Bridging the Gap Between Marketing Education and the Marketing Profession

Author(s):  
David J. Finch ◽  
Sharon McIntyre

Professionals and scholars have discussed the unprecedented pace of change currently experienced by businesses. The dynamics facing business today offer rich insight into the challenges facing university graduates. In this chapter, the authors apply a dynamic capabilities (DCs) view of new graduate employability. Dynamic capabilities theory is rooted in the resource-based view that posits organizations create a competitive advantage by acquiring or developing resources that are rare, valuable, and hard to imitate and replace. They argue that employability can be viewed as the complex integration and application of four specific DCs: (1) intelligence resources, (2) personality resources, (3) meta-skill resources, and (4) job-specific resources. The authors view new graduate competitive advantage as dependent on the ability of university graduates to mobilize and exploit the linkages of these resources throughout their university study years. In adopting these resource categories, they build on previous work and propose a conceptual model to evaluate a new graduate's competitive position in an employment marketplace. In this chapter, the authors provide a prescription for how educators and students can apply an integrated dynamic capability view of new graduate employability to support the professional development of marketing students through the development of a comprehensive personal product roadmap.

Author(s):  
David J. Finch ◽  
Sharon McIntyre

Professionals and scholars have discussed the unprecedented pace of change currently experienced by businesses. The dynamics facing business today offer rich insight into the challenges facing university graduates. In this chapter, the authors apply a dynamic capabilities (DCs) view of new graduate employability. Dynamic capabilities theory is rooted in the resource-based view that posits organizations create a competitive advantage by acquiring or developing resources that are rare, valuable, and hard to imitate and replace. They argue that employability can be viewed as the complex integration and application of four specific DCs: (1) intelligence resources, (2) personality resources, (3) meta-skill resources, and (4) job-specific resources. The authors view new graduate competitive advantage as dependent on the ability of university graduates to mobilize and exploit the linkages of these resources throughout their university study years. In adopting these resource categories, they build on previous work and propose a conceptual model to evaluate a new graduate's competitive position in an employment marketplace. In this chapter, the authors provide a prescription for how educators and students can apply an integrated dynamic capability view of new graduate employability to support the professional development of marketing students through the development of a comprehensive personal product roadmap.


Management ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Tuschke ◽  
Emma Buellet

As a relatively young, yet flagship discipline of strategic management, dynamic capabilities research has emerged as one of the central perspectives exploring the foundations of the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage, especially in the context of dynamic environments. Dynamic capabilities are deeply rooted in, and sometimes seen as an extension of, the resource-based view of the firm. The notion that competitive advantage both stems from the exploitation of current capabilities and the development of new ones was already vaguely conceptualized by prominent contributors of the resource-based view such as Edith Penrose and Birger Wernerfelt. However, the idea that there are special capabilities—dynamic capabilities—enabling organizations to build, integrate, or reconfigure their internal and external resource and competence base, was formerly conceptualized in the late 1990s as a separate yet connected stream of research (see Teece, et al. 1997—cited under Seminal Papers—which is titled “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management”). The dynamic capabilities perspective is also strongly connected to evolutionary economics. This is why the field has focused for some time on the exploration of semi-automatic and path-dependent routines as the foundation of dynamic capabilities. However, proponents of the behavioral theory of the firm have criticized this approach and integrated the deliberate human element in the dynamic capabilities perspective (for an overview of the theoretical assumptions underpinning the dynamic capabilities perspective, see the article “Dynamic Capabilities and the Role of Managers in Business Strategy and Economic Performance”—Augier and Teece 2009, cited under Conceptual Refinements). As a result, various important debates emerged in the community and the field has been generally criticized for its ambiguity, inconsistency, and conflicting assumptions. This is exemplified by the important number of diverging conceptual contributions to the field, still up to this day, and by the relatively late materialization of empirical work. Nevertheless, the vast number of contributions illustrates the necessity to consider dynamism, which underlies the concept of dynamic capabilities, as a key component of competitive advantage and organizational adaption (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Management article “Organizational Adaptation”). The key contributors of the dynamic capabilities perspective in management research are, among others, Kathleen Eisenhardt, Constance Helfat, Margaret Peteraf, David Teece, and Sidney Winter. To support scholars to move toward a theory of dynamic capabilities, this bibliography provides an overview of the field, its origin and developments, while highlighting the conceptual and empirical problems that remain to be solved.


Author(s):  
K. M. V. Sachitra

Purpose: This paper analyses the moderating effects of farm owner’s gender and business intention which could impact on the resource-capability-competitive advantage linkage in agribusiness. The study adopts the resource-based view in combination with dynamic capabilities. Design: The sample of the consisted of the farm owners who have experience in commercial cultivation of minor export crops in Sri Lanka. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Findings: Based on the data collected from 456 farm owners, results of the multiple regression analysis suggest farm owner’s business intention has moderating effects upon the relationship between resources, capabilities and competitive advantage. However, statistically significant moderation effect of farm owner’s gender on the relationship between resources, capabilities and farm’s competitive advantage was not reported. Research implications: The result gives positive sign that gender is not a constraint factor to gain competitive advantage at firm level and psyche of the leaders regarding their business intention which can lead to enhance the link between resources, dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage. Originality: The literature gap in competitive advantage literature by highlighting the potential roles of gender and business intention play in the resource-capability-competitive advantage interaction has been addressed. The results provide practical implications for policy makers, government and local communities with regard to selecting suitable resources and integrating them with proper capabilities for greater competitive advantage of the agribusiness sector.


2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (7) ◽  
pp. 681-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Finch ◽  
Leah K. Hamilton ◽  
Riley Baldwin ◽  
Mark Zehner

PurposeThe current study was conducted to increase our understanding of factors that influence the employability of university graduates. Through the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the paper explores the relative importance of 17 factors that influence new graduate employability.Design/methodology/approachAn extensive review of the existing literature was used to identify 17 factors that affect new graduate employability. A two‐phase, mixed‐methods study was conducted to examine: Phase One, whether these 17 factors could be combined into five categories; and Phase Two, the relative importance that employers place on these factors. Phase One involved interviewing 30 employers, and Phase Two consisted of an empirical examination with an additional 115 employers.FindingsResults from both the qualitative and quantitative phases of the current study demonstrated that 17 employability factors can be clustered into five higher‐order composite categories. In addition, findings illustrate that, when hiring new graduates, employers place the highest importance on soft‐skills and the lowest importance on academic reputation.Research limitations/implicationsThe sectors in which employers operated were not completely representative of their geographical region.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that, in order to increase new graduates’ employability, university programmes and courses should focus on learning outcomes linked to the development of soft‐skills. In addition, when applying for jobs, university graduates should highlight their soft‐skills and problem‐solving skills.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the body of knowledge on the employability of university graduates by empirically examining the relative importance of five categories of employability factors that recruiters evaluate when selecting new graduates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J Finch ◽  
Melanie Peacock ◽  
Nadege Levallet ◽  
William Foster

Purpose – The increasing demand for post-secondary education, and the ongoing difficulty students’ face in securing appropriate work upon program completion, highlight the importance of an enhanced understanding of employability resources for university graduates. Just as organizations achieve a strategic advantage from resources and dynamic capabilities (DCs), university graduates can similarly apply these principles and tactics to be competitive in the job market. The purpose of this paper is to ask the question: how can new graduates enhance their competitive advantage when entering the employment market? To address this question the authors propose to adopt the DCs framework to analyze the competitive advantage of a graduate and argue that university graduates can take specific steps to enhance their own competitive advantage in the labor market. Design/methodology/approach – An extensive review of the existing human resource and strategic management literature was used to develop a conceptual DCs model of employability. The core dimensions of the conceptual model were refined using 26 one-on-one interviews with employers of new university graduates. This study concludes by recommending specific empirical and experimental research to further test the model. Findings – The results from the qualitative study identified the importance of four specific resources that university graduates should possess: intellectual, personality, meta-skill and job-specific. In addition, the authors suggest that integrated DCs are crucial for enhancing the value of these individual resources. Both pre-graduate application and the construction of personal narratives are essential signals that university graduates can mobilize individual resources in a complementary and strategic manner, in real-world settings, to maximize value. Research limitations/implications – This is an exploratory study and is designed as a foundation for future empirical and experiential research. Practical implications – The findings suggest that, in order to increase employability, university students need to assume a DCs view of competitive advantage. As a result, students need to reflect on both their intrinsic and learned resources to create a systematic competitive advantage that is valued, rare and difficult to replicate or substitute. Social implications – This paper challenges students to assume a holistic view of education by recognizing education extends far beyond a classroom. Therefore, differentiation and value creation is reflected in the synthesis and application of both intrinsic and learned resources. Originality/value – The integration of strategic management and human resource literature is a unique theoretical approach to explore the drivers of graduate employability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Paweł Cegliński

This article deals with the relationship between dynamic capabilities and core competencies of companies. Both categories extend the resource-based view of the firm. They are difficult to work out, but thanks to their durability and universality they enable to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Due to intensive changes in the business environment and increasing difficulty in forecasting them, the importance of adaptability based on both categories increases. The presented results of the research of two leading Polish companies—Panek S.A. and Cukiernia Sowa—are practical examples of the impact of dynamic capabilities on the creation of core competencies and indirectly core and end products and services. The analysis is the basis for improvement of future research.


Author(s):  
José Francisco Enriquez de la O

Strategy has always been important for success. Whether strategy is applied for military purposes, in large firms, or even for personal objectives, there are certain key characteristics that every successful strategy carries on: clear, objective and simple goals; deep knowledge and understanding of the competitive environment; objective understanding and exploitation of resources; and an effective plan implementation. In this paper, the author’s attention will be focused on the role of internal resources, routines and processes as the bases of sustained competitive advantage (hereafter SCA) into what is now known as the resourcebased view of the firm (RBV) and Dynamic Capabilities (DC). First, the relevance of RBV and DC approaches and the main characteristics of those are briefly mentioned. Second, RBV and DC are examined as an important piece to achieve SCA. Later on, the author deepens into some examples and the manager’s importance when using these RBV and DC approaches. Then issues related with complexity and undefined concepts in RBV and DC are briefly mentioned. Finally, conclusions and personal comments are presented.


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 656-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Rashidirad ◽  
Ebrahim Soltani ◽  
Hamid Salimian ◽  
Yingying Liao

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the applicability of Grant’s framework in the current changing and dynamic environment. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, a critical review of Grant’s paper was conducted to identify the limitations and weaknesses of the framework, which prevent its effective application in the current digital age. Findings – As a result, this paper presented a modified framework and four propositions to consider dynamic capabilities in the new turbulent environment and extend the relationships between a firm’s resources, capabilities, dynamic capabilities, competitive advantage and competitive strategy. Findings tied to this initiative will provide important contributions to research. Originality/value – Rooted in resource-based view (RBV), the proposed framework puts forward a valid theoretical foundation on how to create a competitive advantage from a firm’s internal factors, including strategic resources, capabilities and dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, it contributes to RBV literature by considering dynamic capabilities, as the firms’ most crucial factors in the current dynamic digital market.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1489-1496
Author(s):  
Branislav Stanisavljević

Research carried out in the last few years as the example of companies belonging to the category of medium-size enterprises has shown that, for example, typical enterprises, of the total number of data processed in information of importance for its business, seriously takes into consideration and process only 10% of the observed firms. It is justifiable to ask whether these 10% of the processed and analyzed business information can have an adequate potential or motive power to direct the organization to success that is measured by competitive advantages and on a sustainable basis? Or, the question can be formulated: what happens to the rest, mostly 90% of the information that the enterprise does not transform into a form suitable for business analysis and decision-making. It is precisely the task of business intelligence to find a way to utilize all the data collected and processed in the business decision-making process. In this regard, we can conclude that Business Intelligence is, in fact, the framework title for all tools and / or applications that will enable the collection, processing, analysis, distribution to decision-making bodies in the business system in order to derivate from this information valid business decisions - as the most important and / or most important task of the manager. Of course, from an economic point of view, the best decisions are management decisions that provide a lasting competitive advantage and achieve maximum financial performance. This means that business intelligence actually allows a more complete and / or comprehensive view of the overall business performance of all its parts and subsystems. But the system functions can be measured essential and positive economic and financial performance, as well as the position in the branch of the business to which it belongs, and wider, within the national economy. (Of course, today the boundaries of the national economy have become too crowded for many companies, bearing in mind globalization and competitiveness in the light of organization of work and business function). The advantage of business intelligence as a model, if accepted at the organization level, ensures that each subsystem in the organization receives precisely the information needed to make development decisions, but also decisions regarding operational activities. So, it should be born in mind that business intelligence does not imply that information is shared on some key words, on the contrary, the goal is to look at the context of the business, or in general, and that anyone in the further decision hierarchy can manage exactly the same information that is necessary for achieving excellent business performance. Because, if the insight into the information is not complete, the analysis is based on the description of individual parts, i.e. proving partial performance in the realization of individual information, which can certainly create a space for the loss of the expensive time and energy. Illustratively, if the view, or insight into the information, is not 100%, then all business decision-making is like the song of J.J. Zmaj "Elephant", about an elephant and a blindmen, where everyone feels and act only on the base of the experienced work, and brings judgment on what is what or what can be. As in this song for children, everyone thinks that he touches different animals and when they make claims about what they feel, everyone describes a completely different life. Therefore, business intelligence implies that information is fully considered and it is basically the basis or knowledge base, and therefore the basis of business excellence. In doing so, the main problem is how information is transformed into knowledge and based on it in business decision making. It is precisely in this segment that the main advantage of business intelligence is its contribution to the knowledge and business of the company based on power of knowledge. Therefore, for modern business conditions, it is characteristic that the management of the company is realized on the basis of partial knowledge about stakeholders (buyers, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, governments, institutional framework, legislation), and only a complete overview of managers at the highest level in all these partial interest groups allows managers to have a “boat” called the organization of labor leading a safe hand through the storm, Scile and Haribde threatens to endanger business, towards a calm sea and a safe harbor - called a sustainable competitive advantage based on power and knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Relahati Giawa ◽  
Liharman Saragih

Abstrak: Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungun (GKPS) mengambil peran didalam membentuk, mendidik, dan mencerdaskan anak-anak bangsa dengan mendirikan Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS. Dalam melakukan tugas dan tanggung jawab tersebut Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS mempunyai berbagai strategi untuk boleh bersaing dengan yayasan pendidikan lainnya. Untuk itu perlu adanya suatu pendekatan internal yang meliputi sumber daya (resource) dan kapabilitas (capability) Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS yang dapat menciptakan keunggulan bersaing. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) Untuk mengetahui strategi Resources Based View (RBV) dalam peneglolaan Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS, (2) Mengindentifikasi resources dan capability apa yang dimiliki oleh Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS dikaitkan dengan peluang dan ancaman dengan menggunakan kerangka analisis VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organization) dalam menghadapi persaingan, (3) Mengetahui kondisi resources dan capability dalam bisnis di Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS dalam menghadapi persaingan yang semakin tinggi di masa sekarang maupun yang akan datang dengan menggunakan analisis VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organization). Penelitian ini dilaksanakan pada Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS. Data dikumpulkan dengan menggunakan metode observasi, wawancara dan dokumentasi dengan penentuan informan secara purposive sampling. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Yayasan Pendidikan GKPS memiliki sebanyak 13 sumber daya serta kapabilitas sebanyak 7 jenis berpotensi sebagai keunggulan kompetitif. Hasil analisis memberikan hasil bahwa Yayasan pendidikan GKPS memiliki resources dan capabilities yang masih berada pada kategori competitive parity dan temporary competitive advantage, oleh karena itu dibutuhkan formulasi strategi yang tepat untuk menjadikan resources dan capabilities tersebut menjadi Suistanable competitive advantage.  Kata kunci: Resource Based View (RBV), VRIO, Sumber daya, Kapabilitas


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