I. Christodoulou

Macro environmental analysis of the electric vehicle battery second use market

The end-of-life (EOL) strategy of repurposing degraded electric vehicle (EV) batteries in second use applications holds the potential to reduce first-cost obstacles of EVs. With a prospective EV market uptake, increasing numbers of retired batteries will be available soon for battery second use (B2U). But this emerging secondary market remains unclear from a business model perspective. This paper evaluated the evolving B2U market from a macro environmental perspective to comprehend key opportunities and threats in the future.

Strategizing in a focused context: managerial discretion in the Arab world

The purpose of this paper is to broaden the national-level construct of managerial discretion and to investigate the effect of cultural practices on executive discretion.,Based on a sample of six Arabian countries and using a panel of prominent cross-cultural scholars who provided 262 discretion scores for the sample countries, the authors replicate and extend the national framework of Crossland and Hambrick (2011) in a new cultural context. The cultural dimensions were measured using survey responses of middle managers based on House et al.’s (2004) cultural practices scale.,The authors extend the national-level framework of managerial discretion and find that an encompassing array of cultural practices plays a crucial role in shaping the degree of discretion provided to CEOs. The authors empirically demonstrate that power distance, future and performance orientation, along with gender egalitarianism and assertiveness have positive relationships with managerial discretion. However, institutional collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and humane orientation negatively affect the degree of discretion provided to CEOs.,The study fills a gap in the literature regarding the national-level framework of managerial discretion. The results indicate that executives can take idiosyncratic and bold actions to the extent to which the cultural environment allows them to do so. Also, the authors discover new national-level antecedents of managerial discretion that have not been considered in earlier studies and confirm the context dependency of this concept.

Exploring cultural heterogeneity: The effect of intra-cultural variation on executives’ latitude of actions in 18 countries

Research on the degree of managerial discretion, or latitude of action, accorded to executives at the national level has primarily focused on the effect of intercultural variation in values on managerial discretion by assuming spatial homogeneity within countries. However, evidence in cross-cultural research indicates that cultural heterogeneity within countries can be as salient as or sometimes even more than inter-country variation. Thus, this study examines the extent to which intra-cultural variation affects the degree of discretion accorded to executives. The study tests the proposed relationships using fixed-effect regression analysis by measuring managerial discretion through survey responses of senior management consultants. It operationalizes intra-cultural variation by the standard deviation in societal members’ behaviour in terms of individualism, uncertainty tolerance and power distance. Results show that a strong relationship exists between intra-cultural variation and managerial discretion and that the direction of the relationship is negative. Executives operating in countries with high heterogeneity are subject to increased constraints from the national environment and, as such, are not able to take idiosyncratic or bold actions. Managerial discretion not only is a function of the central tendency of a society but depends on the homogeneity/heterogeneity in views innate therein. Using institutional, stakeholder and upper echelons theories, the study shows that greater intra-cultural variation negatively affects the degree of executive discretion. Thus, it provides a more nuanced understanding of such relationship and introduces a new national conceptualization that plays an important role in the strategic decision-making of business executives.

The open long tail model between new culture and digital technology

Purpose of the study . The aim of this paper is to describe an emerging business model that comes from the digitalization of the world of making tangible objects. Methodology . The creation of niche products , their production and sales in an open business model is analyzed through the literature review of both models and sustained by the analysis of practice cases. Findings . This new business model , defined by the authors as the open long tail model, includes the features of both the open business model and the long tail model because it sustains the collaborative trend of the web generation and creates a large number of niche, physical things rather that “just pixels on screens”. Research limits . Given its focus on the empirical evidence from the diffusion of new digital and flexible technologies , our analysis has identified a new trend in the manufacturing industry business model that seems to have a positive effect on the organization as well as the costumer. Practical implications . The future of this emerging business model looks promising thanks to its democratization of creativity and manufacturing trajectory and its capability to create more revenue for anyone who wants to undertake this venture. Novelty of the paper . This new stream of creativity democratization and innovation is possible thanks to the open long tail model based the new user that wants to make objects, the emergence of digital tools for design and production, the collaboration between actors.