Business Commons^™

Green Freight Asia (C): The Road Ahead, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation.

Green Freight Asia (C): The Road Ahead is the third and final part of the case series. It …

Green Freight Asia (A): Driving The Adoption Of Sustainable Supply Chain Practices, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation. The first part, Green Freight Asia (A): Driving the Adoption of Sustainable Supply Chain Practices, chronicles the formation …

Green Freight Asia (B): Navigating Toward A Successful Partnership, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation. The second part, Green Freight Asia (B): Navigating Toward A Successful Partnership, explores how a collaborative partnership between …

Revitalizing Ethiopia's Manufacturing Enterprises Through The Japanese Production Management Strategy, Asayehgn Desta

Asayehgn Desta

Satisfaction With Airline Service Quality: Familiarity Breeds Contempt, Tamilla Curtis, Dawna Rhoades, Blaise Waguespack

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

The objective of this study is to investigate frequency-of-flight issues and the differences between frequent and non-frequent flyers’ levels of satisfaction and the importance attributed to overall airline service quality and select attributes. The results indicate that the level of satisfaction with overall airline quality and select attributes decrease the more passengers fly. Conversely, the level of importance attributed to airline amenities increased with flight frequency. Perceptions of airline quality may vary between different nationalities and different socioeconomic groups. Differences between the short- and long-haul flights, as well as domestic and international services could also exist. Airline managers need to …

Regional Jet Aircraft Competitiveness: Challenges And Opportunities, Tamilla Curtis, Dawna Rhoades, Blaise Waguespack

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

The regional jet aircraft is a unique market niche. Particularly suitable for providing capacity in the 30 to 90 seat range, these jets are often used to connect smaller airports to network carrier hubs, as well as to fill in during slow periods. The market is currently dominated by two manufacturers: Brazil's Embraer and Canada's Bombardier. Due to the nature of the global aircraft industry, Embraer and Bombardier are largely dependent on the international sale of their aircraft for steady revenue streams. Orders and deliveries of aircraft with fewer than 100 seats have grown rapidly over the past ten years. …

Corporate Brand Management In Higher Education: The Case Of Erau, Tamilla Curtis, Russell Abratt, William Minor

Dr. Tamilla Curtis

There is evidence in the literature that organizations struggle to formulate and implement their corporate branding strategies. This paper aims to provide an overview of the corporate brand building process in higher education. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative methodology was used in this study. A single case study of a private American university was used to gather information about their corporate brand building process. University administrators and documents were used to gain insights into their brand building process. Findings – The corporate brand building process addressed three key areas; web administration, program marketing and corporate brand positioning. The corporate brand building …

‘Campus Connect’: An Infosys Program To Develop India’S Information Technology Ecosystem, Arnoud De Meyer, Peter Williamson, Havovi Joshi, Christopher Dula

Arnoud De Meyer

This case is set in April 2013, and discusses the key elements that have contributed to the success of Infosys Ltd’s Campus Connect Program (CC) in developing India’s IT talent over the past eight years. The CC programme had been developed by Infosys in response to a growing belief among India’s IT industry majors that the large number of fresh graduates they were looking to recruit from engineering colleges were neither readily employable nor sufficiently industry-ready. The programme was envisaged to address this problem through an industry-academia initiative that would architect the education experience of engineering students. The goal was …

Competitive And Harmonised R&D Policies For International R&D Alliances Involving Asymmetric Firms, Rodney Falvey, Khemarat Teerasuwannajak

Rodney Falvey

We examine research and development (R&D) policies when a national firm forms an R&D alliance with a foreign competitor. Firms differ in their R&D capabilities, and adopt a profit-sharing rule when R&D decisions are coordinated. National R&D tax/subsidy policies are set independently or harmonized. When firms coordinate their R&D decisions and governments choose R&D policies independently, R&D taxes are chosen. But there is no intervention if policies are harmonized. These policy outcomes affect the types of R&D alliance choosen. Agreements to share R&D information may be preferred to those combining coordination of R&D decisions and information sharing because of the …

Sentosa (C): Advancing Sentosa’S Strategy Through Integrated Customer Engagement, Jason Woodard, Kevin Sproule

C. Jason Woodard

This case is the third part of a three-part series on the Sentosa Leisure Group based in Singapore. The three cases focus on: Case (A) – Marketing / Analytics Case (B) – IT solution design Case (C) – Long-term strategy Sentosa (C): After successfully answering the ‘big’ questions like how to drive Sentosa’s core revenue and designing a new IT platform, students are asked to tie it all together. How can their learning be used to chart a strategy for the Sentosa Leisure Group? How can they realise the aggressive revenue and profit goals set forward by the board? In …

Technology Licensing In A Differentiated Oligopoly, Aniruddha Bagchi, Arijit Mukherjee

Aniruddha Bagchi

We’Ve Been Speculating, Stefano Harney

Stephen Matthias Harney

We’ve been speculating. They say our speculation is going to make things worse. But we keep speculating. We’re on the porch, on the corner, in the bar, at the stove, speculating. We’re with others speculating. We’re in debt, bad debt, with others. We’re speculating on others and they’re speculating on us at the table, round the playground, on the bus. We’ve been speculating, banking on each other. We’ve been counting on others, speculating about them. We’re with them and they’rewith us, speculating.

The Real Knowledge Transfer, Stefano Harney

Stephen Matthias Harney

In Britain, knowledge transfer (KT) is taking a new turn. As a university policy, KT emphasized intellectual property rights. The dream of the managers of the university was to patent knowledge produced in university departments, laboratories, and lecture halls. This new proprietary knowledge would then either earn rent from the private sector, and in some cases the public sector, or lead to the founding of new private firms, owned in part by the university, the so-called spin-off.

Six Questions For Entrepreneurial Leadership And Innovation In Distance Education, Connie Reimers-Hild, James King

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

Institutions offering distance education courses and programs may benefit by encouraging administrators, faculty, staff and students to be more entrepreneurial. Organizational cultures designed to support this type of environment are characterized by entrepreneurial leadership, innovation and change. This article provides information on how distance education institutions can incorporate entrepreneurial leadership and innovation into their organizations. Six questions for administrators of distance education to consider are presented in an effort to provoke discussion and thought on the importance of incorporating entrepreneurial leadership and innovation throughout distance education organizations.

Circos: Tapping Into Social Media (A), Kevin W. Sproule, C. Jason Woodard

C. Jason Woodard

Social media was a topic that had entered into the daily vocabulary of teenagers and business executives alike. With this surge in popularity and influence worldwide the open question was what this new way of interacting would mean for businesses and whether or not social media could really be a driver of company profitability or just a nice way to share photos with friends? Circos, a Singapore-based company, developed a business that it hoped would help to answer those questions. By using a proprietary sentiment analysis tool, Circos had mined the vast world of online reviews available on various social …

Circos: Tapping Into Social Media (B), Kevin W. Sproule, C. Jason Woodard

C. Jason Woodard

After a successful presentation in the (A) case, Frederic Langlois, Circos.com general manager in Singapore, headed back to the company headquarters. He brought back not only the possibility of a new client, but also a specific request. The Raffles Hotel had asked him to provide new functionality beyond the existing social media analytics dashboard Circos had become known for. The Raffles Hotel manager had asked, “It would be great to have a simple and meaningful analysis of what people are saying about our property online. What would be really great, though, would be to know who is saying what. I …

Poverty Reduction And Vincentian Higher Education Institutions, Marco Tavanti, Craig Mousin

Craig B. Mousin

Dr. Marco Tavanti and Craig Mousin discuss with Dr. Scott Kelly the university's responsibility for poverty reduction as expressed in the conferences and special number of Vincentian Heritage "What would Vincent do? Vincentian Higher Education and Poverty Reduction"

Slippage In The System: The Effects Of Errors In Transactive Memory Behavior On Team Performance, Matthew Pearsall, Aleksander Ellis, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Although researchers have consistently shown that the implicit coordination provided by transactive memory positively affects team performance, the benefits of transactive memory systems depend heavily on team members’ ability to accurately identify the expertise of their teammates and communicate expertise-specific information with one another. This introduces the opportunity for errors to enter the system, as the expertise of individual team members may be misunderstood or misrepresented, leading to the reliance on information from the wrong source or the loss of information through incorrect assignment. As Hollingshead notes, “information may be transferred or explicitly delegated to the ‘wrong’ individual in …

Strategic Leadership And Innovation In High Technology Firms, Terri Scandura

Terri A. Scandura

Did you ever wonder what the organizations that produce some of the high tech gadgets we marvel at such as the IPhone and the Blu-ray player are like? How do their leaders create and maintain a spirit of innovation that produces these hit products? High technology firms face unique challenges because of the fast paced and ever-changing landscape of their industry. Intellectual capital and innovation have become the key sources of competitive advantage in a wide range of industries and many have argued that the key to the future competitiveness of organizations in the U.S and abroad is the ability …

Advances In Technology-Based Training, Bradford Bell, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] There is a growing utilization of technology-based training in the workplace. The 2005 State of the Industry Report published by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) revealed that in the average organization, technology-based training accounted for 28.1 percent of all training hours in 2004 (Sugrue and Rivera, 2005). The report also revealed that the utilization of technology-based training has almost doubled since 2002 and is projected to further increase to 32.5 percent in 2005. In this chapter, we examine this trend and explore recent advances in technology-based training. We begin by discussing the environmental factors pushing companies …

Disentangling Achievement Orientation And Goal Setting: Effects On Self-Regulatory Processes, Steve Kozlowski, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

The Heckhausen and Kuhl (1985) goal typology provided the conceptual foundation for this research, which examined the independent and integrated effects of achievement orientation and goal setting approaches on trainees’ self-regulatory activity. Using a complex computer-based simulation, the authors examined the effects of three training design factors cutting across these two theoretical domains – goal frame, goal content, and goal proximity – on the nature, focus, and quality of the self-regulatory activities of 524 trainees. Results revealed that all three factors had a significant influence on self-regulation, with goal content exhibiting the greatest influence. In line with expectations, congruent learning …

Self-Assessments Of Knowledge: Where Do We Go From Here?, Bradford Bell, Jessica Federman

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] In this paper, we argue that there remain several unanswered questions surrounding self-assessments of knowledge that must be addressed before we can reach a more definitive conclusion on the viability of these measures. The answers to these questions may provide further evidence that self-assessments should not be used as an indicator of learning or they may serve to qualify the conditions under which self-assessments can be used with reasonable confidence. In either case, addressing these issues is critical if work in this area is to influence how researchers and practitioners evaluate trainees’ learning.

Current Issues And Future Directions In Simulation-Based Training In North America, Bradford Bell, Adam Kanar, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

A number of emerging challenges including globalization, economic pressures, and the changing nature of work have combined to create a business environment that demands innovative, flexible training solutions. Simulations are a promising tool for creating more realistic, experiential learning environments to meet these challenges. Unfortunately, the current literature on simulation-based training paints a mixed picture as to the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, with most of the previous research focusing on the specific technologies used in simulation design and little theory-based research focusing on the instructional capabilities or learning processes underlying these technologies. This article examines the promise and …

Distributed Learning System Design: A New Approach And An Agenda For Future Research, Bradford Bell, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This article presents a theoretical framework designed to guide distributed learning design, with the goal of enhancing the effectiveness of distributed learning systems. The authors begin with a review of the extant research on distributed learning design, and themes embedded in this literature are extracted and discussed to identify critical gaps that should be addressed by future work in this area. A conceptual framework that integrates instructional objectives, targeted competencies, instructional design considerations, and technological features is then developed to address the most pressing gaps in current research and practice. The rationale and logic underlying this framework is explicated. The …

Work Groups And Teams In Organizations, Steve Kozlowski, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Our objective in this chapter is to provide an integrative perspective on work groups and teams in organizations, one that addresses primary foci of theory and research, highlights applied implications, and identifies key issues in need of research attention and resolution. Given the volume of existing reviews, our review is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it uses representative work to characterize key topics, and focuses on recent work that breaks new ground to help move theory and research forward. Although our approach risks trading breadth for depth, we believe that there is much value in taking a more …

Why High And Low Performers Leave And What They Find Elsewhere: Job Performance Effects On Employment Transitions, Charlie Trevor , John Hausknecht , Michael Howard

John Hausknecht

Little is known about how high and low performers differ in terms of why they leave their jobs, and no work examines whether pre-quit job performance matters for post-quit new-job outcomes. Working with a sample of approximately 2,500 former employees of an organization in the leisure and hospitality industry, we find that the reported importance of a variety of quit reasons differs both across and within performance levels. Additionally, we use an ease-of-movement perspective to predict how pre-quit performance relates to post-quit employment, new-job pay, and new-job advancement opportunity. Job type, tenure, and race interacted with performance in predicting new-job …

Knowledge, Capabilities And Manufacturing Innovation: A Us-Europe Comparison, Stephen Roper, Jan Youtie, Philip Shapira, Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

This paper presents a comparative analysis of factors contributing to the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in Georgia (USA), Wales (UK), the West Midlands (UK), and Catalonia (Spain). Enabled by comparable survey data, multivariate probit models are developed to estimate how various types of firms’ innovative activities are influenced by links to external knowledge sources, internal resources, absorptive capacity, and public innovation support. The results suggest the potential for mutual learning. For the European study regions there are insights about how universities in Georgia support innovation. For Georgia and Catalonia there are lessons from UK firms about better capturing potential …