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Firms' Capabilities (firm + capability)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	60%
Humanities and Social Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2003
Archon Fung
Political theorists have argued that the methods of deliberative democracy can help to meet challenges such as legitimacy, effective governance, and citizen education in local and national contexts. These basic insights can also be applied to problems of international governance such as the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of labor standards. A participatory and deliberative democratic approach to labor standards would push the labor,standards debate into the global public sphere. It would seek to create broad discussion about labor standards that would include not only firms and regulators, but also consumers, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and others. This discussion could potentially improve (1) the quality of labor standards by incorporating considerations of economic context and firm capability, (2) their implementation by bringing to bear not only state sanctions but also political and market pressures, and (3) the education and understanding of citizens. Whereas the role of public agencies in state,centered approaches is to formulate and enforce labor standards, central authorities in the decentralized,deliberative approach would foster the transparency of workplace practices to spur an inclusive, broad, public conversation about labor standards. To the extent that a substantive consensus around acceptable behavior emerges from that conversation, public power should also enforce those minimum standards. [source]

Toward a capabilities perspective of the small firm

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT REVIEWS, Issue 3 2001
Tony Fu-Lai Yu
This paper attempts to explain the competitive advantages of the small firm in the capabilities perspective. It begins by identifying the kinds of strategic assets possessed by small firms. It argues that entrepreneurship and a simple capital structure are the sources of dynamism for small firms. The relationship between the small firm's resources and its capabilities are then critically examined. In particular, the analysis focuses on the influences of strategic assets on the organizational flexibility , a significant source of competitive advantage enjoyed by small firms. The competitive attributes of small firms are further discussed in terms of firm's internal and external capabilities. Finally, the relationship between the small firm's capabilities and the choice of technology strategies is examined. [source]

Corporate social performance: Creating resources to help organizations excel

GLOBAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE, Issue 2 2008
Bryan Dennis
The most commonly employed theories of corporate social performance (CSP) tend to ignore firm-level processes and structures as sources of competitive advantage. But, by taking a resource-based view (RBV), and by enhancing a firm's capability to engage in socially responsible activities, it can potentially create its own competitive advantages. We examine four major components of CSP,community relations, the environment, diversity, and employee relations. And we show that the ability of a firm to develop its knowledge and skills,as well as policies and implementation plans and procedures,in each of these areas is a potential resource that may in fact provide competitive advantages and higher organizational performance, bringing benefits to both society and the firm. The community dimension evaluates the firm's performance in relationship to philanthropic giving and community support. The environmental aspect considers such firm stewardship activities as pollution prevention, global warming, and recycling. The diversity component measures CSP considering such factors as board member diversity and a firm's hiring, evaluation, training, and promotion policies concerning women and minorities. The employee relations dimension examines such socially responsible human resource practices as innovative employee involvement programs and profit sharing. Together, these capabilities can provide tangible and intangible resources that can provide the firm with competitive advantages. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

How States Augment the Capabilities of Technology,Pioneering Firms

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2002
Maryann 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]

Dynamic or Static Capabilities?

THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2009
Process 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]