Sustainable Competitive Advantage With the Balanced Scorecard Approach

Why are some firms more successful than others? This question has been intensely debated by strategic management researchers over the last 30 years. Competitive advantage is recognized as being the major cause for explaining top organizational performance and is a fundamental goal of academic strategic management studies. Recently, there has been an increasing amount of empirical research on the subject of competitive advantage and about distinguishing competitive advantage from organizational performance. The relevance of competitive advantage is not simply determined by external factors, but also by those internal sources that have been considered critical for successful organizations.

Staying Ahead in Business Through Innovation

Globalization has created new trends such as market consolidation, vertical market strategies, and mergers in the business world. These trends have forced many business enterprises to adapt themselves to these new phenomena. Now it has become a necessity for many business enterprises to look for a “new approach” that can help them to face new realities in business. The most talked about and discussed “new approach” in the business world is “innovation management.” Some enterprises have started declaring innovation as their objective, but they do not seem to follow it up with any concrete action or support of their objective, some of them being under the impression that somehow someone will find an idea that would help their enterprise to improve their revenues and reduce their costs. This approach clearly indicates the lack of clarity on innovation management. This chapter explains the various forms of innovation and discusses a case illustration in respect to an innovative approach followed by a textile mill in India.

Reflections of the 1Malaysia Supply Chain (1MSC)

This chapter focuses on the 1Malaysia Supply Chain framework that acts as the mover that enables the whole 1Malaysia concept to be realized and implemented. It will highlight an in-depth review of the 1MSC. The 1MSC concept is derived from the integration between all the key players in the end-to-end supply chain process. This is where the stakeholders have the same goals in ensuring that the end-to-end process of supply chain is achieved. The 1MSC can be considered as an umbrella that governs the whole supply chain process. The driving force behind the realization of this concept is the strong foundation of its supply chain which integrates different parties as one. This chapter introduces the concept of national development incubator (NDI) where it combines the primary supply chain elements to achieve sustainable business and supply chain performance.

Offshoring IT

Offshore outsourcing basically describes the practice of contracting to outside vendors in another country, especially in cases where the client company has no direct ownership. This operational strategy of low-cost, global expansion and the increased capability of vendors in India, China, the Philippines, South Korea has opened a great number of avenues of traditional organizational functions of IT. Such functions as software development, call centers, and accounting are typically offshored. Since the late 1990s, offshore outsourcing has included more sophisticated finance and accounting functions, beyond that of simple data input and transactions. Offshore finance and accounting outsourcing is especially becoming an attractive option for many companies. The obvious benefits are gaining access to scarce and valuable skills, cutting costs, and domestic and global achieving competitiveness. However, there are risks as well. A relatively balanced approach of benefits and risks are discussed in this chapter.

Measuring Low Carbon Supply Chain

The threat of climate change is due to increasing carbon emissions of manufacturing production and transportation. Currently, government is encouraging manufacturing to reduce carbon emission and conduct low carbon supply chain management (LCSCM). In order to solve the greenhouse gas emission dilemma, LCSCM is essential for manufacturing firms' stakeholders. Supply chain partners are expected to know the proper measurement of emissions to solve this problem. This chapter's aim is to review literature on how to measure LCSCM. In the past, the concept of green supply chain management (GSCM) was practiced to promote and reduce environmental risks. However, GSCM is a driver or practice to achieve environmental outcomes. The extended model of GSCM currently practices LCSCM through carbon footprint (CF) concept. In other words, LCSCM is an outcome that both interests researchers and persuades practitioners.

Lean Logistics of the Transportation of Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) in the Palm Oil Industry

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the efficiency, effectiveness, and performance of logistics in transportation of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) in Malaysian estates, which are the growing logistics hubs in plantation management. It also identifies various factors that significantly affect the efficiency, effectiveness, and performance of the Malaysian estate logistics and proposes ways to improve their competitiveness. This study shall empirically explore the causal relationships between lean logistics and triple bottom line on sustainable logistics performance in transportation of FFB in the palm oil industry. The objective is to examine the current state of sustainability efforts within the field of value chain, more specifically logistics performance, and to identify opportunities and provide recommendations for the palm oil industry to follow sustainable performance. This study also aims to stimulate further research within the area of sustainable logistics performance.

Promoting Strategic Human Resource Management, Organizational Learning, and Knowledge Management in Modern Organizations

This chapter describes the concept of strategic human resource management (SHRM), the concept of electronic human resource management (e-HRM), the importance of SHRM in modern organizations, and the current trends of organizational learning and knowledge management (KM) in modern organizations. SHRM is the strategic practice of attracting, developing, rewarding, and retaining employees with the important goal of increasing various benefits to both employees as individuals and organization as a whole. SHRM strategically utilizes organizational resources and talent within HR functions to make organizations more effective in the modern workforce. Organizational learning and KM allow for organizational employees to share knowledge and learn exactly what is relevant to their specific tasks toward encouraging human capital and knowledge creation. The chapter argues that promoting SHRM, organizational learning, and KM has the potential to enhance organizational performance and achieve strategic goals in modern organizations.

Cyberloafing and Constructive Recreation

“Cyberloafing” in workplace and educational contexts refers to the uses of computer-related applications and devices in ways or at times that are not directly sanctioned by employers, managers, or teachers. It has often been considered as a kind of “time theft” on the part of employees, possibly decreasing workplace and educational productivity by consuming attention, energies, and resources designated for organizational operations. In contrast, many employees and students have construed cyberloafing as a stress reliever and as support for personal wellbeing, often with the rationale that they are able to engage effectively in alternating or multitasking between and among their various work and off-work endeavors. “Constructive recreation,” in contrast with cyberloafing, comprises online recreation and gamification initiatives designed by employees along with managers; these initiatives are designed to be in sync with productive efforts and support the wellbeing of all organizational participants. The chapter analyzes research trends and public discourse related to both to cyberloafing and to constructive recreation.

From On-Premise ERP to Cloud ERP

One of the concerns linked to ERP implementation is alignment. Indeed, ERP systems affect almost all business processes and even some strategic choices of a firm. That is why many studies focus on alignment concerns when studying ERP implementation. Nevertheless, firms are more and more interested in switching toward cloud ERP. This involves great challenges for business-IT alignment of an enterprise. Also, with cloud ERP, data and applications are provider-hosted. So, the way ERP is managed may be redefined and achieving alignment might be more challenging. Thus, this chapter aims to expose the major challenges and issues linked to ERP systems alignment. Some tendencies and best practices are also proposed for firms to overcome the alignment challenges, mainly in a cloud environment.

A Nature-Inspired Metaheuristic Approach for Generating Alternatives

“Real-world” decision making often involves complex problems that are riddled with incompatible and inconsistent performance objectives. These problems typically possess competing design requirements which are very difficult—if not impossible—to quantify and capture at the time that any supporting decision models are constructed. There are invariably unmodeled design issues, not apparent during the time of model construction, which can greatly impact the acceptability of the model's solutions. Consequently, when solving many practical mathematical programming applications, it is generally preferable to formulate numerous quantifiably good alternatives that provide very different perspectives to the problem. This solution approach is referred to as modelling to generate alternatives (MGA). This study demonstrates how the nature-inspired firefly algorithm can be used to efficiently create multiple solution alternatives that both satisfy required system performance criteria and yet are maximally different in their decision spaces.