The paper shows how traditional organizational structures within the production sector, such as quality circles, learning groups ("Lernstatt") and project teams reflect the constructivist and postmodern concepts of strategic management with their wide ignorance of purely plan deterministic...

Worldwide organisations are continually searching for new sources of competitive advantage. At the same time, they are under increasing pressure to carry out their activities so as not to harm the environment in addition to having a positive impact on society. Given these facts, our paper...

This paper aims to show a theoretical description of the integrative enterprises under resources-based view. The limitations of micro, small and medium enterprises is analyzed, and how integrative enterprises contribute to increased competitiveness through capacity development and integration of...

The majority of research on competitiveness is based on the analysis of quantitative data. There is significantly less research on the soft elements of competitiveness. This research aims to fill this gap in the literature. Starting from the national culture, the authors investigated the impact...

New public management emphasizes the organizational and behavioral aspects of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The main assumption is that, if governments constitute SOEs as "market" enterprises and allow their management to follow the logic of the "market," SOEs will become productive,...

During economic downturns, firms file for bankruptcy in an effort to attempt a "turnaround". The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of retrenchment strategies in the context of bankruptcy, as the most severe form of crisis. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of a sample of...

Outsourcing is in this study defined as the transfer of responsibility and activities, including relevant assets and resources, from a user to a legally separate party, that becomes a vendor to the user. An outsourcer transfers activities to an outsourced unit. The situation of the outsourced...

Regional benchmarking studies were conducted on business practices in manufacturing plants in three regions in Sweden. The studies were designed to determine their use of best practices and thus enable firms to identify areas in which they need to make improvements. The questionnaire contained...

Suppliers have experienced unexpected consequences for their businesses due to changing situations for their important customers. Such events may also occur at short notice, at least when it comes to necessary and radical decisions. Often suppliers are not aware of the full extent of these...

Radical changes resulting from the Fourth Industrial Revolution strongly affect industrialized European countries. In particular, due to the new technologies that are characteristic of Industry 4.0, it will be essential for companies to make the necessary changes and achieve competitiveness...