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In this study, we consider the construction of a model for representing an artificial intelligence (AI) service system project. When developing a system using AI technologies to support a business task in a company, all project members from both business and IT divisions must have common understandings on the project before starting it. For this purpose, a business–IT alignment model for AI service systems is proposed as a business–AI alignment model. However, we need to substantiate this business–AI alignment model for each project, because it is a generic model. To address this problem, we propose a method for constructing the business– AI alignment model and apply it to a real project for developing an AI service system in a case study, and confirm that we can construct the project-specific business–AI alignment model–without support of data scientists.

Trade shows are designed as business services to encourage business travel and business value for the triad of organizers, exhibitors, and visitors. This study draws on the theoretical base of trade show literature and the new service development (NSD) process for trade show innovation to propose an inductive and exploratory approach to researching this process in the exhibition industry. Based on qualitative elite interviews conducted from an organizer's perspective in two countries, Germany and Poland, it aims to profile the stages of NSD for new trade show innovations through analysis of the decision-making methodology and evaluation criteria used in this process. Structured interview data collected from 34 trade show organizers, offers empirical evidence for the strong relevance of trade show innovations in both developed and emerging exhibition markets. The study reveals that demand-related considerations are primary decision factors in the idea screening phase. Diverse partnership models are used for concept development, space-related revenue components are dominant in the business analysis phase, though value-added service revenues are close in terms of relevance. Two main clusters of organizers differ in terms of the methodology they use for evaluation, though both cite thorough analysis as vital in order to enable sustained innovation activity. The theoretical and managerial implications of the study findings suggest key methodology to apply and decision criteria to evaluate before authorizing a trade show innovation project. The study contributes a starting point to better understand the organizers motives and business perspective of trade shows and the process to initiate trade show innovation for new and growing exhibition centers and business destinations.

Business process management (BPM) has emerged as a prominent information management approach focusing on the design, execution and governance of organizational business processes. The ability to deal with both foreseen and unforeseen changes in business processes is considered critical for contemporary business process management systems. This paper proposes an approach that couples an event-driven framework for detecting and reasoning in situations that pose the need for process adaptations with MCDM methods for selecting adaptations. The proposed approach has been implemented in an aspect-oriented extension of a BPMN2.0 engine in order to enact adaptations of business processes in real-time.

Digitization relies on emerging technologies driven by Internet of Things. This not only affects businesses, but also the entire society: smart homes, smart agriculture, and intelligent transportation. The connection of “things” under the same umbrella applies also in education through massive open online courses (MOOCs). Each industry should adapt to the changes brought by Digital Era. This paper makes an introduction to the challenges that come together with Industry 4.0 and proposes Process Mining techniques as a new approach for business process analysis in order to support companies to rapidly adapt to market changes by offering customized solutions for customers. The study provides a brief overview of Industry 4.0 and gradually introduces Process Mining as a purview of Industry 4.0. A case study approach is used to confirm the advantages brought by Process Mining. Different types of graphical visualization describing both control-flow and resource perspectives are also presented.

Business modelling can be considered as a practice for enabling change in enterprise by defining recommended Information Communication Technology (ICT) solutions, which provide value to business stakeholders. Business modelling and business analyses can be connected with different business models, techniques, and software tools. The goal of the paper is to present and discuss which business models are already well known for enterprise architecture (EA) business analysis. The literature review was done for this purpose. Beyond that, the paper aims to present a classification of business models and their mapping in ArchiMate language into different notations and languages diagrams for information architecture modelling. Proposed in this paper the business model mapping was applied in author’s earlier projects as well as it is used in university course teaching on system analysis and modelling.

Agriculture is a complex industry based on science. Agriculture relies on systems of climate-standard analysis: solar energy, heat, moist and systems for the area of field operation patterns: soil chemical composition, plant nutrition, genetic improvement, pest and disease control, harvesting. We believe that the new paradigm to increase efficiency in this segment goes through the adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Our empirical study is about the use and diffusion of ERP systems in a view of interoperability between different software packages with a view on business analysis functionality when taking a step further in farm management information system (FMIS). We hope this work can bring a theoretical and practical contribution for the agribusiness field and also increase debates about the platforms on cloud computer based on ERP, Enterprise 2.0 and Industry 4.0. The research presented in this study was carried out with 375 farmers in Brazil. The data gathering instrument used for the quantitative research was built based on the result of the qualitative (in-depth) study in combination with three theories: Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOE), Technology-Organization-Environment Framework (TOE), and Inter-organizational Relations (IOR). The construct information sharing (IS) taken from IOR was applied to perform a moderator role on the measurement of ERP adoption stages. The results indicate the significant drivers for evaluation, adoption, and routinisation. Also, as a result, it was found that Information Sharing influence the relationship between evaluation and adoption positively. Moreover, the theoretical and managerial implications of the research results are also debated in the paper.

The purpose of making an Academic Information System is to support the process of academic activities effectively and efficiently. Telkom University is an institution that already has an Academic Information System called Integrated Academic Information System or I-Gracias. I-Gracias uses a single sign-on system which means one user for all applications. The Helpdesk application is one application that supports this institution. The Helpdesk application has 4 categories of complaints, namely Serial Number License, Website / Subdomain, Academic I-Gracias, and Non-Academic I-Gracias. With the various complaints categories in the Helpdesk application, Helpdesk application actually promises time with the same service standards, its 3 days for a maximum by filling in the same format in each category. The time is considered not enough to describe the process of handling the services of the Helpdesk application. Therefore, to find out the student activities in the Helpdesk application, a modeling process is carried out to find activities that have the longest time. To find out the time of each activity by the user, an audit process is to find out activities that have the longest time by the process mining approach to obtain modeling. Identification of the modeling process using process mining approach by utilizing the event log on i-Gracias. This modeling process uses a genetic algorithm because it is considered capable of making business process modeling accurately. After obtaining a process model, an audit is carried out by analyzing the bottleneck for each activity. The results show that the resulting process model is good with fitness values, precision and structure are 0.9994142, 0.7653061 and 1 respectively. Modeling in performance analysis shows the bottleneck in two activities, Input Ticket and See Ticket Progress. Bottlenecks show that business processes in the Helpdesk application has problems in resolving complaints through academic information systems.

The companies have different solutions to transport their merchandise to the customer: have their own fleet, outsource the excess when the transport capacity is exceeded by the demand (mixed system) and the complete subcontracting of all the transport operations. Outsourcing is one of the solutions, in different areas of administration and especially in transportation. Then, being a strategic decision, it is pertinent to ask the questions: should it be externalized? and when?. The answer depends on factors that must be evaluated in each case. To make the decision, it is necessary first to evaluate if transport is a "key success factor" and it is a "basic competence" for the company. It is essential before defining what type of solution to give to the transport and depending on it, when it should be taken to make the business gain a competitive advantage. The proposed methodology distinguishes the relevant factors that allow a successful outsourcing, which are: people, infrastructure, ICTs, logistics management and business strategy, which will allow the development and growth of the business. Likewise, tools for business analysis, management, project evaluation and decision making, play a fundamental role in the qualitative and quantitative study of the proposed methodology, a decision model that allows the evaluation of the fleet’s externalization, through the possible transport management solutions. Finally, a map of the evaluation process is proposed, integrating the tools defined for the diagnosis, evaluation and definition of the decision.

Business Analysis is an art of its own kind . Unlike any other role a business analyst role is an amalgamation of soft skills, domain experience, functional and technical knowledge, ability to zoom in-out, multitask, manage priorities, produce fool proof signed off output at every stage and ensure every project milestone is met. The process of Business Analysis is broken down into what activities will be performed, how they will be performed and when they will be performed . Which requirements gathering tools, techniques, notations, deliverables will be used. Timing, frequency of stakeholder interaction, analysis technique, are some of the questions answered in the Business Analysis Plan. This article offers an overview of different business analysis methodologies and what are the various planning deliverables, best practices from different methodologies and explains how they fit into the project requirement.

The authors of the book “Business Analysis and Valuation Using Financial Statements” are Krishna G. Palepu, PhD and Paul M. Healy, PhD, ACA. Both are subject matter experts in business administration and professors at Harvard University. These professors in addition to being forces to reckon with as far as business research is concerned, are part of various academic boards and are authors of numerous academic books. Financial statements provide various forms of business analysis. These analyses range from: monitoring and judging firms’ performance relative to competitors; providing insights on the financial policies to be used; financial reports to investors including evaluation of new business to be acquired. They can be used to rate and evaluate companies before they are recommended to clients by security analysts; valuation of prospective buy outs, mergers and acquisitions and also come in handy in the evaluation of the creditworthiness of customers before they are given loans by banks (Healy & Krishna, 2012).

Quantitative business process analysis is a powerful approach for analyzing timing properties of a business process, such as the expected waiting time of customers or the utilization rate of resources. Multiple techniques are available for quantitative business process analysis, which all have their own advantages and disadvantages. This paper presents a novel technique, based on queueing models, that combines the advantages of existing techniques, in that it leads to accurate analyses, is computationally inexpensive, and feature complete with respect to its support for basic process modeling constructs. An extensive quantitative evaluation has been performed that compares the presented queueing model to existing queueing models from literature. This evaluation shows that the presented model outperforms existing models with one order of magnitude on accuracy. The resulting queueing model can be used for fast and accurate timing predictions of business process models. These properties are useful in optimization scenarios.

Textual process descriptions are widely used in organizations since they can be created and understood by virtually everyone. Because of their widespread use, they also provide a valuable source for process analysis, such as compliance checking. However, the inherent ambiguity of natural language impedes the automated analysis of textual process descriptions. While human readers can use their context knowledge to correctly understand statements with multiple possible interpretations, automated tools currently have to make assumptions about their correct meaning. As a result, compliance-checking techniques are prone to draw incorrect conclusions about the proper execution of a process. To provide a comprehensive solution to these reasoning problems, we use this paper to introduce the concept of a behavioral space as a means to deal with behavioral ambiguity in textual process descriptions. A behavioral space captures all possible interpretations of a textual process description in a systematic manner. Thus, it avoids the problem of focusing on a single, possibly incorrect interpretation. We use a quantitative evaluation with a set of 47 textual process descriptions to demonstrate the usefulness of a behavioral space for compliance checking in the context of ambiguous texts.

Few resources or published studies exist identifying the informational needs or motivational factors that would assist small businesses wishing to develop, follow, or institute a business model using sustainable and triple bottom line, TBL practices in the U.S. Further, little was known in this mid-western State about the depth of green business practices or the desire of business owners to learn more. A cross-sectional, convenience sample was surveyed to define the needs and interest of the small business enterprises. Only 10 ( n = 31) percent of the 319 companies contacted completed the short survey. However, for that 10%, a strong interest in gaining knowledge in this area was expressed. Findings indicated that many smaller businesses may not have the efficacy base of knowledge, skills, and resources whereby they can operationalize sustainable or green business practices. Coding the responses in the areas of green business motivation, learning, and hoped for benefits according to the TBL of community, profit, and environment illustrated that profit was a motivator overall 2:1 compared to environment and community. For the small business community, much of the literature, technical expertise and sustainability assessment models remain beyond their resources and time reach. The challenge becomes one of finding ways to broaden the appeal of sustainability and TBL practices and establish a means of peer to peer sharing and benchmarking efficacy and progress in sustainable business practices.

Many attempts have been made to enhance irrigation decisions using Decision Support Systems (DSS). These have met with limited success for many reasons, one of which is well known: that DSS encode decision rules (waterbalances, financial models) narrower in scope than the criteria farmers really use to make decisions, thus their advice is of limited value or perhaps entirely irrelevant. To assist irrigation DSS designers build more flexible systems, we suggest they heed decision theory and decision modelling, separately from domain-specific DSS tasks. They may then find better ways of modelling real-world decisions which might allow for wider ranging sets of decision rules than previously. To facilitate this, we review three different decision modelling systems and with each model the seemingly straightforward irrigation decision “How much should I water today?”. In doing this we show how they can assist with wide-ranging rule integration. The systems we chose are: Decision Modelling Notation (DMN) from the business analysis community; the Decision Ontology (DO), a Semantic Web modelling system; and Decision Modelling Ontology (DMO) a formal ontology from Information Systems Engineering. We have determined that each of these modelling systems have useful aspects for irrigation DSS designers, which we list, but that they are not equally useful. Also, none of the systems provide designers with both the best modelling system and best technology & tools. We complete our work with a list of requirements for a future decision modelling system based on the intersection of the strengths of the systems investigated and our perceptions of irrigation DSS need. We believe a future system is possible to make and could serve irrigation DSS designers better than any current system. In future work, we indicate what steps might be taken with existing systems to evolve them in line with our future system requirements. Finally, we conclude with a summary of our findings.

Business processes are a main part of any organization therefore it is essential to improve their execution. Analysis of real process data can provide useful insights. Process mining techniques can be applied to event logs containing data related to business process execution to discover business processes and their behaviour therefore improving decision support. This paper presents an approach to discover probabilistic belief network from event logs, which focuses on domain-specific data contained in the logs for the analysis of business process behaviour. For evaluation purposes, the approach is applied to predict the business process execution. Experiments presented in the paper showcase practical application of the approach for synthetic and real-life logs. Obtained results prove that the approach is suitable for follow-up activity prediction and the nature of the approach allows for it to be extended for other use cases, such as anomaly detection or business process simulation.

Although research into the business model has received increasing attention, few studies have so far been conducted on business model innovation in an international context. The purpose of the study is to identify different patterns of business model innovation which enables international retailers to rebuild their core business logic in new host countries. On the basis of comparing and contrasting the business model changes of 15 international retailers from various home countries to one single host country (China), our study provides an in-depth understanding of business model innovation in the context of international business. By looking at the firms’ capabilities in rebuilding their core logic in the setting of a host country, we reveal six routes of retail business model innovation. Utilizing the lens of organizational learning theory and internationalization, we identify three patterns of resource deployment by international companies in the process of developing business model innovations. Our study, therefore, provides insights and guidance for multinational companies in general, international retailers in particular, as for how to successfully adapt their business model from home country to host country.

Change in business reality can be understood by adopting the perspective of IMP approach that is based on the assumption that business entities are interrelated. It highlights interaction processes as the underlying mechanism of change in business relationships and networks – their processes, atmosphere and structure. According to this perspective, the focus of attention shifts away from ways of managing a company to ways of managing business interactions between companies which contribute to change. The paper presents different aspects of the process of change affecting business relationship, with particular emphasis on changes in the relationship (its processes and atmosphere) and the reconfiguration of business network.

Extracting events from business news aids users to perceive market trends, be aware of competitors’ strategies, and to make valuable investment decisions. Prior research lacks event extraction in the area of business and event based business analysis, especially in Chinese language. We propose a novel business event-extraction approach integrating patterns, machine learning models and word embedding technology in deep learning, which is applied to extract events from online Chinese news. Word embedding and a semantic lexicon are utilized to extend an event trigger dictionary with high accuracy. Then the trigger features in the dictionary are introduced into a machine learning classification algorithm to implement more refined event-type recognition. Based on a scalable pattern tree, the event type that is discovered is used to find the best-suited pattern for extracting event elements from online news. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. In addition, empirical studies demonstrate the practical value of extracted events, especially in finding the relationships between news events and excess returns for stock, and analyzing industry trends based on events in China.

A sustainable business ecosystem is a source of competitiveness for firms as well as a manageable resource for gaining a competitive advantage. Strategy from the perspective of business ecosystems is particularly critical for the conglomerate or government-driven Asia pacific business environment. Among members of business ecosystems, this study focuses on customers, whose roles are overlooked in existing studies as an agent of building a sustainable business ecosystem. This study examines effects of customer participation on creating economic value and social value within the business ecosystem by conducting in-depth interviews with multiple firms in South Korea. Based on the interview data, this study develops seven propositions for the relationships between customer participation and a sustainable business ecosystem. Then, the study proposes alignment, systemization, socialization, and coevolution as four strategic actions for building sustainable business ecosystems. Also, this study offers result area of the strategic actions as the accumulation of both economic value and social value for both firms and the society. Implications based on these strategic actions and the result areas are suggested for academics and practitioners.

Motivated by the growth and internationalization of business groups, this paper reviews the business group literature and presents a future research agenda, highlighting their implications for international strategy. The paper identifies theoretical tensions and empirical ambiguities around three key business group features—corporate governance, internal markets, and corporate strategy—and three key outcome variables—performance, economic impact, and innovation—that have generated significant debate. We conclude with three methodological concerns relevant to these debates: generalizing business group research across countries, endogeneity in business group research, and performance measurement in business groups.

The subjectivity, complexity, and often competing interests of sustainable development have limited the effectiveness of integrating these important ideas into mainstream business strategy. With the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in January 2016, there are now global sustainability benchmarks that apply across diverse sectors and national contexts, allowing public and private organizations to orient and evaluate their activities, strategies, and business outcomes. However, it is not directly apparent where the advantage for business lies in pursuit of these actions within the prevailing economic paradigm, highlighting the need for new analytical frameworks and tools. Industrial ecology (IE) has been successfully used in engineering practice for decades and has been suggested as a method that can provide the concepts and methods necessary to bridge the gap between traditional business practice and sustainable development. To test this, literature bridging the fields of industrial ecology, business strategy, and sustainable development was collected and analyzed using the textual analysis software Leximancer™. The analysis showed that while the SDGs are primarily aimed at the national level, they also hold relevance for business through innovation, partnerships, and strategic positioning, inter alia. The analysis found that the integration of IE and business strategy is highly relevant for three of the SDGs, but captures elements of all 17 to varying degrees. IE has a strong focus on innovation and its potential in new markets, products, and business models. IE is also consciously aimed at the efficient use of energy and resources, ideas that are relevant to mitigating, adapting, and building resilience in a changing future, but are also relevant to traditional concepts of business strategy and competitive advantage. This paper shows that through the combination of IE and strategic management theory, commercial organizations can positively contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals while building competitive advantage.

As companies and other organizations increasingly recognize society’s demand for greater social and environmental sustainability, university and college business schools have responded with new pedagogic approaches. Business schools have begun to offer courses in business models and business model innovation that focus not only on profit-normative goals but also on social and environmental goals. This paper describes an Experiential Workshop for university undergraduates in which the Service-Learning pedagogic approach is taken and Flourishing Business Canvas is applied as a tool for collaborative visual business modelling. In the Workshop, the students work with business model innovation for a biogas production cooperative of farmer-members in southern Sweden. The students take the role of problem-owners and problem-solvers as they co-create new business models ideas for the cooperative. The paper presents the students’ achievement of three Learning Objectives as they engage in meaningful, “real-world” simulations with a high degree of autonomy that allows them to combine their theoretical knowledge with practice. Implications for educators who wish to test the Experiential Workshop in their classrooms are proposed. The paper concludes with the suggestion that Education for Flourishing is a useful expansion of Education for Sustainable Development.

This article introduces an ecosystemic framework to foster innovation for business sustainability. We emphasize the idea of systemic thinking in which the business operates as a system similar to a living organism. In this framework, businesses impact the environment in which they operate in a fluid, dynamic, and interdependent way. This approach contrasts with the linear approach commonly used in business and other disciplines, which tries to explain what might cause an action or reaction but ignores any feedback effect between the subsequent action and its cause. This article offers practical solutions and guidance for business leaders to incorporate complexity science into creating sustainable businesses.

This special issue addresses sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in business decision-making model by examining novel methods, practices, and opportunities. The articles present and analyze top-down sustainability efforts as well as bottom-up efforts on the models, customer perceptions, business decision-making models and proposed solution methods This editorial note summarizes the discussions on the business decision-making operational attributes, sustainable consumption and production practices, and on evaluation and practical methods A dominant finding is that the issues of SCP in business decision-making model should be explored in different business contexts.

The emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) poses a large impact on established business models of manufacturing companies. This study aims at analyzing the influence of the IIoT on these business models from a business level perspective. In particular, it focuses on the interrelationships between business model component changes. While the sparse body of extant management literature examines just a subset of business model elements as affected by the IIoT, a framework comprising an entire set of elements is provided. Besides, their direct and indirect interrelationships, and the most important changes in each of the elements, are investigated. For this purpose, an exploratory multiple case study approach is employed, which is based on relevant IIoT-related experiences of 76 German manufacturing companies. By triangulating data from semi-structured expert interviews and archival company material, the study provides in-depth insights and a better understanding of IIoT-driven effects on manufacturing business models. It contributes to extant management literature by revealing the value proposition, internal infrastructure management, and customer relationships predominantly influenced by the IIoT. Moreover, it is shown that IIoT-triggered business model changes are offer-driven, particularly by production and process optimization within customers' production systems. These value proposition changes result in subsequent modifications of the remaining business model elements.

Developing critical thinking is an important goal in higher education and, more importantly, in business education. Yet, it is uncertain to what extent assessment influences students' critical thinking development and enhancement. This paper presents data from a study that applied a framework we developed to identify evidence of students’ ability to think critically and whether students face challenges at applying critical thinking. A sample of 100, 2000-word group reports from a masters business analysis subject were evaluated using a critical thinking assessment rubric. We followed this with a content analysis of 49 reports using our developed framework to identify the demonstration of critical thinking dispositions and abilities. The findings from both analyses indicate a difference between student reports on how critical thinking is demonstrated. Most importantly, our developed framework provides a novel way to analyse student reports that inform whether they demonstrate the specific components of critical thinking dispositions and abilities. The evaluation using our established framework enables us to offer practical suggestions that university instructors can use to address the issues and challenges raised that hinder critical thinking acquisition via assessment practice in business education.

Mindfulness has evolved into a four billion dollar industry and has inevitably attracted attention of businesses and business schools. Scholars in the fields of business tend to agree that psychological and pedagogic assertions in the field of mindfulness can be grounded within the context of cutting-edge theories and findings within Organisation Science and Education Science. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the impact of mindfulness on learning of business analysis and decision making which is a staple in MBA programmes of business schools across the world. Business schools use case study method for teaching business analysis and decision making which engages the students in real-world experiences in a controlled manner and according to Experiential Learning theory increases self-efficacy. In a randomised controlled experiment, 293 MBA students of four business schools participated. The intervention group received a standardised mindfulness training of 20 weeks as a consequence of which their mindfulness score on Mindful Attention Awareness Scale increased significantly while the stress level declined. The study found that increase in mindfulness is a highly significant predictor of increase in the marks obtained by the students in business case study tests and that stress mediates between mindfulness and the marks obtained.

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This experiential paper is written to provoke debate amongst deanly colleagues around the world-our location is the 130 business schools in the UK (and the 3500 plus in the world!) about how to ‘flip’ the academic model of their business schools. We make a case for this flipping by revisiting Henry Mintzberg's thesis presented in ‘Managers not MBA's in its tenth anniversary year. Ten years on we argue the case for the ‘flip’ is stronger than ever yet our progress toward it disappointing. The criticism of business schools is ever persistent and the argument for their irrelevancy seems to be strengthening. Our paper seeks to argue that much of business school practice and pedagogy is still rooted in content rather than context, where priority is given to academic knowledge in favour of practice intelligence. The ‘flip’ as we define it shifts the emphasis to the latter and helps restore business schools to the status of being relevant to business. Within this context, we provide key features of the flipped business school model for curriculum design and delivery and introduce key enablers of the flip, and we argue that deans are well placed to take this agenda forward.

This article introduces the Special Issue of Managing Business and Innovation Networks and makes an independent contribution to the advancement of network management research. The study has three ambitious goals. First, it evaluates the main developments in network management research from 2000 to 2016, focusing on disciplinary openings. Second, it specifies the contributions of recent domain extensions (business fields, ecosystems, platform networks) to network management, and clarifies the role of networks and network management in these domains. Third, it proposes a general theory of network management based on the past 20 years of research in the field and the contributions of SI articles. The theory explains how the factors at three contextual levels – environment, network and actor – influence network management activities, forming patterns of management based on activity configurations. The framework consolidates our fragmented knowledge on network management and paves the way for more advanced research and management. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

Purpose: This paper introduces and analyses the Business Model Prism (BMP) for the arts and cultural organizations as multidimensional framework to map the 'as is' structure and the logic of their business model as well as to drive the design of innovation initiatives, i.e. the 'as should be' business model. The framework can be used both for descriptive and normative purposes and comprises seven facets organized and represented with a tri-dimensional prism which defines the key business components of arts and cultural organisations. Design/methodology/approach: The research design and methodology are based on a literature review on the themes of business models and business models innovation with a focus on the characteristics and features of the arts and cultural organisations. This paper has a conceptual nature and it is based on a literature review. This includes also a desk research investigation of some key examples of arts and cultural organisations that have adopted innovations to transform the way how they work and deliver value to audience. The development of the novel framework builds the foundation for applying operatively and testing it in arts and cultural organisations and supports them in mapping and transforming effectively their business model. Originality/value: Traditionally great attention the studies on business model innovation have been focused on businesses and public organisations, while rather limited attention has been paid to the investigation of how arts and cultural organisations can develop and manage their business models. Most of the attempts in this direction are aimed at contextualising, in the cultural sector, frameworks that have been devised for the business sector. Although acknowledging the relevance of these contributions, they present weaknesses related to the capacity to take into account the specific characteristics and features of the arts and cultural organisations. The originality and the value of this paper resides, then, in the attempt to fill this gap, providing a new and industry-specific framework able to effectively support the management and the innovation of the business models in the arts and cultural sector. Practical implications: The proposed framework can support arts and cultural managers to understand the key dimensions characterising the business model of their organizations. In addition, it provides guidelines to map and design managerial initiatives to develop and transform the business model of arts and cultural organisations.

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. Companies need to manage business relationships successfully in order to stay competitive. Drawing on configurational logic, this study shows that companies can improve their relationship performance through leveraging the structure of their business relationships. However, relationship structures must align with the company's business strategy. To date, research has focused on individual characteristics of business relationships, but little is known about relational configurations, namely the interplay between different business relationship characteristics on the one hand, and the firm's underlying business strategy on the other. We apply Hoffmann's (2007) strategy typology, namely shaping, adapting, and stabilization strategy types, to operationalize different business strategies. Drawing on a sample of 658 business service companies and employing fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study confirms the existence of different recipes for success, that is, multiple equifinal configurations leading to relationship performance. For each of the three business strategies, different combinations of relationship characteristics are successful, each encompassing a distinct configuration of core and periphery conditions. While firms following an adapting strategy should stress behavioral commitment above all other relationship characteristics, the two remaining business strategies instead rely predominantly on different factors such as trust and communication. This study contributes to business marketing theory and practice by highlighting different ways to develop business relationships successfully.

The public participation in the energy turnaround resulted in the foundation of many energy co-operatives (ECs) which are predominantly active in photovoltaics. Commonly, the business models of energy co-operatives are designed based on traditional (profit-oriented) concepts from business economics. However, these show their limitations when brought together with co-operative-specific characteristics. The aim of this research is to provide a conceptual framework for energy co-operative business models, meeting the co-operative’s organizational dichotomy of market orientation on one side and community orientation on the other. By synthesizing the relevant theories of business models, co-operatives, and management paradigms, a new business model framework for energy co-operatives is developed. Ultimately, three types of co-operative business models can be distinguished, depending on the members’ roles as well as their corresponding (in-)efficiencies.

A question-based method to specialize business processes is proposed.The method relies on REA business pattern.The process specialization is automated through model transformations.Empirical studies carried out both with practitioners and graduated students.The validation suggests that the models were correct from a business point of view. Organizations build information systems to support their business processes. Precise modeling of an organizations processes is a prerequisite for building information systems that support those processes. Our goal is to help business analysts produce detailed models of the business processes that best reflect the needs of their organizations. To this end, we propose to a) leverage the best practices in terms of a kernel of generic business processes, and b) provide analysts with tools to customize those processes by generating new process variants. We use business patterns from the Resource Event Agent ontology to identify variation points, and to codify the transformations inherent in the generation of the process variants. We developed a prototype process specialization tool using the Eclipse modeling ecosystem. We tested our approach on a set of processes from the Enterprise Resource Planning literature, and a set of variation points to assess the extent to which: 1) the identified variation points made sense, and 2) whether the generated variants made sense, from a business point of view. The results showed that 94.12% of the variation points made sense, and that 80.6% of the generated process variants corresponded to what the business process management specialists expected.

Global competitiveness has impacted the business environment domestically and globally. In fact, it creates a challenge for organisations, particularly manufacturing firms, to seek ways of retaining skills and talent to sustain business practices. This paper highlights the key elements encompassed by continuous innovation that address the challenges associated with the turbulent business environment of manufacturing firms. The paper also suggests an appropriate approach toward sustainable business practices using a global market lens. A single case study was conducted in one of the largest steel manufacturing firms in South Africa using a qualitative study methodology. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews from 13 ICT experts: system analyst III; system analyst; system engineer; top management; and system user. Data was analysed according to qualitative content analysis. The key findings suggest that sustainable business practices depend on continuous innovation rather than advanced manufacturing technologies. Equally, advanced manufacturing technologies require innovative ways and a workforce with a high level of skill for enhancing competitiveness to sustain business through the technologies. It is noted that manufacturing firms are investing in technology rather than the human capital that is required to attain continuous innovation.

Successful business is increasingly about understanding the challenges and opportunities linked to society's transition towards sustainability and, e.g., being able to innovate, design and build business models that are functional in this context. However, current business model innovation and design generally fails to sufficiently embrace the sustainability dimension. Typically, the business case of sustainability is not understood profoundly enough; the planning horizon and system scope are insufficient; the competence to bring together people into systematic ventures towards sustainable business is too low. A unifying framework for sustainability analyses, planning, cross-disciplinary and cross-sector cooperation, and cohesive use of the myriad sustainability tools, methods and concepts has been developed: the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). Similarly, a generic approach to business model design has been put forward: the Business Model Canvas (BMC). In this paper we explore how the FSSD could inform business model innovation and design by combining it with the BMC and supplementary tools, methods and concepts such as creativity techniques, value network mapping, life-cycle assessment, and product-service systems. The results show that the FSSD-BMC combination can support business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable development, as well as strengthen each supplementary tool, method and concept in its own primary purpose. We apply the combined approach, for the purpose of initial testing and presentation, to a real case of business model evolution. Based on our findings we propose a new approach to business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable development. The new approach facilitates, e.g., business scalability and risk avoidance and clarifies the interplay between classical business model development and strategic sustainability thinking. The new approach highlights the opportunity for novel business model design for future sustainable success.

The paradigm shift from conventional mobility with combustion engine vehicles to electric mobility requires alternative business forms. The formerly independent industries are melting and the common value structures for stakeholders of the automotive, energy and infrastructure branches increasingly dissolve. As a result, the established business models are no longer economically viable and a long-term competitiveness of the companies can only be achieved by business model innovation. However, the available approaches for business model innovation are often perceived as being too complex and difficult to implement in practice. Hence, this paper presents a new game-based methodology that supports the systematic development of innovative business models in the field electric mobility. It is referred to as Business Model Gaming, as it takes advantage of gaming effects and introduces an innovation process using adapted and harmonized methods specific for electric mobility. A game- based and risk free environment provides a straightforward access to these methods and creates a common knowledge base for all game participants. By means of the game the flow effect increases the motivation, performance and creativity of all participants in order to systematically support the critical innovation step of idea generation. Finally, the practical implementation of the methodology confirms its operational capabilities.

Today’s world is growing at a very fast rate with the help of Technology. A lot of different industries are using the latest technologies to increase their growth. Due to globalisation, these various industries are achieving business growth in no matter of time. The sellers are producing goods in one country and selling the same in other country, thus making huge profits. As huge amounts of cargo is shipped everyday by different sellers, today there is no existing system to track the cargo. Thus, to help the seller, we are proposing a Cargo Tracing and Business Analysis System. This system will help the sellers to trace their cargo by using the web portal created and also the portal will intelligently give growth rate of the seller according to the seller’s profits. The system will also suggest the seller alternative destinations to send his cargo so that his profit margin increases.

While we know that business is key for stable peacebuilding, less is known about why business actually becomes involved in peace processes and peacebuilding. Based on a review of the academic literature and of case studies at the global level, this article addresses this question from three perspectives: First, business needs peace to solve specific problems related to their operations in unstable contexts. Second, some business leaders believe that social change is positive and in their self-interest and are willing to promote transformations (creed). Finally, business participation in peacebuilding may be motivated by the anticipation of renewed investment, profit, and growth (greed). The article argues that none of these perspectives alone can explain the bulk of business participation in peacebuilding efforts. Rather, depending on actor and context, each business strategy can be traced to multiple combinations of these motivations. The article suggests that simplistic generalizations hurt the development of desperately needed partnerships in mutual learning processes between business and other social actors. We need improved knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of private sector decision making in transitional processes in order to stem unrealistic expectations or frustrations as to the capability and willingness of the private sector in supporting peace-related activity. This interdisciplinary approach should draw from management sciences, political science, and economics.

Background Evolving practice requirements, coupled with revised pharmacy graduate competencies, have pharmacy schools considering how best to create or adapt their business curricula to graduate students with relevant skills and attitudes to support them as practice leaders and innovators. Educational activity Based on recommendations from an advisory group of pharmacy business professionals, a business program was designed and delivered at a new pharmacy school to meet the business, strategic management, leadership, and entrepreneurial training needs of graduating pharmacists. The program consists of a mandatory business course with an incentivized competition and other core courses with business components, as well as elective courses in pharmacy-related business topics, extracurricular and incentivized business-related activities, and experiential-learning opportunities. Critical analysis The schoolʼs business curriculum has many components, but three in particular (the mandatory business course, an investment club and a highly incentivized competition) highlight innovative approaches that foster the application of more complex business and leadership skills. Each component draws upon lower-order foundational skills taught earlier in the program and requires students to apply their prior learning in real-world contexts with increasing complexity and responsibility. Conclusions To flourish in their profession pharmacy students need to be leaders and innovators, not followers. A pharmacy business curriculum was designed and delivered as part of a new pharmacy schoolʼs curriculum that could be piloted or adapted by other colleges and faculties of pharmacy. The use of external expertise to support both development and delivery of the curriculum has positively impacted student learning and attitudes, laying the foundation for the curriculumʼs ongoing success.

Most prior new product diffusion (NPD) models do not specifically consider the role of the business model in the process. However, the context of NPD in today's market has been changed dramatically by the introduction of new business models. Through reinterpretation and extension, this paper empirically examines the feasibility of applying Bass-type NPD models to products that are commercialized by different business models. More specifically, the results and analysis of this study consider the subscription business model for service products, the freemium business model for digital products, and a pre-paid and post-paid business model that is widely used by mobile network providers. The paper offers new insights derived from implementing the models in real-life cases. It also highlights three themes for future research.

In this research note, we address wicked problems within the context of business schools. Our aim is to understand if business schools fully reflect the needs of business. To achieve this, we assess the mission, vision, and stated strategies of the top 200 global business schools to determine if the MBA curriculum addresses wicked problems. From our findings, we demonstrate that the MBA curriculum does not address the nature of wicked problems or provide the intellectual and interdisciplinary frameworks to educate managers on serious competitive issues in a global context. In addition to challenging many premises of the MBA curriculum, we outline several areas of opportunities to assist business schools in adapting to the evolving needs of business and organizational problem-solving.

The objective of this exploratory paper is to analyse the innovations introduced by a small travel agency and their impact on the firm's business model in the specific context of a salt mine in Romania. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the business model of the small firm that did not introduce a single innovation. A case study provides rich data on “unbundling” made by the entrepreneur and the trade-offs decisions that affect the business model. The paper highlights the implications of the entrepreneur's decision to implement in a short period of time a “package” of product, process, marketing and organizational innovations and their impact upon the business model, and describes the transformation of the company due to changes in the environment (content and relationships among the building blocks of the business model).

A Future Internet architecture requires redesigned interconnection agreements.The study assesses the impacts of Assured Service Quality Internet interconnection.The impacts are assessed at the Business, Socioeconomic, Regulation and Net Neutrality level.A sample of 17 European Carriers and Internet stakeholders is analyzed.ASQ is a viable alternative to traditional peering and transit to enable QoS. The path towards the development of a Future Internet infrastructure requires a significant redefinition and realignment of the basic concept of Internet interconnection (IC), which is the glue that holds the Internet together via bilateral network interconnection agreements of best effort (i.e. non-assured) quality. More specifically, the concept of Quality of Service is often overlooked in traditional relationships based on best effort. This study offers a qualitative analysis and assessment of the multidimensional impacts of the recent proposals of introducing Assured Service Quality (ASQ) in the Internet interconnection (IC) market. The analysis focuses on the impacts in four distinct, though strongly interrelated areas: Business, Socioeconomic, Regulatory and Net Neutrality. Methodologically, the impacts and their interplays are identified through a focus group, which involved key informants from 17 European Carriers and stakeholders. Exploring how these complementary impacts may affect the ASQ offer is fundamental for envisioning the Internet infrastructure's business and technological evolution, as well as for setting appropriate governance policies. This study identifies and discusses the expected impacts, thus shedding light on the key implications of ASQ IC.

Training in business administration is evolving significantly over recent years. Training in business administration is now building on the acquisition of competences in a variety of on-site and off-site subjects using diverse teaching and learning methods. One of the aspects determining the success of this type of methodology is people's opinion. This research analyzes the degree of acceptance by students of two business administration training methodologies, one building on a non-directed and autonomously managed simulator and another building on a simulator for management teaching. The empirical research predicates on the technology acceptance model (TAM) by Davis (1986) and Davis et al. (1989). The results reveal significant differences in the relationships between the constructs of the model for the two groups, explaining the technology acceptance behavior for users within the context of a business game technology. In particular, the results show that in the case of the on-site-assisted business game-training programs tested, perceived ease of use has a significant effect on attitude to use, whereas for the web-based business game-training program, perceived usefulness has a significant effect on intention to use. From these results, the study argues the implications for the theory and the practice.

Software in general is thoroughly analyzed before it is released to its users. Business processes often are not – at least not as thoroughly as it could be – before they are released to their users, e.g., employees or software agents. This paper ascribes this practice to the lack of suitable instruments for business process analysts , who design the processes, and aims to provide them with the necessary instruments to allow them to also analyze their processes. We use the spreadsheet paradigm to represent business process analysis tasks, such as writing metrics and assertions, running performance analysis and verification tasks, and reporting on the outcomes, and implement a spreadsheet-based tool for business process analysis. The results of two independent user studies demonstrate the viability of the approach.

Between 2012 and 2014 an industrial consortium led by Reaction Engines conducted a feasibility study for the European Space Agency with the objective to explore the feasibility of SKYLON as the basis for a launcher that meets the requirements established for the Next Generation European Launcher. SKYLON is a fully reusable single stage to orbit launch system that is enabled by the unique performance characteristic of the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine and is under active development. The purpose of the study which was called “SKYLON-based European Launch Service Operator (S-ELSO)” was to support ESA decision making on launch service strategy by exploring the potential implications of this new launch system on future European launch capability and the European industry that supports it. The study explored both a SKYLON operator (S-ELSO) and SKYLON manufacturer as separate business ventures. In keeping with previous studies, the only strategy that was found that kept the purchase price of the SKYLON low enough for a viable operator business was to follow an “airline” business model where the manufacturer sells SKYLONs to other operators in addition to S-ELSO. With the assumptions made in the study it was found that the SKYLON manufacturer with a total production run of between 30 and 100 SKYLONs could expect an Internal Rate of Return of around 10%. This was judged too low for all the funding to come from commercial funding sources, but is sufficiently high for a Public Private Partnership. The S-ELSO business model showed that the Internal Rate of Return would be high enough to consider operating without public support (i.e. commercial in operation, irrespective of any public funding of development), even when the average launch price is lowered to match the lowest currently quoted price for expendable systems.

Theoretically grounded research is important for the continued development and growth of the family business field. This article identifies some recurring problems observed in theory building and testing in family business research and how to best avoid them. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding theories’ assumptions, propositions and boundaries as well as the need to contextualize arguments, designs, analysis and interpretations.

Family business researchers are well-positioned to build important new knowledge in, and even set new directions for, general management research. We show in this commentary how the family business context is especially rich in opportunities for contributing new knowledge concerning otherwise-intractable strategic issues. Such issues include: the need for temporal depth in strategic decision-making; the complexity of multiple sub-goals for strategic decision-makers; and the often-unseen variety and contingent effectiveness of corporate governance structures and processes. Carefully examining these issues in the family business context will likely give all organizational researchers new insights. This new knowledge from family business research may clarify the ongoing problem of managerial short-termism, may prod other researchers to move beyond single measures of firm performance, and may help move the corporate governance literature beyond the idea that one-size-fits-all “best practices” are desirable or even possible. Given the opportunities, now is the time for family business researchers to light the way forward.

In the face of mounting public environmental and societal concerns, firms are incorporating sustainability into their business models. However, previous research has paid little attention to how companies can renew their business model to take better account of environmental sustainability at the organizational level in their business ecosystems. This study fills this gap in the literature through a longitudinal case study of the greening of the business model of the US-based carpet manufacturer Interface. The findings delineate the change in the company's business model, stressing the role of managerial agency in organizational identity formation and in making a favorable change in the ecosystem. Hence, the study examines the links between managerial agency, organizational identity, and business ecosystems with regards to business model greening, and it discusses how shifts in managerial thinking have enabled the company to build the capabilities needed for the change. The article concludes by linking the findings to the body of knowledge on strategic change and providing a new conceptualization of a company's business model greening.

Consumer reviews are valuable resources for companies since consumers usually share their using experiences on products or provide useful opinions from various aspects such as different product features. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method called MPM (mining perceptual map) to automatically build perceptual maps and radar charts from consumer reviews. Perceptual maps and radar charts are business tools widely used in marketing and business analysis. The proposed method may reduce subjective personal bias since perceptual maps and radar charts are mined from a large number of consumer reviews. The analysis results obtained from consumer reviews of smartphones show that the proposed method may provide some practical insights for smartphone companies. Our method can help companies position new products, and formulate effective marketing and competitive strategies.