This thesis explores the relationship between a firm's supply chain and a firm's degree of market orientation and economic performance. The results suggest that certain types of supply chain design - in particular those models that make for close links with the firm's customers - lead to...

Purpose of the paper: The aim of this paper is to describe and explain the flexibility offered by different business models adopted by different firms as they strive to achieve higher levels of business performance. Research Method: Cross-sectional research is used to investigate a matched pair...

The growing academic attention given to outsourcing and offshoring reflects a trend to develop offshore business models that capitalises on both the effectiveness and efficiencies that might be offered by the business network. Recent innovations in information communications technologies have...

Companies face difficult decisions regarding their management of business relationships; how much resource should they commit, when and with whom? The decisions managers make about these issues provide a ‘frame’ for their business relationships and thus a structure for their surrounding...

Critical incidents, such as horizontal mergers and acquisitions (M&A), force companies to re-think their business models and ‘reframe’ the way they develop and manage their business relationships. Through M&A companies enter into a set of new business relationships with other firms; thus...

A technical basis for the definition of services, using the so-called IHIP characteristics, is rejected in favour of one based on institutional arrangements. Mundane Transaction Costs and the notion of qualification are discussed in relation to making services tradable. The evolution of the...

This paper aims to investigate two seminal market-scanning frameworks – the five-forces analysis and the PESTEL environmental scanning tool – to assess their readiness to anticipate market-shaping acts. Drawing on the market-shaping literature that conceptualizes markets as complex adaptive...

Purpose: Firms face the challenge of developing learning capabilities that enable them to work as part of an effective business network. While an extensive literature examines learning capabilities within the firm little research examine the shared learning that occurs between networked firms....