducted in a laboratory setting—in order to separate themselves from other corporate consultants, such as Harrington Emerson and Frederick Taylor. They communicated this in a broadly conceived marketing campaign, which in turn has relevance for the development of management theory and practice, since it popularized a specific model of business leadership among a wider expert audience.

Management ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103
Author(s):  
Przemysław Niewiadomski

SummarySince many researchers and managers think about the essence, creation mechanisms and limits of the manufacturing model maturity, at this point, the author raises the question related to this issue: what dimensions (descriptions and desiderata) should be considered when conceptualizing this idea? The formulated question became a starting point and a point of conducting a creative synthesis, based, on the one hand, on a detailed analysis of the problem theory, and on the other hand – on the author’s own research. The above question and belief related to the existence of economic demand for results of application nature were the main inspiration to undertake research whose main purpose is to recognize: how the maturity of the business model is understood by selected experts operating in the Polish agricultural machinery sector?


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Yu.P. Adler ◽  

Dr. Edwards Deming, whose 120th birthday falls on October 14, 2020, has made outstanding contributions to management theory and practice, mathematical statistics and many other areas of human endeavor. This work, written for the anniversary of E. Deming, examines the paradoxes arising from his teachings. They relate, inter alia, to competition, motivation and remuneration, the use of sampling methods, on-the-job training, operational definitions and much more. Resolving these paradoxes is the path to a deeper understanding of the modern world and to the improvement of management practice. Already during Deming’s lifetime, numerous attempts were made to revise his teachings, and now there is a desire to abandon the use and development of his heritage. This is alarming and worrying.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phuc Hong Huynh

PurposeDigital innovation and circular business model innovation are two critical enablers of a circular economy. A wide variety of digital technologies such as blockchain, 3D printing, cyber-physical systems, or big data also diverges the applications of digital technologies in circular business models. Given heterogeneous attributes of circular business models and digital technologies, the selections of digital technologies and circular business models might be highly distinctive within and between sectorial contexts. This paper examines digital circular business models in the context of the fashion industry and its multiple actors. This industry as the world’s second polluting industry requires an urgent circular economy (CE) transition with less resource consumption, lower waste emissions and a more stable economy.Design/methodology/approachAn inductive, exploratory multiple-case study method is employed to investigate the ten cases of different sized fashion companies (i.e. large, small medium-sized firm (SME) and startup firms). The comparison across cases is conducted to understand fashion firms' distinct behaviours in adopting various digital circular economy strategies.FindingsThe paper presents three archetypes of digital-based circular business models in the fashion industry: the blockchain-based supply chain model, the service-based model and the pull demand-driven model. Besides incremental innovations, the radical business model and digital innovations as presented in the pull demand-driven model may be crucial to the fashion circular economy transition. The pull demand–driven model may shift the economy from scales to scopes, change the whole process of how the fashion items are forecasted, produced, and used, and reform consumer behaviours. The paths of adopting digital fashion circular business models are also different among large, SMEs and startup fashion firms.Practical implicationsThe study provides business managers with empirical insights on how circular business models (CBMs) should be chosen according to intrinsic business capacities, technological competences and CE strategies. The emerging trends of new fashion markets (e.g. rental, subscription) and consumers' sustainable awareness should be not be neglected. Moreover, besides adopting recycling and reuse strategies, large fashion incumbents consider collaborating with other technology suppliers and startup companies to incubate more radical innovations.Social implicationsAppropriate policies and regulations should be enacted to enable the digital CE transition. Market patterns and consumer acceptances are considered highly challenging to these digital fashion models. A balanced policy on both the demand and supply sides are suggested. The one-side policy may fail CBMs that entail an upside-down collaboration of both producers and consumers. Moreover, it is perhaps time to rethink how to reduce unnecessary new demand rather than repeatedly producing and recycling.Originality/valueThe pace of CE research is lagging far behind the accelerating environmental contamination by the fashion industry. The study aims to narrow the gap between theory and practice to harmonise fashion firms' orchestration and accelerate the transition of the fashion industry towards the CE. This study examines diverse types of digital technologies in different circular business models in a homogeneous context of the fashion industry with heterogeneous firm types.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangdong Wu ◽  
Qingshan Kong ◽  
Jian-gang Shi ◽  
Hamid Reza Karimi ◽  
Wei Zhang

Information sharing and marketing channel building have become an important problem of supply chain management theory and practice. The research of information sharing focused on traditional channel of supply chain between upstream and downstream enterprises; however, the research ignores the behavior of information sharing with potential entrants and composite structure characteristics about traditional marketing channel with the direct channel. This paper uses the model to research the effects brought about sharing demand information with potential entrants and building marketing channel, which reveals information sharing and channel building mechanism in the supply chain. The study found that the five-force model of Porter regards potential entrants only as a threat that is one-sided. When the channel competitiveness meets certain conditions, manufacturer and retailer will share demand information with potential entrants. Building composite marketing channel is the manufacturer's absolute dominant strategy. Channel construction will increase the entry barriers for potential entrants and weaken the effect of double marginalization; meanwhile, the performance of supply chain will be augmented.


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