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Capability
Kinds of Capability Terms modified by Capability Selected AbstractsA DESIGN CONCEPT OF AUTONOMOUS CONTROLLER FOR IMPROVING SEISMIC PROOF CAPABILITY OF SEMI-ACTIVE CONTROL DEVICEEXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES, Issue 4 2010M.-H. Shih First page of article [source] The Impact of Technological Opportunities and Innovative Capabilities on Firms' Output InnovationCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2003María J. Oltra In this study, we analyse the effect that external sources of knowledge and absorptive capacity exert on a firm's output innovation. In addition, we examine the moderating influence of absorptive capacity on the effect that technological opportunities have on output innovation. Empirical research was carried out on a sample of 91 Spanish firms from the ceramic tile industry. Absorptive capacity is operationalized by ,systematic or continuous R&D' and output innovation by ,percentage of sales from new products'. Technological opportunities are divided into several industry and non-industry related variables. Our results show the positive effect that both the industry's technological opportunities and a systematic approach to R&D exert on output innovation. Moreover, firms with a systematic approach to R&D usually achieve higher innovation output than firms which do not follow this approach. The innovation results of this second group decrease as a result of embedded technology acquisition. [source] Gauging the societal impacts of natural disasters using a capability approachDISASTERS, Issue 3 2010Paolo Gardoni There is a widely acknowledged need for a single composite index that provides a comprehensive picture of the societal impact of disasters. A composite index combines and logically organizes important information policy-makers need to allocate resources for the recovery from natural disasters; it can also inform hazard mitigation strategies. This paper develops a Disaster Impact Index (DII) to gauge the societal impact of disasters on the basis of the changes in individuals' capabilities. The DII can be interpreted as the disaster impact per capita. Capabilities are dimensions of individual well-being and refer to the genuine opportunities individuals have to achieve valuable states and activities (such as being adequately nourished or being mobile). After discussing the steps required to construct the DII, this article computes and compares the DIIs for two earthquakes of similar magnitude in two societies at different levels of development and of two disasters (earthquake and wind storm) in the same society. [source] Toward a Psychology of Large-Scale Educational Achievement Testing: Some Features and CapabilitiesEDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT: ISSUES AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2006Steve Ferrara First page of article [source] Partially versus Exhaustively Carbamoylated Cyclodextrins: NMR Investigation on Enantiodiscriminating Capabilities in SolutionEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2003Gloria Uccello-Barretta Abstract The enantiodiscriminating efficiency of exhaustively carbamoylated, mixed carbamoylated/silylated, and partially carbamoylated cyclodextrins in solution has been compared by NMR spectroscopy. Investigation of the origin of the observed chiral discrimination was also carried out. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2003) [source] Economic Capabilities, Choices and Outcomes at Older Ages,FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2006James Banks Abstract Intense policy and academic interest in the ,economics of ageing' has come about as a result of the demographic trends that have been experienced over the last 50 years and that are projected for the next 50 years. Key economic policy issues relate to the design of public pensions, welfare systems, healthcare and invalidity benefits, and the regulation of private pensions and other retirement saving. This paper presents an overview of the beginnings of a research agenda targeted towards increasing the empirical evidence on these issues in England and providing extensive data for subsequent research. The paper focuses on summarising some recent data on how individuals' economic circumstances, and in particular the ability and willingness to work, change from age 50 onwards. This will be a key factor in determining the ability of economic institutions to adjust to new socio-demographic equilibria in which individuals are living for longer. Further issues for more extensive empirical research are also identified. [source] Innovation and Regional Growth in the Enlarged Europe: The Role of Local Innovative Capabilities, Peripherality, and EducationGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2005RICCARDO CRESCENZI ABSTRACT In this paper, a formal model for the relationship between innovation and growth in European Union regions is developed drawing upon the theoretical contribution of the systems of innovation approach. The model combines the analytical approach of the regional growth models with the insights of the systemic approach. The cross-sectional analysis, covering all the Enlarged Europe (EU-25) regions (for which data are available), shows that regional innovative activities (for which a specific measure is developed) play a significant role in determining differential regional growth patterns. Furthermore, the model sheds light on how geographical accessibility and human capital accumulation, by shaping the regional system of innovation, interact (in a statistically significant way) with local innovative activities, thus allowing them to be more (or less) effectively translated into economic growth. The paper shows that an increase in innovative effort is not necessarily likely to produce the same effect in all EU-25 regions. Indeed, the empirical analysis suggests that in order to allow innovative efforts in peripheral regions to be as productive as in core areas, they need to be complemented by huge investments in human capital. [source] How States Augment the Capabilities of Technology,Pioneering FirmsGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2002Maryann P. Feldman State governments offer a variety of programs to assist technology intensive entrepreneurial firms yet there is a limited understanding of how firms use these programs. This paper provides a framework for categorizing state technology programs and uses detailed case studies to examine how these programs augment firms' capabilities. It is concluded that firms made extensive use of state programs that provide access to university intellectual property and research facilities. In addition, firms participated in programs that provided incentives for faculty to conduct joint research with industry. Finally, state venture capital programs, though small relative to federal R&D grants or venture capital, appear to nurture firms' development. [source] Capabilities, processes, and performance of knowledge management: A structural approachHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 1 2007Young-Chan Lee The purpose of this study is to examine structural relationships among the capabilities, processes, and performance of knowledge management, and suggest strategic directions for the successful implementation of knowledge management. To serve this purpose, the authors conducted an extensive survey of 68 knowledge management-adopting Korean firms in diverse industries and collected 215 questionnaires. Analyzing hypothesized structural relationships with the data collected, they found that there exists statistically significant relationships among knowledge management capabilities, processes, and performance. The empirical results of this study also support the well-known strategic hypothesis of the balanced scorecard (BSC). © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 17: 21,41, 2007. [source] Integrating Human Resource and Technological Capabilities: The Influence of Global Business Strategies on Workplace Strategy ChoicesINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2007WILLIAM N. COOKE Treating workplace strategies as the integration of human resource and technological capabilities, a typology of workplace strategy emphases is developed. The choice among these alternative workplace strategy emphases is treated as a function of market-positioning priorities and the multinational scope of firms. Accordingly, a multinomial choice model is specified, which is tested against a sample of firms in the U.S. automotive supplier industry. The model obtains substantial empirical support. Among the findings is evidence consistent with the proposition that due to cross-border, isomorphic constraints, multinational companies are less likely than national companies to pursue workplace strategies emphasizing human resource capabilities, choosing instead to favor the diffusion of workplace strategies emphasizing technological capabilities. [source] Argumentation within deductive reasoningINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 1 2007Armin Fiedler Deductive reasoning is an area related to argumentation where machine-based techniques, notably theorem proving, can contribute substantially to the formation of arguments. However, making use of the functionality of theorem provers for this issue is associated with a number of difficulties and, as we will demonstrate, requires considerable effort for obtaining reasonable results. Aiming at the exploitation of machine-oriented reasoning for human-adequate argumentation in a broader sense, we present our model for producing proof presentations from machine-oriented inference structures. Capabilities of the model include adaptation to human-adequate degrees of granularity and explicitness in the underlying argumentation and interactive exploration of proofs. Enhancing capabilities in all these respects, even just those we have addressed so far, does not only improve the interactive use of theorem provers, but shows they are essential ingredients to support the functionality of dialog-oriented tutorial systems in formal domains. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 22: 49,70, 2007. [source] Nursing Home Capabilities and Decisions to Hospitalize: A Survey of Medical Directors and Directors of NursingJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 3 2006Joan L. Buchanan PhD OBJECTIVES: To obtain information from decision makers about attitudes toward hospitalization and the factors that influence their decisions to hospitalize nursing home residents. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Four hundred forty-eight nursing homes, 76% of which were nonprofit, from 25 states. PARTICIPANTS: Medical directors and directors of nursing (DONs). MEASUREMENTS: Participants were surveyed about resource availability, determinants of hospitalization, causes of overhospitalization, and nursing home practice. RESULTS: The survey response rate was 81%, with at least one survey from 93% of the facilities. Medical directors and DONs agreed that resident preference was the most important determinant in the decision to hospitalize, followed by quality of life. Although both groups ranked on-site doctor/nurse practitioner evaluation within 4 hours as the least accessible resource, they did not rank doctors not being quickly available as an important cause of overhospitalization. Rather, medical directors perceived the lack of information and support to residents and families around end-of-life care and the lack of familiarity with residents by covering doctors as the most important causes of overhospitalization. DONs agreed but reversed the order. Medical directors and DONs expressed confidence in provider and staff ability, although DONs were significantly more positive. CONCLUSION: Medical directors and DONs agree about most factors that influence decisions to hospitalize nursing home residents. Patient-centered factors play the largest roles, and the most important causes of overhospitalization are potentially modifiable. [source] Comparison of Soybean Oils, Gum, and Defatted Soy Flour Extract in Stabilizing Menhaden Oil during HeatingJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 1 2008X. Yue ABSTRACT:, Capabilities of crude soy oil, degummed oil, gum, and defatted soy flour extract in preventing the oxidation of menhaden oil and its omega-3 fatty acids, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), during heating were evaluated. The menhaden oil mixed with defatted soy flour extract demonstrated the greatest stability by producing the lowest TBA reactive oxidation products and retaining the highest concentrations of DHA and EPA after heating at 150 °C for 30 min. A range of 62.8% to 71.5% of DHA and 67.7% to 75.9% of EPA remained in the fish oil with defatted soy flour extract, while only 29.9% of DHA and 37.2% of EPA were retained in the fish oil with no addition. Stabilizing capability from highest to lowest was defatted flour extract > gum > degummed oil = crude oil. The defatted flour extract had the highest level of total phenolic content (11.3 ,g catechin equivalent/g), while crude oil, degummed oil, and gum contained 7.1, 6.1, and 6.0 ,g catechin equivalent/g, respectively. The level of isoflavones in the defatted soy flour extract was 55 mg/g, which was over 100 times higher than in the crude oil or gum. Although isoflavones were not detected in the degummed oil, it contained the highest level of tocopherols (414 ,g/g), whereas the lowest level (215 ,g/g) was found in the defatted flour extract. The order of free radical scavenging capability measured from high to low was the defatted soy flour extract, crude oil, degummed oil, and gum. [source] Fermentation Capabilities of Bifidobacteria Using Nondigestible Oligosaccharides, and Their Viability as Probiotics in Commercial Powder Infant FormulaJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 6 2005Darío Pérez-Conesa ABSTRACT The species Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium longum biotype infantis (Spanish type culture collection), and Bifidobacterium longum (Morinaga nutritional foods) were evaluated in vitro in the presence of 4 commercial nondigestible oligosaccharides (NDO) (short-chain fructooligosaccharides [SCFOS] [degree of polymerization, DP: 2,3], inulin [DP: 10,0], oligofructose [DP: 2,0] and 4,-galactosyllactose [4,-GOS] [DP: 3,]). Each species was incubated anaerobically in tryptone phytone yeast (TPY) broth for 7 d with NDO. Every 24 h, bifidobacteria growth was evaluated by means of broth turbidity as optical density at 600 nm. Moreover, another sample was collected for pH culture measurement. Results showed that inulin was the substrate with the least effect on the stimulation of bifidobacteria growth and pH decrease. On the last day of incubation, the substrate 4,-GOS stimulated bacterial growth more strongly and produced a larger decrease in culture broth pH than the other substrates. On the other hand, B. bifidum and B. longum showed a greater growth with 4,-GOS. In a 2nd study, these 2 bifidobacteria species were added to a powder follow-on probiotic infant formula. The viability of the bifidobacteria during the formula's period of consumption was evaluated in 2 studies of 6 and 14 d. Both corresponded to the minimum and maximum time of consumption of the formula according to the manufacturer's directions. It was found that, although in both studies bifidobacteria counts decreased significantly (P < 0.05) with time, they were always above the recommended addition level (106 colony-forming units [CFU]/g) at the time of sale for dairy products by the Intl. Standard of Fédération Internationale de Laiterie/International Dairy Federation (FIL/IDF). Moreover, because the pH of the reconstituted formula was always close to neutrality (from 6.74 to 7.06), the number of bacteria did not drop below the recommended level. [source] Identifying, Enabling and Managing Dynamic Capabilities in the Public Sector*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 5 2007Amy L. Pablo abstract In this paper, we examine how a public sector organization developed a new strategic approach based on the identification and use of an internal dynamic capability (learning through experimenting). In response to the need for continual performance improvement in spite of reduced financial resources, this organization engaged in three overlapping phases as they shifted to this strategic approach. First, managers identified appropriate latent dynamic capabilities. Next, they used their leadership skills and built on established levels of trust to enable the use of these dynamic capabilities. Finally, they managed the tension between unrestricted development of local initiatives and organizational needs for guidance and control. [source] External Sources of Innovative Capabilities: The Preferences for Strategic Alliances or Mergers and AcquisitionsJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 2 2002John Hagedoorn This paper explores the preferences that companies have as they use alternative (quasi) external sources of innovative competencies such as strategic technology alliances, mergers and acquisitions, or a mix of these. These alternatives are studied in the context of distinct industrial, technological and international settings during the first half of the 1990s. Different strategies followed by companies and the role played by routinized sets of preferences are also taken into consideration. The analysis demonstrates that these options are influenced by both different environmental conditions and firm specific circumstances, such as those related to protecting core businesses. [source] Relationships among Strategic Capabilities and the Performance of Women-Owned Small VenturesJOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2002Miri Lerner This study of small, life-style ventures owned by women focuses on the strategic, firm-level factors related to business performance. A theoretical model drawing on the resource-based theory is developed and tested empirically. The model includes strategic capabilities, management styles, and their relation to performance. It is tested empirically on a sample of 220 Israeli female business owners. Analysis reveals that life-style venture performance is highly correlated with certain aspects of the business owner's skills as well as the venture&apops;s resources. Paradoxically, the owner/managers in the sample rate their skills and their venture's resources as being weak in precisely those areas that correlate positively with business performance. These findings suggest that performance of life-style ventures owned by women depends more on marketing, financial, and managerial skills than on innovation. [source] Improving change tolerance through Capabilities-based design: an empirical analysisJOURNAL OF SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, Issue 2 2008Ramya Ravichandar Abstract We introduce a Capabilities-based approach for constructing large-scale systems such that they are change - tolerant. The inherent complexity of software systems increases their susceptibility to change when subjected to the vagaries of user needs, technology advances, market demands, and other change-inducing factors. Despite the inevitability of change, traditional requirements engineering strives to develop systems based on a fixed solution; a mostly unsuccessful approach as evidenced by the history of system failures. In contrast, we utilize Capabilities,functional abstractions that are neither as amorphous as user needs nor as rigid as system requirements,to architect systems that accommodate change with minimum impact. These entities are designed to exhibit the desirable characteristics of high cohesion, low coupling, and balanced abstraction levels and are generated by a two-phased process called Capabilities Engineering. Phase I mathematically exploits the structural semantics of a function decomposition graph,a representation of user needs,to formulate change-tolerant Capabilities. Phase II optimizes these Capabilities to comply with schedule and technology constraints. In this paper, we present the overall framework of this process and detail the algorithm to identify Capabilities. In addition, we empirically evaluate the change tolerance of Capabilities resulting from Phase I. For this we examine the ripple effect of needs change on a real-world Course Evaluation System based on the original requirements-based design and the corresponding Capabilities-based design. Our experimental results indicate, with statistical significance, that the Capabilities-based design is less impacted by change and thereby improves the change tolerance of the system when subjected to needs volatility. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Oral Communication Capabilities of Purchasing Managers: Measurement and TypologyJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2006Rudolf O. Large SUMMARY As supply chain management (SCM) becomes increasingly important, the sharing of information and oral communication has also increased in significance. This has resulted in the need for an instrument to measure managers' oral communication capabilities. The main objectives of this paper are to identify the dimensions of the oral communication capability and to develop an instrument to measure this capability. To achieve these goals, a survey was conducted among German and Spanish buyers and supply managers. The results indicate that the oral communication capability construct has a second-order structure with three dimensions: the ability to pass on information, the ability to persuade and the ability to listen and understand. Based on these results, the Oral Communication Capability Self-test (OCCS) was developed. This study also investigates the typology of purchasing managers based on their oral communication capabilities. [source] Warfighter Needs in the 21st Century: Linking Fleet Operations to Required CapabilitiesNAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL, Issue 4 2000Capt. V.A. Myer USNR (Ret.) ABSTRACT What the warfighter needs is not what he is getting in terms of responsiveness to the emerging threat, interoperability among systems, and systems readiness and training. This disconnect between Fleet operations and the acquisition requirements process is becoming more pronounced as systems grow larger and more complex and as warflghting becomes more joint Knowing what the warfighter wants and how he envisions using it in a concept of operations is fundamental to the requirements process. The source of this information is the commander in chief's (CINC's) operations plan (OPLAN), which contains the concept of operations (CONOPS) for each warfighting theater. It is critical that the CONOPS be used as the basis for determining performance requirements, because it contains the military judgment, context, and authority of the theater CINC. The defunct Arsenal Ship program, which was rightly vetoed by the theater CINCs because it would not meet their warfighting needs at acceptable risk, is a recent example of the mismatch between what is being asked for and what is being provided. [source] Capabilities of CdZnTe-based Schottky diodes for detection of optical and X/,-ray radiationPHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI (C) - CURRENT TOPICS IN SOLID STATE PHYSICS, Issue 5 2009O. L. Maslyanchuk Abstract The electrical and photoelectric properties of Schottky diodes based on low-resistivity (, = 103 -104 ,·cm) and semi-insulating (, , 107 ,·cm) Cd1-xZnxTe (x = 0-0.2) single crystals are investigated and use of the diodes as detectors, respectively, for optical and X- and ,-ray radiation is analyzed. The charge transport properties of both types of Schottky diodes are shown to be governed by generation-recombination in the space-charge region in the frame of the Sah-Noyce-Shockley theory. The detection spectrum of Cd1,xZnx Te-bassed X/,-ray detectors with Schottky diodes is studied. (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Means and Capabilities in the Discussion of Distributive Justice,RATIO JURIS, Issue 1 2006GUSTAVO PEREIRA This can be achieved by concentrating on arrangements of justice working within the parameter of equality of resources that equalize capabilities at a level of minima, thus avoiding the perfectionist risk and, once the threshold that ensures autonomous subjects is passed, ruled by criteria taken from theories of means. In such a task, the concept of moral person will be used as the criterion for determining the threshold of autonomy, and not only will it allow for the discrimination between the different circumstances that make the application of distributive criteria possible, but it will also specify the circumstances in which it is possible to attribute responsibility to an agent. [source] Dynamic or Static Capabilities?THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2009Process Management Practices, Response to Technological Change Whether and how organizations adapt to changes in their environments has been a prominent theme in organization and strategy research. Within this research, there is controversy about whether organizational routines hamper or facilitate adaptation. Organizational routines give rise to inertia but are also the vehicles for change in recent work on dynamic capabilities. This rising interest in routines in research coincides with an increase in management practices focused on organizational routines and processes. This study explores how the increasing use of process management practices affected organizational response to a major technological change through new product developments. The empirical setting is the photography industry over a decade, during the shift from silver-halide chemistry to digital technology. The advent and rise of practices associated with the new ISO 9000 certification program in the 1990s coincided with increasing technological substitution in photography, allowing for assessing how increasing attention to routines through ISO 9000 practices over time affected ongoing responsiveness to the technological change. The study further compares the effects for the incumbent firms in the existing technology with nonincumbent firms entering from elsewhere. Relying on longitudinal panel data models as well as hazard models, findings show that greater process management practices dampened response to new generations of digital technology, but this effect differed for incumbents and nonincumbents. Increasing use of process management practices over time had a greater negative effect on incumbents' response to the rapid technological change. The study contributes to research in technological change by highlighting specific management practices that may create disconnects between firms' capabilities and changing environments and disadvantage incumbents in the face of radical technological change. This research also contributes to literature on organizational routines and capabilities. Studying the effects of increasing ISO 9000 practices undertaken in firms provides an opportunity to gauge the effects of systematic routinization of organizational activities and their effects on adaptation. This research also contributes to management practice. The promise of process management is to help firms adapt to changing environments, and, as such, managers facing technological change may adopt process management practices as a response to uncertainty and change. But managers must more fully understand the potential benefits and risks of process management to ensure these practices are used in the appropriate contexts. [source] Capabilities and limitations of a (3,+,d)-dimensional incommensurately modulated structure as a model for the derivation of an extended family of compounds: example of the scheelite-like structuresACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION B, Issue 1 2008Alla Arakcheeva The previously reported incommensurately modulated scheelite-like structure KNd(MoO4)2 has been exploited as a natural (3,+,1)-dimensional superspace model to generate the scheelite-like three-dimensional structure family. Although each member differs in its space-group symmetry, unit-cell parameters and compositions, in (3,+,1)-dimensional space, they share a common superspace group, a common number of building units in the basic unit cell occupying Wyckoff sites with specific coordinates (x, y, z) and specific basic unit-cell axial ratios (c/a, a/b, b/c) and angles. Variations of the modulation vector q, occupation functions and t0 are exploited for the derivation. Eight topologically and compositionally different known structures are compared with their models derived from the KNd(MoO4)2 structure in order to evaluate the capabilities and limitations of the incommensurately modulated structure to act as a superspace generating model. Applications of the KNd(MoO4)2 structure as a starting model for the refinement and prediction of some other modulated members of the family is also illustrated. The (3,+,1)-dimensional presentation of the scheelite-like structures reveals new structural relations, which remain hidden if only conventional three-dimensional structure descriptions are applied. [source] The CREDIT project: Towards a generic framework for assessment and accreditation,a prototype for childcareBRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 4 2000Jacobijn Sandberg Many individuals throughout Europe acquire knowledge and skills in an informal manner for which they find no official recognition. Procedures for assessment and accreditation are meant to help individuals in finding recognition of previously gained competencies. The CREDIT (Capabilities, Registration, Evaluation, Diagnosis and advice through Internet Technology) project develops a computer system that supports the assessment and accreditation process and provides advice on further training possibilities tailored to the level of knowledge and skills of individuals. [source] Dynamic Capabilities: Current Debates and Future DirectionsBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 2009Mark Easterby-Smith The field of dynamic capabilities has developed very rapidly over the last ten years. In this paper we discuss the evolution of the concept, and identify two major current debates around the nature of dynamic capabilities and their consequences. We then review recent progress as background to identifying the contributions of the seven papers in this special issue, and discuss the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative studies for investigating dynamic capabilities. We conclude with recommendations for future research arguing for more longitudinal studies which can examine the processes of dynamic abilities over time, and for studies in diverse industries and national contexts. [source] Dynamic Capabilities: An Exploration of How Firms Renew their Resource BaseBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 2009Véronique Ambrosini The aim of this paper is to extend the concept of dynamic capabilities. Building on prior research, we suggest that there are three levels of dynamic capabilities which are related to managers' perceptions of environmental dynamism. At the first level we find incremental dynamic capabilities: those capabilities concerned with the continuous improvement of the firm's resource base. At the second level are renewing dynamic capabilities, those that refresh, adapt and augment the resource base. These two levels are usually conceived as one and represent what the literature refers to as dynamic capabilities. At the third level are regenerative dynamic capabilities, which impact, not on the firm's resource base, but on its current set of dynamic capabilities, i.e. these change the way the firm changes its resource base. We explore the three levels using illustrative examples and conclude that regenerative dynamic capabilities may either come from inside the firm or enter the firm from outside, via changes in leadership or the intervention of external change agents. [source] Inter-Firm R&D Networks: the Importance of Strategic Network Capabilities for High-Tech Partnership Formation,BRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2006John Hagedoorn We examine the role of different network capabilities of companies that influence the formation of R&D partnerships in pharmaceutical biotechnology. Strategic network capabilities, specifically centrality-based capabilities and the efficiency with which companies choose their partners, are found to facilitate the formation of new partnerships. Unlike general experience with partnering, these strategic network capabilities play a crucial role in enabling companies to continue to interact with other companies through partnerships in a complex network setting. [source] Information Processing and Firm-Internal Environment Contingencies: Performance Impact on Global New Product DevelopmentCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Elko Kleinschmidt Innovation in its essence is an information processing activity. Thus, a major factor impacting the success of new product development (NPD) programs, especially those responding to global markets, is the firm's ability to access, share and apply NPD information, which is often widely dispersed, functionally, geographically and culturally. To this end, an IT-communication strength is essential, one that is nested in an internal organizational environment that ensures its effective functioning. Using organizational information processing (OIP) theory as a framework, superior global NPD program performance is shown to result from an effective IT/Communication strength and the commitment components of the firm's internal environment, which are hypothesized to moderate this relationship. IT/Communication strength is identified in this study in terms of two components including the IT/Comm Infrastructure and IT/Comm Capability of the firm, whereas the moderating internal environment of the firm incorporates Resource Commitment and Senior Management Involvement. Data from a major empirical study of international NPD programs (382 SBUs) are used to develop and test this model. Based on a hierarchical regression analysis, the results are substantially supportive, with some unexpected findings. These shed light on the complex relationships of the firm's internal environment, OIP competency, and global NPD program performance. [source] Capability, Quality, and Performance of Offshore IS Vendors: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical InvestigationDECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2010Prashant C. Palvia ABSTRACT Information systems (IS) offshoring has become a widespread practice and a strategic sourcing choice for many firms. While much has been written by researchers about the factors that lead to successful offshoring arrangements from the client's viewpoint, the vendor's perspective has been largely scarce. The vendor perspective is equally important as offshore IS vendors need to make important decisions in terms of delivering operational and strategic performance and aligning their resources and processes in order to meet or exceed targeted outcomes. In this article, we propose and test a three-level capability,quality,performance (CQP) theoretical framework to understand vendor outcomes and their antecedents. The first level of the framework represents three vendor capabilities: relationship management, contract management, and information technology management. The second level has three mediating variables representing process quality: partnership, service, and deliverable quality. The third level has three dependent variables representing vendor outcomes: operational performance, strategic performance, and satisfaction. The model was tested with 188 vendor firms from India and China, the two most popular destinations for IS offshoring. Results support the CQP framework; vendor capabilities are significant predictors of intermediate quality measures, which in turn affect vendor outcomes. Implications of the study findings to both theory development and IS offshore vendor strategic decision making are discussed. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||