0000000000074012
AUTHOR
Clara Martínez-fuentes
Incremental innovation in services through continuous improvement
Employees contribute to the process of innovation through engaging in continuous improvement (CI) programmes such as individual suggestion systems or working teams. This article reviews the main features of CI, and examines the results derived from its implementation, what are the most common procedures and what problems arise during operation of these programmes. The empirical analysis shows how a high-tech service of a large public centenarian university faces the challenges of innovation through CI and how its organizational design variables generate a barrier to successful implementation.
Supervisor leadership style, employee regulatory focus, and leadership performance: A perspectivism approach
[EN] Drawing on regulatory focus theory, this research proposes that transformational leadership performance depends on followers' circumstances. The analysis of 125 people from two Spanish service firms reveals that, apart from transformational leadership, the presence of academic education, intrinsic job satisfaction and high customer contact, and the absence of family responsibilities, are core conditions for the presence of high leadership performance. The first contribution of this study is the direct inference of follower's regulatory focus from the observation of individuals' circumstances. The second contribution is that leaders should consider followers' circumstances to adopt a su…
Franchising: the dilemma between standardisation and flexibility
Both standardisation and flexibility are naturally linked to franchising and the balance between them has become an important research issue. Literature states that cost minimisation, brand image and innovation are the main reasons that push towards standardisation, while flexibility is claimed (for those that advocate for it) in order to achieve a higher adaptation to local markets and enhance franchisees’ entrepreneurial attitudes. This research will focus on the computer retail sector to find out how franchise networks in services settle this dilemma. Here, franchisors have decided to focus on economies of scale and strong common corporate image as key goals and thus allow franchisees to…
Open Science now: A systematic literature review for an integrated definition
Abstract Open Science is a disruptive phenomenon that is emerging around the world and especially in Europe. Open Science brings about socio-cultural and technological change, based on openness and connectivity, on how research is designed, performed, captured, and assessed. Several studies show that there is a lack of awareness about what Open Science is, mainly due to the fact that there is no formal definition of Open Science. The purpose of this paper is to build a rigorous, integrated, and up-to-date definition of the Open Science phenomenon through a systematic literature review. The resulting definition “Open Science is transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and develope…
Sensing and Generating New Opportunities for Value Innovation: How Team Behaviour Contributes to Success or to Failure?
The behavioral side of the decision process inherent to strategy is an issue that is gaining attention from both academic and practitioners. At the same time, the Schumpeterian conception of innovation, returns to gain relevance in an environment where technology leads to process dematerialization and exponential paths of change. In this context, this paper analyses which decision processes, cognitive abilities and heuristics lead to sense and generate value innovation for customers. The analysis of 26 master student teams that ran the same strategy simulator show that the consideration and description of a wide range of alternatives and team agreement as a result of discussion of such alte…
Participative management and its influence on organizational change
PurposeThis paper aims to deal with the influence of a participatory management style along a change process, specifically in seeking to analyze the effect of participative management style on resistance to change and its effects on change performance.Design/methodology/approachAfter a revision of previous literature, an empirical research is presented to test the existence and signs of the relationships between participation and organizational change. To measure the main concepts, the authors have used scales and other measures already published and through a correlation analysis gain some insight into the relationships among variables.FindingsData suggest that participative management mig…
Do firms implement work–life balance policies to benefit their workers or themselves?
Abstract The purpose of this article is to enhance scholars' understanding of work-life balance (WLB) policies in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study explores whether SMEs display a common pattern of behavior when implementing WLB policies. The benefits of implementing WLB policies either improve conditions for the workers themselves or improve the firm's productivity. Empirical evidence on the effects of WLB, however, is scarce. This empirical study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Findings fail to show an association between a particular combination of factors and the implementation of WLB policies. Nevertheless, the firm's decision to implement WLB poli…
Women Entrepreneurship and Performance
Research on gendered performance in entrepreneurship is scarce, making the resolution of this issue a relevant research field. Chapter 7 starts by describing what we understand by performance, widening the concept from a financial to an operational or even a stakeholders’ satisfaction level. Next, we present some relevant research that suggests explanations for a gendered difference in entrepreneurs’ performance, mainly in terms of the existence of horizontal segregation, differences in size and in personal attributes of entrepreneurs. The discussion about gender differences in resource possession and accessibility is then introduced as a fundamental concern in this debate, by describing ec…