Communities of practice have been identified as playing a critical role in the promotion of Learning and innovation in organizations. Yet, while innovation may be facilitated within communities of practice, radical innovations frequently occur at the interstices across communities. Here, the...

Students of innovation and evolutionary economists have long recognized the significance of organizational adaptation, as a consequence of changes in production technology and adoption of technological innovations and in understanding transformation of firms in competitive environments. But...

Despite the potential for operations management to be a competence-based discipline, it is not clear how practical the construct is in ex ante operations strategy formulation or how useful it is as a critical lens on operations theory. This paper develops a preliminary model of competence as a...

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was developed as a new idea which, if was suggested, would revolutionise the corporation and give it a major competitive advantage, Rather than continue the debate about whether BPR is 'good' or 'bad', the focus here is on understanding how the concept 'BPR',...

This article describes a business transformation exercise conducted in Coats Viyella Clothing Knitwear (a major, UK based knitwear supplier). At the start of the work, Coats Viyella faced difficult business circumstances that threatened the continued success of the company. During the course of...

This paper explores theoretical and practical aspects (i.e. resources allocated, activities undertaken, actors/decisions involved) of corporate 'parenting' in the development of international service networks. A review of the relevant corporate strategy, supply-chain, networks and services...

At some point in an intervention, the operational research consultant has to choose how to approach the issue in hand. The need for an explicit approach depends on who will be involved and the nature of the relationship between consultant and client. Increasingly, as the organisational distance...

In this article the necessary links between the macro-logic of socialist socio-economic systems and key organizational features are explored. The ideal types of capitalist and socialist systems are first described and their implications for organizations are later discussed. Socialist...

The Labour Force Survey estimates that there are now well over a million women managers and administrators in Great Britain, accounting for over 11 per cent of all employed women[1]. This same survey reveals that 83 per cent of these women managers work within the service sector. Much of the...

Using primarily the example of Computerised Numerically Controlled Machine Tools (CNC) in the UK metalworking and engineering industry, it is shown that, even many years after the date of first use of a new technology, although the larger proportion of firms may be using that technology, because...