Entering a Brave New World

This chapter investigates key motivations, drivers, and barriers for firms that are seeking to enter new international supply chains for renewable energy. Offshore wind (OW) is a born global industry with a fully internationalized supply chain from inception. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach by first doing 11 case studies of Norwegian industrial companies entering OW and secondly by conducting an online survey targeting the whole population of Norwegian firms in OW. The study finds that new green industries' distinctive features, managerial motivation, and industry relatedness shape a firm's entry strategies and behavior. Risk and uncertainty, complexity and turbulence, high transaction costs and disadvantages of scale postpone industry entry from established actors. The study finds that environmental motivation tops the list of motivations for managers to enter, but financial motivation is the strongest of perceived market performance. Finally, the study finds that market relatedness is more critical than technological relatedness.

The Tourism Sector's Impact on Carbon Emissions

The tourism sector is generally perceived as a green industry because of its seemingly clean value chain activities. However, despite these perceptions, there have been doubts regarding the environmental impacts of tourism. Past studies have considered these environmental effects due to increasing concerns about global warming and climate change. This chapter attempts to analyze the effects of tourism value chain activities on carbon emissions in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve for G20 countries using a ten-year dataset. The results confirmed the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. The findings indicate that, despite increases in energy use and investment inflow, tourism activities decrease carbon emissions. The study concluded that tourism sector activities, foreign trade, and labor force participation all have statistically significant favorable effects on carbon emissions. Given the growing global transitions within the sector, the study reckons the sector's need to focus on sustainable tourism as a development and improvement strategy.

Developing Transition Research for Disruptive Technology

There is a disconnect between technical research into digital manufacturing processes supporting the development of product innovation and research into the adoption of these technologies and subsequent products into existing business practices. One of the reasons is the level of technical and business knowledge required for an integrated response to the challenges involved in their adoption into established industrial contexts. This chapter introduces transitioning companies' issues to working with emerging digital manufacturing technologies through the example of 3D printing (additive manufacturing). The chapter provides an argument for the development of transition research across disciplines that identifies and explores the integration challenges involved in maximizing the opportunities of 3D printing. Examples discussed are from the surgical, dental, and hearing aid industries. The recommendations are based on the authors' research into supply chain management and operations in medical devices manufactured using 3D printing for the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM).

Building Blocks of the Industry and Strategizing

Industry features are considered by Porter, Schmalensee, and many other scholars as the determinants of effective strategy formulation and implementation. While industries are widely different from each other, some common features shape all existing and future industries. This chapter aims to identify these common building blocks of industries and their possible effects on strategizing for the future in a fast transitioning business world. The chapter employs a systematic literature review from the top related journals with at least one of the nine keywords about the industry. The chapter reviews 47 factors or characteristics that form every industry. These industry features are grouped into ten sets of elements, which shapes the ten forces framework, reflecting the interaction among building-blocks of the industry with each other and with strategy implementation practice inside an organization. The chapter concludes by proposing the 'macro-environment, industry, and organization' (MIO) model, which could be utilized by integrating three levels of analyses.

Exploring the Role of Local Financial Markets in the Portfolio Investment-Growth Nexus

In recent times, foreign portfolio investment inflows have been considered pivotal to sub-Saharan Africa's growth (SSA) as they help enhance liquidity and make a substantial fund available for investment. However, some scholars have stressed that the sustainable inflows of portfolio investments and their impact on growth depend on the extent to which the recipient country can develop its local financial markets. As a result, this chapter aims to determine the moderating role of local financial markets in facilitating the effects of portfolio investments on economic growth in 28 SSA between the period 1995-2018. The study employed the system generalized method of moments (SGMM) and found that portfolio investments positively and significantly impact economic growth. However, the study observes that the interaction between portfolio investments and financial market development is negative and significant, presupposing that the relationship between portfolio investment and economic growth is not contingent on local financial markets.

A Novel Web-Based Decision Support System for Aggregate Production Planning Problem

The aggregate production planning model aims to match the supply with demand while minimizing the manufacturing or production activity costs. There are many methods in the mathematical programming theory to solve the aggregate production planning problem. This chapter develops a novel decision support system for the aggregate production planning model using the linear programming approach. The aggregate production problem modeled by the linear programming has been coded in R computer programming language, and a novel web application has been developed using Shiny to serve the needs of the production managers. The novel application is adjustable for any production setting and planning horizon for firms in global transitioning.

Changing Entrepreneurship in the Era of Digitalization

The rapid developments in information, communication, and transportation have led to an increase in competition between enterprises. As a result, entrepreneurs striving to survive in the global competition have begun to invest in “digital” competition, which differs from traditional entrepreneurship as it does not require large amounts of capital for its establishment. It enables entrepreneurship to operate all around the world with the internet. This chapter focuses on the differences between digital and traditional enterprises, emphasizing the importance of digital enterprises. According to this purpose, the study employed SWOT analysis to identify Turkish digital enterprises' strengths and weaknesses in relation to the corresponding opportunities and threats.

Born-Again Globals

Based on the literature on the Uppsala model, born-again globals, non-linear internationalization model, and late market entry, this chapter aims to portray the history, changes, and adaptations of OMEGA's internationalization process. This transitioning firm manufactures furniture and wooden hockey sticks. This chapter identifies that OMEGA follows a non-linear internationalization process and late entry into international markets. The principal added value of the case study presented here is related to presenting OMEGA's non-linear internationalization process, which displays reactive internationalization behavior in response to a saturated domestic market, typical of the Uppsala model, and which subsequently ends in a rapid internationalization process, as a born-again global, as a result of a change in its top management. During its internationalization process, OMEGA changed its internationalization pace, modes of entry, and export actions by adapting to the external environment and then changing its strategic focus.

Revisiting Corruption Mathematical Models in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Analyzing corruption is a topic of interest to many and is indeed very complex due to its inherent difficulties with its identification and quantification. Past studies present several variables, indices, computational models, and approaches, but their relevance in the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) has been debatable. This chapter addresses the need to revisit the mathematical models and approaches in the Industry 4.0 context. The chapter provides a foundation for this argument through a compressive literature review followed by a proposal of a three-stage concept for corruption identification. The chapter illustrates two case studies from which a strong justification derives for considering the digital transformation and use of big data to deal with corruption and improve the external and internal perceptions about corruption in general.

Are Foreign Subsidiaries Cooperating for Innovation With Local Partners?

In this chapter, a sample of firms active in the Spanish information and communication technology sector during 2003-2014 is analyzed to assess whether foreign subsidiaries are more prone than domestic firms to cooperate for innovation with local partners and ascertain which type of partners they prefer. Results of an econometric model show that foreign subsidiaries are more likely than unaffiliated domestic firms to cooperate for innovation with local partners but not more likely than domestic business groups, even when the size of the firm, the obstacles it faces to innovate, and other factors that may influence cooperation are all controlled. Statistical tests show that foreign subsidiaries prefer partnerships across the value chain. This preference is compared to that of domestic companies.