Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are constantly confronting formidable and competitive challenges. In their midst, to stay abreast of larger firms or international markets, a small number is still able to insulate themselves from the pervasive effects of competition, technology advancement...

This paper presents an aspect of ongoing research into the management of innovation as a business system, recognizing that people are an important element of the total system that includes decision and knowledge subsystems. The word ?intuition? is often used in connection with innovators and...

As small films have limited resources, they cannot out-muscle larger competitors, so they have to do something different - be innovative and leverage know-how and collaborate with others to increase the scale and scope of what they can offer to be globally competitive. This paper describes an...

Many small manufacturing firms are becoming dislinked from their traditional client connections as those larger manufacturing clients strive to reduce costs by either moving production to lower cost countries or working with fewer, more capable suppliers. This paper explores learnings from a...

This paper shares experiences from action research carried out by the author in an SME business setting where collaboration is becoming a strategic necessity. Many industry participants are interested in entering a collaboration, but are concerned about issues of trust, particularly where a new...

This paper aims to identify key elements of innovative culture using innovation audit tools. The research seeks to determine if factors such as the ability to collaborate are important in building a culture that supports innovation. Many firms are continually scanning the environment for sources...

For firms to survive in the highly competitive Aerospace Component Supply Market, they must have some sustainable competitive advantages. Customers are demanding continual price reductions and improvements in lead times from their suppliers. In the Asia Pacific region, developing economies such...

This study describes an action research program, primarily within one company pursuing learning organisation concepts. The research was an integral part of the implication process, not involving case studies carried out after the event, or analysis prior to it, but an iterative mixture of...

In pursuing sustainable competitive advantage, firms undertake a range of strategic initiatives such as innovation, customer relationship management, entering new markets overseas, and competitive actions within current marketplaces. Studies that examine these initiatives generally study the...

Most organizations can manage reverse logistics operations strategically but very few of them have successfully streamlined material flow of the return process and information due to lack of integration within the overall process. This research aims at analysing complete reverse logistics...