Roland Bardy

In the light of the increasing complexity and intensity of competition there is a growing sense that innovation is a relevant key to continuously out perform competitors, to diversify, adapt and, even, re-invent the organization. Understanding how enterprises manage the process for acquiring and sharing new knowledge has emerged as an important stream of research for supporting the enterprises\u2019 competition challenge. Likewise, the literature recognizes that Management Control Systems (MCS) play an important role for supporting the \u201cproblem finding\u201d and \u201cproblem solving\u201d process. Thus, MCS becomes a tool for producing knowledge. Focusing on these lines of research, the aims of this exploratory paper are to: i) identify such theoretical and statistically proven clusters that describe where and how companies acquire, produce and select knowledge for sustaining innovation strategies. A theoretical framework is adopted which encompasses the origin of knowledge (where) and the knowledge creation process (how); ii) identify such theoretical and statistically proven clusters that describe how companies use their MCS for producing knowledge and sustaining innovation strategies; iii) detect and prove, within these clusters, the existence of a link between MCS and knowledge management processes in terms of coherence between how companies manage the knowledge process and how they use MCS. In order to have a wider perspective, the paper analyzes the knowledge management process during innovation processes. The research is based on a survey conducted on a sample of 40 enterprises working in the North East of Italy that carry out pertinent innovation processes. A structured questionnaire was delivered to the CEO of the company, the Financial Manager and the Innovation Manager for a total amount of 120 questionnaires. The managerial implications of this paper could be: i) to help managers in the development of tactical and operative activities related to innovation strategies, in order to facilitate knowledge processes; ii) to offer guidelines for projecting more useful MCS in order to facilitate innovation processes

ABSTRACT Extending “above-the table”-relationships has been a principal objective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the very outset. This would provide benefits to the corporation and its stakeholders by getting everyone closely involved in the raison d'être of the business, through inviting them to pose their perspectives and to participate in decision-making. The same applies to sustainable development. However, when it comes to measuring how these efforts can be integrated into overall corporate performance, the major emphasis is on technical data. The main achievements have been consolidated in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) where each of the indicators prudently measures a well-determined set of facts. But one major discussion point is whether GRI and other reporting frameworks do really reflect the link between the outcome of CSR and economic value, and how they would properly connect to the information used by management for running the business on a day-to-day basis. This article tries to point out that one way out of the disconnectedness might be through expanding the concept of ‘Economic Value Added’ (EVA). EVA measures overall corporate performance by claiming that shareholders gain when the return from the capital employed in a corporation is greater than the cost of that capital. From there it is a short way to proclaiming that all stakeholders gain when the value created by a corporation is greater than the cost of the capital employed in the corporation and the capital employed in whichever commonly available resources outside the corporation are used by its business. The expansion of EVA that is envisaged would be to enlarge the cost of capital by the costs that are caused by that part of ‘Public Goods’ that is available to a corporation. There is one political and one theoretical obstacle in this: the argument is quite radical and complying with it would require some leadership from ‘big corporations’; and valuing public goods is a research field that has not yet reached the stadium of generally accepted applicability, at least with regard to aggregative monetary value. However there are new initiatives under way, e.g. the International Integrated Reporting Committee now formed, among others, by the GRI, which will join forces to reach a breakthrough.

Human Centered Management in Executive Education provides a comprehensive insight on innovation in Executive Education with a unique global scope. This book integrates studies and experiences of 32 distinguished scholars from 15 countries who are working in the development of theories and practices to advance a human centered management paradigm. The discussion presents a well-balanced outlook that combines and contrasts research and models from developed and developing countries and the visions of 10 women and 22 male authors from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Organizations need an intensive knowledge integration mechanism that supports creativity within all the phases of its process in order to analyze, understand, select, and integrate ideas in a business model. Management Control Systems, as a part of the structural capital, can be utilized as knowledge integration mechanisms that provide: i) a dialog among internal or external actors of the creative process; ii) a knowledge repository for data and other information required in the selecting process; iii) representation of the new ideas into a business model. Using a multi-method case study, this article tries to analyze the role of knowledge integration played by Management Control Systems (MCS). With the perspective of the Levers of Control (Simons, 1995), MCS are recognized as the sum of belief, boundary, diagnostic and interactive systems that could be used to manage the creative process. We apply the Appreciative Inquiry model on creativity (Cooperrider, Srivastva, 1987) which recognizes four steps: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny. Creativity is then classified based on the problem's characteristic using Unsworth's model (2001) which separates closed and open problems. Results show that in the early phases of the creativity process more structured problems are faced using diagnostic and boundary tools, while problems that are more open are faced using interactive and belief approaches. In the design phase, a dynamic tension between interactive and diagnostic systems is always preferred. The final phase (Destiny) requires diagnostic approaches in all cases. On this foundation, the paper aims to contribute to the literature on innovation and intangible assets. It is our opinion that the results could also be used by managers and entrepreneurs involved in the creative process in order to improve a companies\u2019 ability to face change

Natural and man-made crises and disasters often cause untold destruction, but also provide multiple opportunities for economic redevelopment post the crisis. Like other crises the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred public and private entities to become engaged in significant redevelopment efforts. Policymakers in some countries view these efforts as an opening for not only including other issues such as deficits in infrastructure and the social systems, but also for redefining their political priorities towards a “green economy”. While pursuing various policy objectives at the same time is a prudent undertaking, it seems rather questionable that politicians, under the pressure of ecological activism, would evaluate all crisis policy measures by their effect on environmental outcomes. We are seeing this in the European Union (EU) as it is about to couple its Recovery and Resilience Facility (financed through the “Next Generation EU Recovery Fund”) with its Green Deal. In the U.S., so far,...

Regulating land use and the biodiversity of a region requires lasting accords between those who make the decisions and those who are affected by the rules and regulations. In Africa, these accords depend on the effectiveness of the collective efforts of the representatives of the legal authorities and the civil society (the traditional leaders in the tribal system). In this study, we investigated the role of tribal leaders in conserving biodiversity (which is a base for obtaining accords with statutory regulations), the value of biodiversity for the tribal communities, and the role of the interaction between tribal leaders and legal authorities in successfully implementing the objectives of biodiversity. Successful collaboration requires indigenous regulatory systems to be merged with existing modern or statutory laws to ensure sustainable land use, the conservation of natural resources, and the promotion of biodiversity. To examine this relationship, we conducted in-depth interview...

When intellectual capital is built "from the scratch" in an effort to move a society's situation to a sustainable status, there is often a need for a catalyst that triggers the endeavor. The "trigger", in the case that is reported in this paper, was the installation of a new college in a rural community in Northern Ghana where heretofore, no comprehensive tertiary education had been available. The college established an outreach program which was destined to provide the community with increased opportunities for improving the overall social and economic well-being. This creates an outer circle of engagement through accessing government officials, local businesses, community councils, health workers, traditional leaders (tribal chiefs), religious leaders and heads of NGOs on topics like labor relations, conflict resolution, sustainability management, social responsibility, cultural diversity, and social inclusiveness. At the onset, the members of the community...

This paper explores the concept that foreign direct investment (FDI) and international business improve social conditions in emerging nations. Specifically the paper examines at how spillover effects, such as technology-transfer and knowledge diffusion, not only improve the emerging nations‘ economic conditions but how these spillovers also serve to rebuild the host countries’ social order and contribute to improved living standards. The paper presents lessons learned and case examples from Sub-Saharan Africa, where there has historically been a dramatic need to improve social conditions.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution, and many other similar events ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the opening of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from a planned economy, modeled after the former Soviet Union, to a free market economy. This move provided investment opportunities for MNCs around the world.  Around this same time, Whirlpool Corporation, one of the world's leading manufacturers and marketers of home appliances, made a strategic decision to globalize its production and market. In pursuit of this decision, Whirlpool entered Slovakia in the new CEE market.  This paper provides an update on previous case studies which described transition of Whirlpool Slovakia from a sub-standard producer of washing machines in Czechoslovakia and Poland, to where Whirlpool Slovakia is not only one of the leading producers of white appliances in the Whirlpool global value chain, but one of the models of efficiency in the production of top loader wash...

Management education has made a significant contribution to advance organizational development and improve business performance in the post-World War II decades. Nonetheless, there is no consensus, but rather a great deal of controversy about what to teach, about the benefits and costs, as well as about the impact of education. A considerable amount of higher education management programs advertise and claim to integrate moral, social, and ecological contents into their curricula. It is hoped that this will help to eradicate greedy and unethical business practices (Wankel and Stachowitz-Stanusch, 2011); so it is in the interest of both scholars and practitioners to further change and improve management education and training programs. This also is the purpose of this chapter and this book.

It is an imperative for executive education (EE) to assess the learning needs of participants, the course contents and the knowledge, skills, and teaching methods of instructors to be effective and sustainable. An increasing number of scholars are disagreeing with the way business schools are conducting their business (Andrews and Tyson, 2004; Mintzberg, 2004; Pfeffer and Fong, 2002). While many have long ago postulated that learning and contents must shift toward a global focus (Conger and Xin, 2000; Greenwalt, 1999), others acknowledge that business schools “are still on the wrong track” (Bennis and O’Toole, 2005), emphasizing a “relevance-rigor-gap” (Tushman et al., 2007). It seems that there has been a backlash which drove contents and teaching methods toward over-emphasizing hard core business techniques and neglecting soft skills and which has consequently focused on rules-based rather than on principles-based content.

Purpose – This paper focuses on the implications for management accounting of “connectivity” amongst modern enterprises. It seeks to illustrate how practical guidance for management accountants who work in business networks can be gleaned from analogies out of ...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a linkage between performance measurement at the business level and the concept of public goods usage, and a linkage between the micro- and macro-economic aspects of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Exhibiting the essentials of a public goods cost perspective in order to initiate discussion between statisticians, standard setters for business reporting and practitioners. Findings Showing what has been achieved in measuring the outcomes of sustainable development efforts and what still needs to be done in order to arrive at aggregate values for national and global commons. Research limitations/implications Linking performance measurement at the business level to public goods usage will depend on the co-operation of businesses and national statistics which test the feasibility of monetary indicators for both the micro- and the macro-levels. Practical implications For practitioners in both the statistics profession and manageme...

Organizations require an intensive knowledge integration mechanism that supports creativity within all the phases of its process in order to analyze, understand, select, and integrate ideas into a business model. Management Control Systems, as a part of the structural capital, can be utilized as knowledge integration mechanisms to provide: i) a dialog among internal or external actors of the creative process; ii) a knowledge repository for data and other information required in the selecting process; iii) representation of the new ideas into a business model. Using a multi-method case study, this article analyzes the role of knowledge integration played by Management Control Systems (MCS). Within the perspective of the Levers of Control (Simons, 1995), MCS are recognized as the sum of belief, boundary, diagnostic and interactive systems that could be used to manage the creative process. We apply the Appreciative Inquiry model of creativity (Cooperrider, Srivastva, 1987) which recogn...

Intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge sharing (KS) are key elements for fostering firm value, especially in knowledgeintensive firms. Management Control Systems (MCSs) have been recognized as key knowledge integrators. Recently, this assumption has been called into question as there may exist negative and destructive effects in both IC and KS fostered by a misuse of MCSs. Through a case study of 'Engineering Ltd.", this paper examines the 'dark side' issues associated by improperly implementing knowledge sharing and by imposing rules and constraints on behavior. The subject of our study, “Engineering Ltd.” , is a consultancy company with 10,000 employees. The case study is used to scrutinize the major risks of knowledge sharing and to introduce possible solutions.

ABSTRACT Extending “above-the table”-relationships has been a principal objective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the very outset. This would provide benefits to the corporation and its stakeholders by getting everyone closely involved in the raison d'être of the business, through inviting them to pose their perspectives and to participate in decision-making. The same applies to sustainable development. However, when it comes to measuring how these efforts can be integrated into overall corporate performance, the major emphasis is on technical data. The main achievements have been consolidated in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) where each of the indicators prudently measures a well-determined set of facts. But one major discussion point is whether GRI and other reporting frameworks do really reflect the link between the outcome of CSR and economic value, and how they would properly connect to the information used by management for running the business on a day-to-day basis. This article tries to point out that one way out of the disconnectedness might be through expanding the concept of ‘Economic Value Added’ (EVA). EVA measures overall corporate performance by claiming that shareholders gain when the return from the capital employed in a corporation is greater than the cost of that capital. From there it is a short way to proclaiming that all stakeholders gain when the value created by a corporation is greater than the cost of the capital employed in the corporation and the capital employed in whichever commonly available resources outside the corporation are used by its business. The expansion of EVA that is envisaged would be to enlarge the cost of capital by the costs that are caused by that part of ‘Public Goods’ that is available to a corporation. There is one political and one theoretical obstacle in this: the argument is quite radical and complying with it would require some leadership from ‘big corporations’; and valuing public goods is a research field that has not yet reached the stadium of generally accepted applicability, at least with regard to aggregative monetary value. However there are new initiatives under way, e.g. the International Integrated Reporting Committee now formed, among others, by the GRI, which will join forces to reach a breakthrough.

Procurement departments of almost each and every organization must take on ever more challenging projects in order to overcome deficiencies in other areas of the business. Optimizing supply structures and processes, connecting from the customers‘ demands through all the tiers of the supply chain and finding reliable suppliers in low cost countries contribute to compensate diminishing returns on assets and on revenue. Well balanced prudency has to be applied to cope with supply chain complexity, stimulate supplier innovation, enhance operational security, and consider the social and environmental impact of the supplier in sourcing decisions. Addressing issues like these requires a high level of talent and commercial acumen, and the challenges reach beyond that of the organizational supply nexus. They have ended up in transforming the traditional way of sourcing into a network of collaborative action, into an “extended enterprise model“ commonly referred to as a supply chain. The foll...

This paper explores the concept that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and international business law improve social conditions in developing nations. It is widely assumed that spillover effects, such as technology transfer and knowledge diffusion, improve a host country’s economic conditions. But do these spillovers also serve to rebuild the host countries’ social order and contribute to improved living standards, especially when they occur in developing nations? This paper presents lessons learned and provides several case examples from sub-Saharan Africa, where there has historically been a dramatic need to improve social conditions.

The paper contrasts the economic, ethical, and organizational differences in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the differences in governance and leadership between U.S. and European managers, and how these differences impact decision-making and governance of U.S. and European businesses. In addition, the paper explores and contrasts select ethical and cultural issues between managers on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the authors' view that on both sides of the Atlantic we embrace the call for more ethics in our lives and we expect it from our business leaders and our business dealings. However, in the markets we consistently have seen a short-term orientation of corporate outcomes. It is hoped that there will be a silver lining to the current economic crisis that will help move us away from this position which makes things like ethics, long-term virtues, fairness, all nice to talk about but somewhat estranged from the realities that are practiced in businesses. It remains to be...