The impact of capabilities on performance

2014 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mait Rungi

Purpose – The research finds how much the different types of capabilities influence the performance outcome of a company. A special focus is put on companies that use projects in their daily work; project-orientation is an expanding field, but their capabilities and influence on performance are not enough investigated. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative research setting was applied in EU member country Estonia. Survey was carried out with 189 responses. Findings – Interestingly, project-related capabilities are singly more significant to performance than business capabilities. Capabilities mostly influence financial performance and less project performance (PP). Traditional project time/scope/cost management (iron triangle) and project delivery capabilities significantly influence the variance of outcome indicators. Surprisingly, companies should be careful in aligning projects with strategy and pay great attention to teamwork threats, as these present the most negative influence on the outcome in circumstances where they have been conventional benefit factors. Research limitations/implications – Estonia is a small and innovative country, which makes results generalizable for similar types of countries worldwide and/or neighboring countries with geographical and cultural proximity. Practical implications – Companies behave in isomorphic environments (e.g. high competition, short new product development cycle, full of imitations, standardized business models), and therefore companies look for ways how to differentiate. Usually, findings that describe a 5 percent variance of outcome gain attention, variables used in this research provide much higher variance (48-83 percent). Due to constant environmental changes, companies should put more focus on project-related capabilities due to their high impact on performance. Originality/value – Capabilities are complex and not widely researched empirically from different angles, such as project management. This research takes a comprehensive base by involving a large variety of capabilities, including project-specific capabilities, not only a few common large companies' specific capabilities. The capabilities impact on PP is not yet investigated, also the influence from project capabilities on performance is not thoroughly researched.

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1343-1367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Zhang ◽  
Jiaxin Tang ◽  
Xin Wei ◽  
Minghui Yi ◽  
Patricia Ordóñez

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of mobile social media functions on explicit and implicit knowledge sharing under the “Guanxi” system based on the framework of stimulus–organism–response (SOR). Design/methodology/approach Combined with Guanxi theory, this paper designs an experiment to collect data from the new product development (NPD) teams. Findings Interestingly, the results show that the effect of social media communication function on employees is greater than the impact of collaboration on employees. Specifically, on the one hand, the more employees communicate in social media, the better their feelings will be, the less they will share knowledge. On the other hand, the collaboration function has a significantly negative impact on the psychological factors of employees. Excessively close cooperation and contact may instead create a contradiction between the employees, which is not conducive to the occurrence of knowledge sharing. Originality/value This paper extends SOR framework by combining Guanxi theory to examine the relationship between social media functions and knowledge sharing behavior (KSB). In practical, companies should pay attention to the frequency of employee using social media when it is introduced for NPD teams to control the negative influence of social media functions on employee KSB.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Yang ◽  
Christopher Cooke

PurposeThis study aims to explore the barriers to upscaling the production capacity of the edible insect sector in the UK and to identify the impact of current regulation on the sector's development.Design/methodology/approachA significant proportion of edible insect-producing companies within the UK were identified through an online market research database and contacted via email to invite them to participate in this study. Phone interviews were conducted with ten companies. Thematic analysis was adopted for data analysis.FindingsThere were five themes identified as barriers to the upscaling of the production for the edible insect sector in the UK: insect feeding materials, production capacity, expertise and knowledge, new product development and regulatory uncertainty.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was based on a qualitative study. Further quantitative research is needed to test the extent of the impact of these five themes on upscaling production capacity. In addition to production capacity, marketing and consumers' acceptance, culture and behaviour can also be considered in future studies.Originality/valueThis study makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing insight on the barriers to upscaling production capacity in the edible insect sector.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Ilter ◽  
Gul Bayraktaroglu ◽  
Ilayda Ipek

Purpose The purpose of this study is to test Islamic religiosity scale’s reliability and validity and to evaluate the impact of Islamic religiosity on materialism in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Using a quantitative research method, a self-administered survey was distributed to the students of two faculties – Faculty of Theology and Faculty of Business – of the same university in Izmir, Turkey. In total, 400 questionnaires for each faculty were distributed and a total of 529 completed questionnaires – 326 from the Faculty of Theology and 203 from the Faculty of Business – were returned. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted via SPSS and AMOS. Findings Islamic religiosity and materialism have been found to be negatively correlated, supporting the existing literature. However, not all the dimensions of Islamic religiosity (behavioral religiosity, spiritual religiosity and necessity of religion) had this negative effect on materialism (possession-defined success, acquisition centrality and acquisition as the pursuit of happiness). Negative influence of “behavioral religiosity” on all three dimensions of materialism was observed. However, the “spirituality” dimension of religiosity was found to have a positive impact, while the “necessity of religion” had no significant impact on the dimensions of materialism. Research limitations/implications A sample consisting of undergraduate students might limit the generalizability of the findings to Turkish Islamic population in general. This study is one of the first attempts to test the Islamic religiosity scale which needs to be further analyzed and developed. Originality/value The present study will contribute to the literature by testing an Islamic religiosity scale developed by a Turkish researcher. Besides, this is the only study undertaken on the impact of Islamic religiosity on materialism using an Islamic religiosity scale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3580
Author(s):  
Cristina Val-Peón ◽  
Juan I. Santisteban ◽  
José A. López-Sáez ◽  
Gerd-Christian Weniger ◽  
Klaus Reicherter

The SW coast of the Iberian Peninsula experiences a lack of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. With the aim to fill this gap, we contribute with a new palynological and geochemical dataset obtained from a sediment core drilled in the continental shelf of the Algarve coast. Archaeological data have been correlated with our multi-proxy dataset to understand how human groups adapted to environmental changes during the Early-Mid Holocene, with special focus on the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition. Vegetation trends indicate warm conditions at the onset of the Holocene followed by increased moisture and forest development ca. 10–7 ka BP, after which woodlands are progressively replaced by heaths. Peaks of aridity were identified at 8.2 and 7. 5 ka BP. Compositional, textural, redox state, and weathering of source area geochemical proxies indicates abrupt palaeoceanographic modifications and gradual terrestrial changes at 8.2 ka BP, while the 7.5 ka BP event mirrors a decrease in land moisture availability. Mesolithic sites are mainly composed of seasonal camps with direct access to the coast for the exploitation of local resources. This pattern extends into the Early Neolithic, when these sites coexist with seasonal and permanent occupations located in inland areas near rivers. Changes in settlement patterns and dietary habits may be influenced by changes in coastal environments caused by the sea-level rise and the impact of the 8.2 and 7.5 ka BP climate events.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 632-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah A Alabdulkarim ◽  
Peter Ball ◽  
Ashutosh Tiwari

Purpose – Asset management has recently gained significance due to emerging business models such as Product Service Systems where the sale of asset use, rather than the sale of the asset itself, is applied. This leaves the responsibility of the maintenance tasks to fall on the shoulders of the manufacturer/supplier to provide high asset availability. The use of asset monitoring assists in providing high availability but the level of monitoring and maintenance needs to be assessed for cost effectiveness. There is a lack of available tools and understanding of their value in assessing monitoring levels. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This research aims to develop a dynamic modelling approach using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to assess such maintenance systems in order to provide a better understanding of the behaviour of complex maintenance operations. Interviews were conducted and literature was analysed to gather modelling requirements. Generic models were created, followed by simulation models, to examine how maintenance operation systems behave regarding different levels of asset monitoring. Findings – This research indicates that DES discerns varying levels of complexity of maintenance operations but that more sophisticated asset monitoring levels will not necessarily result in a higher asset performance. The paper shows that it is possible to assess the impact of monitoring levels as well as make other changes to system operation that may be more or less effective. Practical implications – The proposed tool supports the maintenance operations decision makers to select the appropriate asset monitoring level that suits their operational needs. Originality/value – A novel DES approach was developed to assess asset monitoring levels for maintenance operations. In applying this quantitative approach, it was demonstrated that higher asset monitoring levels do not necessarily result in higher asset availability. The work provides a means of evaluating the constraints in the system that an asset is part of rather than focusing on the asset in isolation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengyuan Wang ◽  
Biao Luo ◽  
Yong Liu ◽  
Zhengyun Wei

Purpose The paper aims to study the relationship between executives’ perceptions of environmental threats and innovation strategies and investigate the moderating effect of contextual factor (i.e. organizational slack) on such relations. It proposes a dualistic relationship between executives’ perceptions of environmental threats and innovation strategies, in which different perceptions of environmental threats will lead to corresponding innovation strategies, and dyadic organizational slack can promote such processes. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a survey with 163 valid questionnaires, which were all completed by executives. Hierarchical ordinary least-squares regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses proposed in this paper. Findings The paper provides empirical insights about that executives tend to choose exploratory innovation when they perceive environmental changes as likely loss threats, yet adopt exploitative innovation when perceiving control-reducing threats. Furthermore, unabsorbed slack (e.g. financial redundancy) positively moderates both relationships, while absorbed slack (e.g. operational redundancy) merely positively influences the relationship between the perception of control-reducing threats and exploitative innovation. Originality/value The paper bridges the gap between organizational innovation and cognitive theory by proposing a dualistic relationship between executives’ perceptions of environmental threats and innovation strategies. The paper further enriches innovation studies by jointly considering both subjective and objective influence factors of innovation and argues that organizational slack can moderate such dualistic relationship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
Svetoslav Georgiev ◽  
Emil Georgiev

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of top management’s understanding of product quality in Bulgaria since the end of communism. The study examines three specific areas: top management’s understanding of the term “quality”; top management’s understanding of the relationship between quality and business performance; and top management’s understanding of the impact of job position on quality. Design/methodology/approach The paper relies on a quantitative research approach by using data from a survey of 186 companies in Bulgaria. Findings The paper suggests that senior managers in Bulgaria continue to base their understanding of “quality” on a single approach (*a characteristic of the communist era), with the product-based and the user-based approaches currently being the two most common ones. At the same time, surprisingly enough, this study claims that senior management in Bulgaria is currently well aware of the importance of quality as a dimension of firm’s competitiveness, and is also highly conscious of its roles’ impact on product quality. Research limitations/implications The results of this study are exclusively based on the case of Bulgaria and must be treated with caution in the case of other former communist states from the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region. Practical implications This paper has relevance for both managers and companies doing business in Eastern Europe. Originality/value This is the first paper to provide detailed analysis of the evolution of the understanding of “product quality” in CEE since the end of communism. Moreover, this paper applies, for the first time, Garvin’s five approaches to defining quality within a practical context.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasan Tutar ◽  
Ahmet Tuncay Erdem ◽  
Ömer Karademir

Purpose There has been a rapid generational change in the business world in Turkey recently, and X generation managers are rapidly leaving their place to Y generation managers. In countries with relatively young populations such as Turkey, management in family businesses passes into the hands of Generation Y. This study aims to examine the moderator role of the difference between old and new generation Y in the effect of self-efficacy perceptions on decision-making strategies. Design/methodology/approach This research, which was designed according to the quantitative research method, was designed according to the cross-sectional survey model, one of the general survey models. The research data were collected from a sample of 441 family business managers determined according to the simple random sampling technique. The data were analyzed and interpreted with various statistical techniques. Data analysis was done with AMOS. 20 and International Business Machines statistical package for the social sciences 22 data analysis programs. Findings According to the analysis findings, there is a significant relationship between the participants’ self-efficacy perceptions and decision-making strategies. Research findings old and new generation Y managers have different decision strategies. The research results showed that the dominant self-efficacy perceptions of the Y generation affect their decision-making strategies. Research limitations/implications This research only examines whether the old and new generation Y perceptions have a moderator function in the relationship between the participants’ self-efficacy perceptions and decision-making strategies. The research is quantitative research limited to family businesses. The results can be compared by repeating the research with other variables and in different samples, for example, by researching in public institutions. In addition, the way of reflecting the differences in perception to the management can be subjected to deeper analysis with mixed studies. Practical implications One of the important reasons for the difference in people’s approaches to events is their personality structure. Generational differences, which have been discussed primarily in recent years, make themselves felt in working life. The new working models arising from the different perspectives of the Y generation differ from the traditional business models. Today, in traditional business models, the manager profile is usually the X generation. However, the process is moving toward gaining essential positions in the management levels of the new Y generation. They put traditional managers in a difficult situation with their impatient behavior and desire to climb the career ladder quickly. Social implications In the studies conducted on the Y generation, it is understood that they do not favor the classical management approach based on the command-command relationship. The sense of loyalty of the Y generation is low compared to other generations and their organizational commitment levels are weak. There are determinations that they attach importance to flexible working style and want to do business using digital technologies. They are highly motivated in setting vision and participating in strategic decisions in organizations. These features differ significantly from the X-generation managers who adopt the traditional management approach. Originality/value Both emotional and cognitive characteristics influence decision-making behavior. The generation gap which shows common personality structures in a certain period is an important predictor of decision-making strategy. Research results and related studies significantly affect the decision strategies of the generation gap. No research has been found comparing the old and new Y generations. In this respect, it is thought that the research will contribute to theory, practice and method.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilert Puriwat ◽  
Danupol Hoonsopon

PurposeThis study is to compare the impact of organizational agility and flexibility on performance of each type of product innovation (radical vs incremental innovation). Additionally, the moderating effect of technological turbulence on the relationship between the two types of organization is examined.Design/methodology/approachBased on gaps in the existing literature, the survey data are collected from managers who are in charge of developing new products in three industries: food and beverage, chemical and machinery (N = 431). Confirmatory factory analysis is used to verify measurement items and regression analysis is used to test hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that organizational agility increases performance in radical innovation both in a certain situation and an environment with technological turbulence. In contrast, the impact of organizational flexibility is limited to increasing performance in both radical and incremental innovation performance in a certain situation.Originality/valueOur study extends the knowledge of organizational agility and flexibility in the domain of product innovation. Adaptation of organization to respond the technological turbulence will stimulate creativity of new product development teams to produce new useful ideas and transform these ideas to product innovation. The different types of organizing a new product development team to handle technological turbulence will provide different results in product innovation performance. In addition, the findings provide a recommendation on how the organization of a new product development team can improve performance in each type of product innovation under technological turbulence.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Rincon-Roldan ◽  
Alvaro Lopez-Cabrales

PurposeThe aim of this study was to analyse the influence of different employment relationships (ERs) on the sustainability results of cooperatives. The authors approached the type of ER comparing the inducements offered by the firm with the contributions that the manager expects from employees. In this way, the authors study how the orientation toward the employment relationship influences the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the firm.Design/methodology/approachThis article presents a theoretical and empirical research model about the relationship between ERs and sustainability. The necessary information was obtained through a questionnaire that was completed by the human resource (HR) managers and chief executive officers (CEOs) of 124 cooperative companies, and structural equation modelling was applied to evaluate the relationships between the proposed constructs, using the partial least squares technique (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe obtained results suggest that mutual investment and overinvestment ERs favour economic, social and environmental sustainability, whereas quasi spot contract and underinvestment ERs have a negative influence on all three types of sustainability. Therefore, it is confirmed that the type of ER adopted can condition the sustainability of the company, either favouring or worsening it.Originality/valueThis work contributes to covering the lack of studies about which ERs impact the sustainability of organisations, and it provides information on the role of ERs in the search for a more sustainable organisation, demonstrating that the type of employment relationship developed by the firm has a relevant impact on its sustainability.


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