Controlling Instruments for the Sustainability of a Business

The controlling activity has developed in the past years because of the need of companies to permanently monitor their performance and because of the need to adapt to the changes of the environment. In comparison to some decades ago, the present dynamic changes in the technological and social environment determine companies to be more agile regarding their strategies. In this article there are presented the main instruments used in marketing-controlling and an overview of the use of controlling instruments in companies, based on secondary data. The results of these researches show that companies use more and more frequent controlling instruments than in the past.

Microfinance Institutions Influenced by National Culture

Many studies deal with the determinants of countries' culture or efficiency of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The purpose of this chapter is to fill the gap in the literature, namely, to analyze the connection between national cultural features and indicators of countries' microfinance institutions. The authors summarize the mission and operation of microfinance institutions, the six dimensions of national culture and three knowledge strategies. 35 countries representing the subject of the research, the statistics of which are available for both MFIs' side and national cultural side. The rank correlation and the investigation of TOP 5 countries show that the MFIs are successful in countries characterized by high level of power distance, collectivistic culture, high level of uncertainty avoidance and restraint culture. The chapter also lists few countries where MFIs could be successfully introduced based on their national cultural features and recommends certain knowledge strategies for effective operation.

Knowledge, Innovation, and Profitability

This chapter studies the identification of the profile of knowledge-intensive firms, analyzing if their innovation activity is a characteristic related with their profitability and employing as framework the ‘Resource-based view of the firm (RBV)'. Using a sample of 202 Spanish biotechnology companies, drawn from SABI database, the author has identified these firms' available data until 31st December, 2013. It has been used the cluster analysis methodology rarely employed in the preceding literature to characterise the firms of the sample. The empirical analysis results clarify the profile of the analysed firms, helping stakeholders and policy-makers to understand the dynamics of these kinds of firms and making strategic decisions accordingly over their characteristics. This would help them to grow in an orderly way and, thus, promote socio-economic changes to improve competitiveness and economic growth.

Institutional Background of Effective Strategies for Business Sustainability

The chapter grounds theoretical and methodological baselines of effective strategy decision making of economic agents under the modern conditions of institutional turbulence. Strategies' subjectivity importance and institutional determination of its implementation have been proved. Institutional system, establishing the relations of trust, promotes the reduction of transaction costs, in particular – the costs of opportunistic behavior, and creates prerequisites for effective business communications. It has been proved that under the trends of institutional transformation, influenced by economic globalization and network economy spreading, the challenges to strategies' effectiveness can be cured at the basis of economic entities' network self-organization.

The Challenges of Sustainable Business Development in the Post-Industrial Society in the First Half of the 21st Century

The purpose of the chapter is to find out the meaning of the sustainable development in the post-industrial society in the first half of the 21st century. The financial crisis that started in 2008 is an indicator of how short-term profitability mindsets and related strategies, policies and actions of individuals and individual organizations can cause global economic, ecological and ethical crises. These events have contributed to the judgement that most organizations operate on business models that are not sustainable. The conceptual content contributes to the ongoing discussion about the increasingly important role of sustainable development as a major concern for the profit and non-profit sector that wish to develop the policies that will enable low but sustainable growth of society.

The Breath of Life

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development (SD) and global corporate citizenship (GCC) that is becoming increasingly an important issue for the human well being as well as that of ecological systems. It contains three sections. The first section looks at the concept of CSR with a historical perspective. The dimensions of CSR and its relationship with ethical theories is investigated in the second section since CSR is an ethical concept. Throughout this chapter three main groups of ethical theories classified by Garriga and Mele (2004) will be presented such as normative stakeholder theory, universal rights, the common good approach. Based on the relationship between common good approach and sustainable development, the author will discuss a requirement for global corporate citizenship approach in the third section.

Strategic Information Surveillance

The strategy for any organization can be set from the outside in, according to the school of positioning; according to this, the supply of products and / or services has to adapt to changes that occur in the environment. According to the movement schools of thought, a strategy can be set from the inside out in which case the organization influences the surroundings with its offer of products and / or services. Given the importance of weak signals in the definition of the strategy, the research goal is to treat the issue of pre-emptive strategy in the context of strategic decision making. An answer is provided for the following questions: (1) What is a weak signal? (2) How to tell if it is anticipative, relevant and useful for the decision makers? and (3) How to turn a weak signal in an effective anticipative clue? Based on investigator's experience in strategic consulting for small, medium and large companies, the weak and strong signals are explained and a set of criteria which are representative of their identification is presented.

Measuring Country Risk

The concept of “country risk” has once again come under the spotlight. Globalization, the shock-waves of the subprime crisis, manifested in sovereign and private debt crises, and the fear to a “contagion” of risk between market participants are, among others, the reasons that make topical this form of risk. The aim of this chapter is to offer an overview of the factors that influence country risk, and an analysis of the methods most commonly used to measure it, with a discussion of their pros and cons. The conclusion is that none of those methods have offered satisfactory results. In this regard, the authors propose a change in the way to analyze country risk. Rather than attempting to predict debt crises, it is necessary to identify the sources of risk, and accept uncertainty as a feature of the current environment.

Knowledge-Based Decision Making

In the context of sustainability and long term survival, knowledge based decision making has been recognized as a significant factor. Its application in organizational settings specifically through knowledge management, process management, and decision making presents one of the core organizational capabilities. This chapter explores more deeply the synergy that occurs between the knowledge based decision making and its contribution to sustainability. The extent of knowledge based decision making application is evaluated, and its relation to the economic, social and environmental sustainability, in the multi case analysis of four Croatian firms from two service industries: telecommunications and insurance.

Information Sharing and Cognitive Involvement for Sustainable Workplaces

In the last few years a vibrant multi- and trans-disciplinary debate has developed around the topic of sustainability in the management of human resources. The need to go beyond old approaches based on the “use” of human resources as “factor of production” has been outlined from different points of view. To contribute to the existing knowledge about the development of more efficient, effective and sustainable approaches in human resource management, this chapter aims to investigate possible pathways and key dimensions in defining more sustainable workplaces by acting on information sharing and cognitive involvement. A possible conceptual framework for clarifying different concepts of the workplace is proposed and some implications are outlined for managerial studies in the light of information sharing and cognitive involvement.