Introduction

The literature has recognized the critical role of knowledge and, thus, intellectual capital (IC) in the enhancement of firms’ strategy (Eisenhardt and Santos, 2002; Marr and Roos, 2005; Sveiby, 2001) and competitiveness (Grant, 1996). IC generally includes human, structural and relational capital (Meritum, 2002; Roos, 2005). Examining IC components, human resources contribute to organizational innovation through individual creativity (Amabile, 1988) which is dependent on domain-specific skills, creativity skills, an individual’s intrinsic motivation and conditions of social environment (Amabile, 2012). Amabile (1988) stated that domain-relevant skills represent the “individual ‘raw materials’ for creative productivity” ( p. 131), and include basic knowledge and technical skills in a given domain (e.g. expertise), while creativity-relevant skills represent a “cognitive style favorable to taking new perspectives on problems, an application of heuristics for the exploration of new cognitive pathways, and a working style conducive to persistent, energetic pursuit of one’s work” ( p. 131) (e.g. flexibility, social skills, risk orientation). Domain-relevant skills can be innate or acquired by formal and informal training in the domain; creativity-relevant skills depend on experience and training (Amabile, 1988). Transformations of IC, by way of the interaction of assets, as in the case of human capital nto new products and services (Edvinsson and Sullivan, 1996) are the main source of value creation (Peppard and Rylander, 2001). In agriculture as well as in other firms, the role of innovation has been discussed as pivotal (Edvinsson and Sullivan, 1996) to face the increasing uncertainty of the operating environment (Boehlje et al., 1995; Diederen et al., 2002; Boehlje et al., 2011) and to allow its economic survival (Nieuwenhuis, 2002) through competitiveness (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). Despite this, evidence of the value provided by the interaction of different assets for strategical innovation in agricultural firms represents an under-investigated field; the majority of studies mainly address the effect of IC on farm businesses’ productivity and financial performance (see e.g. Scafarto et al., 2016; Lee and Mohammed, 2014). Moreover, there are few studies on the development of the human capital component of IC as a relevant asset (Hitt and Ireland, 2002) for innovation in the agricultural sector and these are mainly linked to training/ schooling levels of farming operators, experience and social networking activities (see e.g. Huffman, 2001). The current literature on human capital (and of course IC) in agriculture also presents gaps concerning the strategical determination and assessment of competences needed to support the competitive advantage (Kozera, 2011). However, accounting studies on IC have been focused on the role of IC-based accounting techniques to improve management and reporting (Guthrie et al., 2012; Mouritsen et al., 2001). To this end, scholars have recently called for investigations into the contribution of IC resources to organizational strategy and performance (Lev, 2014; Vagnoni and Oppi, 2015), including sustainability (Cavicchi and Vagnoni, 2017) and value creation (Roos, 2005; Peppard and Rylander, 2001), focusing on the interconnectedness among the different categories of assets (Marr et al., 2004; Habersam and Piber, 2003). Moreover, the interconnectedness of different IC assets should be studied focusing on how business activities transform IC and how this process can affect value creation (Cuganesan, 2005) or negatively impact on it (Cavicchi, 2017).

Purpose – Online customer relationship management (CRM) is an important issue for implementing digital marketing of electronic commerce or social commerce. The purpose of this study is to establish valuable markets for discovering customer knowledge from data-driven CRM systems for enhancing growth rates of businesses. Airline or travel agency industries are online businesses in the world. Therefore, the industries in Taiwan will be an empirical case for this study. Design/methodology/approach – This research applied a procedure with an applied proposed model for establishing valuable markets from data-driven CRM systems. However, the study used a proposed customer value model (recency, frequency and monetary [RFM]; RFM model-based), the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) procedure and a proposed equation for estimating customer values. Findings – For enhancing the data-driven CRM marketing of the industries, in this research, the market of air travelers can be partitioned into eight markets by the proposed model. As well, the markets can be ranked by the AHP procedure. Furthermore, the travelers’ customer values can be estimated by a proposed customer value equation. Originality/value – Via the applied proposed procedure, online airlines, travel agencies or other online businesses can implement the research procedure as their data-driven marketing strategy on their online large-scale or Big Data customers’ databases for enhancing sales rates.

Introduction

Airfare always takes the major portion of a traveling budget for transportation costs of an international travel plan. Hence, low-cost carriers (LCCs) attract more international travelers for their travel plans. In Taiwan, a new LCC was launched by China Airlines (Tigerair Taiwan). In other words, the impact of airline markets in Taiwan between regular airlines and LCC airlines will be extremely competitive in the near future. Therefore, for enhancing online customer relationship management (CRM) systems of international regular airlines in Taiwan, the purpose of this work is to analyze customer values of international travelers for marketing strategies of online CRM systems in the regular airline industry in Taiwan. However, a data-driven marketing strategy for online CRM is an important issue for airlines’ ecommerce or social commerce. The results of this research can be applied in their online merchandising or social commerce systems for enhancing the sales rates. Typically, retailers can realize their markets by using a questionnaire, survey or some investigation methods with designed variables of customer shopping benefit. Hence, the markets can be identified by recency, frequency and monetary (RFM) model as well (Kotler and Keller, 2016; Chiang, 2018). However, air travelers and retailers’ shoppers have different shopping behaviors. Thus, the RFM model can be modified due to different characteristics of industries (Chiang, 2012, 2018). Regarding the model, the researcher discussed with three scholars and managers in airlines’ management field, and the discussion results showed that three variables can identify travelers’ customer values. In accordance with the discussions, the research proposed a novel model for airlines and travel agencies to identify travelers’ customer values and markets, which consists of frequency, monetary and average number of group travelers (FMA model, RFM model-based). Furthermore, the FMA variables can be substituted for other businesses. The FMA model (markets) can be ranked via the well-known decision-making procedure of analytic hierarchy process (AHP, Saaty, 1990), because the AHP procedure can identify the weights of markets’ customer values. Via the weights of rank markets, the research proposed a customer value equation. The travelers’ customer values can be obtained using the proposed equation. However, the airlines/travel agents’ group or other businesses may implement customized marketing plans in their online marketing systems. Different types of enterprises can use the RFM model in various ways to plan their marketing projects for enhancing customer value or extending customers’ life cycle (Berry and Linoff, 2004). This research revises the RFM model to be the FMA model for airlines and travel agents’ group; the F variable is “frequency travel times in a specific period”, M variable is “average travel monetary in a specific period” and A is “average travel member number of group travelers in a specific period.” Via the analysis of the FMA model, the travelers’ customer values of family tourists can be discovered clearly. Hence, the study enhances the RFM model to become more suitable for observing the customer values of group travelers.

Why Human Resource?

Embedding organizational purpose

Achieving operational alignment

Human Resource’s new agenda

Embedding organizational purpose

Research has shown that purpose-driven organizations have consistently outperformed the S&P 500 by as much as 14:1. It also demonstrates that corporate purpose is the single most powerful tool for improving both top- and bottom-line growth. Despite the remarkable evidence that the purpose matters, a majority of organizations struggle to define and communicate purpose. Most companies cannot clearly articulate why they exist and why their employees see their paychecks as the main reason for working with the organization. Clearly, this failure to capitalize on what purpose alignment can do for an organization represents an enormous lost opportunity. DaVita is different. When you walk through the hallways of DaVita’s offices or facilities, read about the organization or attend any meeting at the company, you find constant reminders of its purpose – “giving life” – an aim that inspired the teammate-chosen name DaVita, drawn from an Italian phrase. DaVita’s purpose is everywhere for everybody to see: pictures and letters of patients posted on the walls; patients and teammates telling their personal stories at meetings; readings of patient, teammate and family letters; and frequent tears of compassion shed for tales of strength, survivorship and loss. DaVita’s purpose is clear, unequivocal and embraced fully by everybody who works for the organization. In fact, teammates are not shy about telling others that if you are not 100 per cent in (Head, Heart and Hands – one of the company’s mantras), DaVita is not the place for you. This commitment drives deep care and attention to the quality of patient care and the connection to other teammates in the Village. This passionate connection to the organization’s purpose attracts patients and talent to the business, accelerating company growth.

Introduction

The expenses attributed to branding efforts has risen over the last decades, estimated to reach USD 559 billion by end of 2017 (Yu, 2017). This exhibits that the competitiveness in the branding sphere has become more intensive where brands cannot afford to remain in status quo. However, notwithstanding these huge expenditures in branding activities, gaps in research persist in the attention given to various areas concerning the application of branding strategy in the B2B sector. This is despite the fact that building strong brands is acknowledged as a crucial part of marketing strategy for B2B enterprises (Seyedghorban, Matanda and LaPlaca, 2016; Leek and Christodoulides, 2011). One pertinent area of research in B2B branding would be brand transformation, a perspective where a collective set of actions and activities are coherently steered to regenerate the engagement experience from the brand, in turn creating value to the customer (Lucarelli and Hallin, 2015). Brand transformation is often practiced when enterprises intend to rejuvenate an existing brand, refresh an old brand, or rebranding an existing brand as a result of a merger or acquisition (Lucarelli and Hallin, 2015; Mininni, 2006). A critical procedure within brand transformation is the repositioning of a brand that encapsulates a radical change involving different stakeholders from internal and external of the organization (Cova and Paranque, 2016). Despite such theoretical claims, there is an inadequacy of case studies of brand transformation practices to support and attest for its positive impact to enterprises and their brands. Taking the que from the above argument, this study aims to achieve two objectives within the scope of B2B sector. First, it is to demonstrate the implementation of brand transformation from a performative view rather than the conventional ostensive perspective. Second, it is to underscore how brand transformation of a B2B brand has created value to the target audience as well as elevated the brand to greater heights in terms of business value and quality of relationship with customers. With this, the crucial contribution of this paper is to give practitioners a guide on how to translate the conceptual aspect of brand transformation into practice within their corporations under the appropriate circumstances.

Purpose – There is a substantial lack of the need for adopting interface between accounting systems of companies and banks in Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to bring out the benefits and lacunas in the adoption of interface for companies as well identify the factors that possibly could be crucial in making the interface adoption a success or failure. Design/methodology/approach – The study is set in the context of case analysis and has adopted a mixed method approach. In this study, a contrast between successful adopters of interface and non-adopters of interface is discussed to identify the motivating factors for interface as well as the factors which form the barriers for non-adopters. Findings – By conducting a case study-based analysis for intensive data comparison of two companies as interface adopters and two as non-adopters in Vietnam, it is found that the success of the interface adoption is influenced by inter-related factors such as the manager characteristics, industrial environment, company characteristic and innovation characteristics. Particularly, the effectiveness of the interface can be well demonstrated by cost saving, manpower reduction, data consistency, accuracy, and speed of the process. Research limitations/implications – The impact on the banker is not analyzed. Furthermore, this research only focuses on the effects of interface on the electronic banking system and accounting modules in the form of electronic payment, while in reality, banks provide a variety of services which can also be explored by other researchers. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies in the context of Vietnam. This study is highly relevant in the current context, given the significant growth in the number of industries and export markets in Vietnam.

Introduction

Electronic banking system (EBS), which was based on internet, was widely developed in the mid- to late-1990s in Vietnam. Considerable discussions and applications were generated in order to assess its effectiveness to the business operation of a company in Vietnam. However, the process of accepting and implementing the EBS was gradual because of several factors such as business ownership, company structure, and national infrastructure. In the early part of 1997, Vietnam’s economy started to flourish simultaneously with the development of the country’s banking services. Thus, the introduction of EBS was made possible during this period and it was found useful by corporations in Vietnam for the electronic funds transfer (EFT). In December 2011, the prime minister approved Decision No. 2453 that aimed to boost non-cash payments through the banking system and further popularized them during the 2011-2015 period (Vietnam News, 2013). Based on the legal framework, nowadays in Vietnam every bank has its own website where customers can access to view banking information, and make payment via internet banking. Hence, most of the companies in Vietnam have used banking website or EBS for the EFT. However, only a few foreign-owned banks such as ANZ, Citibank, HSBC, Deutsch Bank and BNP bank can provide a real EBS in which their EBS can interface with some modules of accounting information system (AIS) used in companies. With this advance, companies had to change certain business processes in order to achieve competitive advantage. Among of these, the adoption of interface between EBS and AIS was established to benefit the use of interface in the context of payment process to vendor and collection process from customers. The interface between EBS and accounting modules is a process of partially and fully integrating the data extracted or uploaded between EBS and certain accounting modules such as accounts payable (AP) module for payment and accounts receivable (AR) module for collection transactions via internet base. Based on the advance technology above, many companies have implemented the interface of accounting system with electronic banking successfully to speed up the process and substantially benefit from the efficiency of this interface in business, as shown in Figures 1 and 2.

Abstract

Besides environmental benefits of using electric vehicles (EVs), the presence of EVs in the parking lots, acting as the power consumer or generator, have created widespread changes in the operation of power systems. The Electric Vehicle Parking Operator (EVPO) can strategically purchase and sell power in both the day-ahead and the real-time markets. Here, the effect of bidding strategy of an EVPO based on risk appetite is considered. A complete probabilistic model of the EVs in the range of parking is used to determine the allowed times of battery charge and discharge processes. The proposed model is applied on a realistic case study, forced to function in island mode, and the cost of energy not supplied is investigated. Results show that a risky strategy in addition to trading more power in the real-time market, not only supplies and guarantees the car owners’ SOC requirement for daily trips, but also improves the reliability of the system.

Introduction

The main problem in smart grids is the way in which the demand side must be managed so that the peak of electricity load is decreased. In fact, the right response to the load highly depends on the way in which the demand side is managed [1]. In addition, it depends on accurate forecast of price, load, available renewable energies and storage resources such as electric vehicles. With the advance of battery technology, using EVs is growing rapidly in some countries. In the future, the aggregators of power systems can consider electric vehicles parking (EVP) as distributed sources of energy. These resources play two different roles for power systems. The first is the load when the batteries of vehicles are being charged and the other is the energy generating resources while they are being discharged [2].

Introduction

Globalization has become the enemy. This provocative statement is demonstrated by antiglobalization movements that have manifested themselves through the surprise 2015 Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential election. Rooted in international trade, globalization goes back 25,000 years (Contractor, 2012) and should be well-understood and accepted. However, experts around the world have been wrong about this assumption and completely caught by surprise. How can business school leaders increase job placement and enrollments of international business students amidst anti-globalization movements? We approach this research question by studying the case of the highly-ranked International Business (IB) Administration program at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. This program’s Academic Director innovated with the IB curriculum and engaged stakeholders through strategic internationalization. This approach builds on previous qualitative research findings regarding management education that have generated several scholarly and practice-oriented publications (Financial Times and Les Echos, EGOS and EFMD conferences), as well as a doctoral thesis. Our current study is funded by an internationalization grant from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, a top 100 research institution, ranked R1 in the Carnegie classification, the highest research ranking1 . Our current research objective is to provide business school leaders with innovative and valuable strategic insights to increase enrollments. These insights should lead to better strategic decisions in terms of policymaking regarding internationalization. Therefore, we answer the Journal of International Education in Business call for papers regarding stakeholder engagement and internationalization and discuss curriculum innovations. This paper proposes strategic internationalization as a way to increase enrollments by leveraging curriculum innovation and stakeholder engagement using the Quality Function Deployment framework (Gonzalez, Quesada, Mueller, & Mueller, 2011) and employers’ needs as the voice of the customer.

Introduction

Business angels have become an increasingly important source of financing for seed and start-up companies (Mason and Harrison, 1996; Landström, 1998; Sohl, 2012). These types of venture capital finance affect companies in diverse ways, for example, by assisting with consulting and credibility by third parties (Rossi, 2015). Achieving an investment and the possible benefits is not an easy endeavour for entrepreneurs. The investment process, beginning with the identification of a business opportunity and continuing until the investment negotiation is finished with a deal, is still considered a “black box” (Sapienza and Villanueva, 2007; Sohl, 2012). Apparently, business angels would like to invest more often than they do, but they seem to lack the right investment opportunities (Van Osnabrugge and Robinson, 2000; Mason and Harrison, 2002). These views contradict one another and create challenges for entrepreneurs in how they approach business angels to raise capital. In other words, the entrepreneur markets the potential business opportunity to potential investors. In this process, the entrepreneur often relies on hihe/sher own business knowledge (Hill and Levenhagen, 1995) and a written business plan (Karlsson and Honig, 2009) in addition to templates for information provided by facilitators or matchmaking agents (Sohl, 2012). Several studies show that there is a mismatch between the information desired by business angels and the information that they typically receive from entrepreneurs. In fact, business angels often use a series of alternative parameters than other investors to evaluate investment proposals (Fiet, 1995; Mason and Harrison, 1996; Van Osnabrugge and Robinson, 2000; Mason and Harrison, 2002; Mason and Stark, 2004). This challenges the entrepreneurs because they then must provide information on the terms of each specific business angel with whom they would want to connect and negotiate. Historically, entrepreneurs have used the business plan as the primary framework to organise and provide an information set to business angels (Gumpert, 2002). Recently, using business plans to structure the information set has been challenged, while many previous studies have focussed on the information set required by business angels (Mason and Stark, 2004). Karlsson and Honig (2009) argued that the business plan is outdated and has a negligible effect on investment processes. This indicates a need for other types of frameworks that can assist the entrepreneurs in forming a useful information set for this purpose. In addition, Huang and Pearce (2015) show that the mutual understanding between entrepreneurs and business angels is vital to creating positive investment processes. Carlson and Wilmot (2006), for example, identified how the notion of customer value is a key element in innovation and creating successful start-ups/companies. Despite this, no research to date has been found to focus on helping the entrepreneurs create a mutual understanding between themselves and business angels. This study investigates the informational and communication structures and tensions between entrepreneurs and business angels in investment processes. This is done using business models as a platform for communication, as suggested by Bukh (2003) and specifically applying the structure of the business model canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010) to frame information sets and discussions. The business model canvas is currently applied in several different entrepreneurial contexts (see Oyedele, 2016; Cosenz, 2017).

Abstract

During the 1980s, economists developed the concept of positive network effects and switching costs as the key dynamics of de facto standards competition. They concluded that a positive feedback loop usually “tips” a market to the standard with the most users and complementary assets. While recent scholars have acknowledged that not all markets tip, and suggested some possible limitations on this phenomena, these limitations have not been integrated systematically into a model for competition in these industries. Using examples drawn from the standards contests of the past 20 years, this case study develops an integrated model for competition in these industries.

Introduction

The development, sale, and adoption of important products are enabled by compatibility standards. These standards create value by either allowing interconnectivity directly between products or facilitating the provision of complementary assets (Katz and Shapiro, 1986; Grindley, 1995; Shapiro and Varian, 1999). While the standards in some markets are determined via de jure or quasi-governmental mechanisms, e.g. the FCC selecting RCA’s color TV broadcast standard, in many industries over the last 25 years the standards that emerged have been de facto compatibility standards, sponsored either by individual firms or alliances of multiple firms. These are what have captured the most attention and a model of network effects, termed the ‘‘hardware-software paradigm,’’ has become the dominant way of thinking about standards competition (Shapiro and Varian, 1999). This model is usually applied as an ‘‘overlay’’ to traditional strategic and technology models of competition.