Michael Merenda

Business Process Digitalization and New Product Development: An Empirical Study of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturers

Previous research has largely ignored how business process digitalization across the value chain enhances firm innovation. This article examines the relationship between the extensiveness of business process digitalization (BPD) and new product development (NPD) in a sample of 85 small U.S. manufacturers. Scores of extensiveness was derived from the number of adopted e-business practices regarding inter and intra-firm activities such as: customer and supplier services (computer-aided design and manufacturing), employee services (education/training), and industry scanning (technology sourcing). We found that (1) NPD is positively related to the extensive use of BPD, and (2) the relationship between NPD and the extensiveness of BPD is stronger in more mature firms than that in younger firms. We conclude that small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) production innovation strategies are positively associated with the strategic use of BPD and span spatial, temporal, organizational, and industry boundaries thus aiding SME global competitiveness.

Corporate networks, privatization and state sovereignty: Pending issues for the 1990s?☆

Since the 1980s the growing importance of the corporate network has raised sensitive policy issues in telecommunications relating to privatization and national sovereignty. This paper explores these issues in relation to the corporate network and analyses the existing problems and those that will arise in the next decade. The authors examine the corporate network, its workings, its importance as a competitive strategy, especially in a global context, and explain how this causes policy tensions. The authors suggest that these tensions will not dissipate over time, but that they will continue to affect policy-making well into the 1990s.

Coffin Nails and Corporate Strategies

This article presents a review of the book “Coffin Nails and Corporate Strategies,” by Robert H. Miles in collaboration with Kim S. Cameron.