Michael Boppel

From grey to silver : Managing the demographic change successfully

Demographic change is one of the most crucial issues of our time. This book sheds light on the demographic implications companies face. Based on an integrated framework, the book investigates three important perspectives: An economic and social perspective helps organisations and managers better understand the basic parameters of demographic change and its influences on the labour market. A human resources and leadership perspective reveals how age management can help retain employees of different age groups as motivated and productive workforce members. An innovation and marketing perspective examines how companies can exploit the potentials that senior customers offer. A combination of research-driven and practice-oriented chapters makes this book a profound and an interesting read. It primarily addresses executives from various organizational fields, including HR, marketing, and management. Professional trainers, scholars and students of economy and business will also gain valuable insights.

An integrated framework for investigating the challenges and opportunities of demographic change

Demographic change is one of the most crucial issues of our time. Owing to its importance for companies, this topic has made it onto decision-makers’ agendas in recent years. This chapter – which serves as the introductory chapter – sets out to first establish a common understanding of the term demographic change. The motivation is that one must first understand the specific developments of demographic change if one is to effectively consider its various implications. Secondly, by taking the company stakeholder perspective, this chapter introduces an integrated framework for examining demographic change’s implications for companies. Thirdly, on the basis of the suggested framework, this chapter integrates and organises the individual book contributions.

Corporate Programs: Analysis of a Major Structural Choice in Strategy Implementation

This study examines the incidence and performance effects of corporate programs, which are temporary structures intended for the implementation of corporate strategy. Drawing on coordination and behavioral theories, we propose that certain enabling conditions (why?) and precipitating circumstances (when?) influence the decision to use a corporate program for corporate strategy implementation and its effect on firm performance. An analysis of a unique 10-year data set of the European financial service sector shows large support for our hypotheses regarding both sets of factors, which increase the likelihood of corporate program presence. Moreover, while we find a positive direct performance effect of corporate program presence, we find limited support for the performance effects in situations characterized by the internal factors studied. While these findings provide important initial insights on this emerging corporate phenomenon, they merit further investigations of corporate programs.