Maheshkumar P. Joshi

Alignment of strategic priorities and performance: an integration of operations and strategic management perspectives

Abstract In theory, strategic priorities at the functional level align with and support business level strategies. Alignment of priorities is presumed to contribute to enhanced organizational performance, just as misalignment is expected to undermine performance. This study further develops and tests these theoretical conventions by examining the perceptions of general managers and manufacturing managers regarding manufacturing priorities of their business units. Based on a sample of matched pairs of manufacturing managers and general managers from 98 manufacturing plants, the hypotheses regarding the alignment–performance relationship are tested. Specifically, we tested whether the performance of the manufacturing unit is enhanced when general managers and manufacturing managers agree on strategic priorities. Furthermore, the influence of organizational factors on the relationship between alignment and performance of the manufacturing unit is studied. Results support our hypotheses that certain organizational variables moderate the relationship between alignment of priorities and manufacturing performance.

Experiential learning process : Exploring teaching and learning of strategic management framework through the winter survival exercise

This article examines an attempt to introduce experiential learning methods in a business strategy course. In organizational behavior and industrial/organizational psychology, experiential teaching methods have been so widely adopted that some authors have suggested dropping the distinction between experiential and traditional teaching. Although intuitively appealing, experiential methods have not yet become popular among professors teaching strategy to traditional-age undergraduate students. It seems that heavy reliance on case-based teaching has resulted in a lack of emphasis on experiential learning tools for strategic management. In this study, the Winter Survival Exercise was used to introduce, concisely and effectively, the strategic management framework to 97 traditional-age undergraduate strategic management students in three different sections over three semesters. Statistical analysis supported the efficacy of this teaching method. Implications for teaching business strategy using experiential methods as a complement to rather than a substitute for traditional case studies are discussed.

International growth strategies of service and manufacturing firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences in growth strategies – domestic and international – of manufacturing and service firms. Hardly any literature exists that empirically investigates the differences on account of the distinctive characteristics of goods and services, and such studies rarely draw from the operations management field.Design/methodology/approach – Multiple analysis of variance is used to analyze longitudinal data from multiple secondary sources.Findings – Mixed services, such as banks, focus more on domestic growth and less on international growth. Manufacturers, such as chemical firms, focus more on international activities as compared to domestic activities. Mixed service firms seem to prefer collaborative approaches, whereas goods producers prefer wholly owned ventures.Research limitations/implications – The data collection methodology applied in this study may be applicable to many other topics of operations management. Future researchers may examine interna...

Entrepreneurial failure and discrimination: lessons for small service firms

This paper draws lessons from a case decided by the USA Supreme Court, wherein the firm failure was perceived by the minority entrepreneur as an outcome of racial discrimination. Implications of this case are significant because the failure rate of minority-owned US businesses has been consistently higher than the average failure rate of US business. We argue that the impact of discrimination by a customer is greater for small service firms. Through the Dominos Pizza case, we assert that issues relating to equal employment, inter-company contracting and choice of business organisation must be managed by the owner of a service firm.

Antecedents of innovativeness in technology-based services (TBS): : Peering into the black box of entrepreneurial orientation

Innovativeness is the organizations capability for developing and introducing innovations. We argue that new combinations and recombinations of prior and new knowledge (by way of creating, assembling, and transforming knowledge) result in innovativeness in an organization. We further assert that a knowledge-based focus on innovativeness is particularly important for firms that are technology-based. The majority of studies focusing on innovativeness are in the entrepreneurship arena, and a large number of studies consider innovativeness as one of three dimensions of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) construct, the other two dimensions being proactiveness and risk-taking. However, recent research has suggested peering into the black box of EO by disaggregating the EO construct and examining the interrelationships among its three components. Hence, using the knowledge-based view and drawing from multiple disciplines, our study conceptualizes innovativeness as a criterion variable and investigates the antecedent role of proactiveness and risk-taking propensity on innovativeness in the context of technology-based services (TBS). We hypothesize that both proactiveness and risk-taking propensity exhibit a curvilinear relationship with innovativeness and introduce organizational structure formality as a moderator to further explicate these relationships. Our results show that proactiveness has a curvilinear (inverted U relationship) with innovativeness, and that this relationship is attenuated by organizational structure formality. Additional analysis indicates that in TBS firms, risk-taking propensity has a positive linear relationship with innovativeness, and this relationship is accentuated by organizational structure formality. Finally, we discuss important conceptual and practical implications of our study and provide suggestions for future research.

Disruptive innovation through a dynamic capabilities lens: an exploration of the auto component sector in India

Innovation has gained momentum for the development; spread; and survival of auto industrial firms in India. In this paper; we study the less-explored aspect of organisational response focusing on discontinuous innovation. The Indian auto sector requires a tool for long-term market dominance; particularly owing to the rapid change in the business environment. This can be achieved through a special kind of discontinuous innovation known as disruptive innovation (DI). We further affirm how developing DI is facilitated by the firms dynamic capability (DC); to substantiate our claims; we develop and utilise a survey instrument to test a hypothesised model with responses from various firms affiliated with the Indian auto component industry. Our findings confirm the positive roles of DC and research and development (R%D) expenditure as antecedents to DI. We further conduct exploratory analysis to study factors such as R%D and environmental turbulence as moderators of the DC-DI relationship. We offer the following contributions: the operationalisation of DC and DI for the Indian context, a sector specific study and critical results pertaining to moderating role of R%D and environmental turbulence on the positive DC-DI relationship.

Examining Entrepreneurial Intention in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study of College Students in India:

The field of entrepreneurship is gaining acceptability among the youth of India. While the initiation, funding and success and failure of a start-up have been studied extensively, the entrepreneurial ecosystem that support, nurture and prepare entrepreneurs requires further examination. One such component of this ecosystem is the institutes of higher education that play a crucial role in preparing the future entrepreneurs of India. Though there seems to be a need for education programmes specifically designed to expand students’ skills in entrepreneurship, there is limited research on the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of students in India. In this article, we discuss the impact of implicit and explicit ways through which the entrepreneurship education in the institutes of higher education can influence EI among students in India. On the basis of the extant literature, the focus of this article is anchored in the four different aspects of EI among students: (a) Ability to have a grand vision (GVS); (b) Intentions to exploit opportunities (OEX); (c) Perseverance and operational focus (POF) and (d) Willingness to take risk (RST). In general, it is observed that the presence of EI is greater among students pursuing major in studies on entrepreneurship, whereas business students are mostly trained towards exploring the risk-taking component of EI.