Taxonomy of organizational alignment: implications for data-driven sustainable performance of firms and supply chains

Digital economy development boosts urban resilience-evidence from China

Focusing on the impact of the digital economy on urban resilience is beneficial to the sustainable development of cities. This paper empirically examines the impact of digital economic development on urban resilience and its mechanisms by measuring urban resilience and the level of urban digital economy with the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method using the data of 252 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2020. The findings show that digital economic development effectively promotes urban resilience at the 1% significance level, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests. The channel mechanism suggests that the development of the digital economy can improve urban resilience by optimizing urban distributional effects and promoting the upgrading of urban industrial structures. This paper discusses the nonlinear relationship between the two using the MMQR model and the threshold model. The results show that urban resilience development level is in a higher quartile of cities, and digital economy development has a greater impact on urban resilience improvement. Meanwhile, there are two threshold values for the nonlinear impact of the digital economy on urban resilience, which are 0.026 and 0.082, respectively. Further, the spatial effect between the two is also verified. From the perspective of heterogeneity analysis, the digital economy development of high-class cities, key city clusters, and cities in eastern and western regions has a greater effect on urban resilience. This study can provide ideas and inspiration for countries to enhance urban resilience and promote sustainable urban development through the development of the digital economy.

CAC-Redes: a new and quali-quantitative model to increase the competitiveness of companies operating in business networks

Purpose

This paper proposes the “fields and weapons of the competition model applied to business networks” – CAC-Redes (in Portuguese, Campos e Armas da Competição – Redes de negócio), an extension of the fields and weapons of the competition model (CAC) – to study the competition and competitiveness of companies operating in business networks in a competitive environment while integrating organizational competencies, interorganizational ties and company positioning to provide competitive advantage.

Design/methodology/approach

CAC-Redes is born from the cross-fertilization process of various theoretical perspectives, namely, industrial organization, traditional view of operational activities and resources, relational view, strategic alignment, transaction cost theory and social perspectives in networks, structured according to systems theory and under the mantle of competitive advantage theory. To discover the structure of existing models of competitiveness in networks, a bibliographic search was conducted in the Scopus database. Quali-quantitative empirical research was undertaken in companies from six different economic sectors through structured questionnaires and personal interviews to understand how companies competed and discover the determining factors of their competitive advantage.

Findings

Only seven models of competitiveness in network were found, and their structures and characteristics are quite different from those of CAC-Redes. Empirical research confirms all the hypotheses that support CAC-Redes, which, combined with those of CAC, indicate the CAC-Redes corroboration.

Research limitations/implications

CAC-Redes does not apply to networks without intercompany competition, studies on network governance and corporate strategy formulation.

Practical implications

CAC-Redes is effective in studying complex competitiveness phenomena because it considers multiple influences; provides a process based on qualitative and quantitative variables that increase the probability of formulating successful competitive strategies; simplifies the differentiation of skills from core competencies and determines them; proposes a competitive advantage criterion to select suppliers; creates a unifying language to represent the different strategic specificities of companies, competitors, suppliers, customers and the company environment and provides a library containing 181 weapons (resources) and dozens of interorganizational ties that can be used in empirical studies with other methodologies.

Social implications

CAC-Redes, due to its originality and peculiarities, theoretically contributes to theory of resources because it dispenses with the assumption, “unique resource, source of competitive advantage”; to relational view because it considers interorganizational relationships as a competence and treats it quali-quantitatively and to core competencies because if the strategy changes, different core competencies will be needed. Furthermore, it is an alternative to the dynamic capabilities perspective, and it transforms the five manufacturing performance objectives into nine for the entire company.

Originality/value

CAC-Redes is an original model because its structure and characteristics comparatively differ from those of existing models, and 14 singularities are detected.

Towards Renewed Business-IT Alignment Models in Digital Era

The long-standing debates over business-information technology (IT) alignment – fit, match or congruence between a firm’s strategy, organizational issues and IT challenges – are not closed among both professionals and academics. This paper, based on a state of art (theoretical and conceptual), analyses how digital transformation could affect the business (strategic)-IT alignment. It aims at providing a renewed framework of business-IT alignment in order to address the potential gaps between existing models and the current concern and future challenges of the digital transformation, in connection with new technologies particularly the development of data. It presents a first attempt to include data issues in business-IT alignment model.

Implementing Industry 4.0 through Cleaner Production and Social Stakeholders: Holistic and Sustainable Model

Although Industry 4.0 has received much attention in recent years due to the possibility of increasing companies’ productivity, the implementation process is complex. The aim of this study is to present a holistic model for implementing Industry 4.0 based on cleaner production as a fundamental tool for the development of production systems that meet the Sustainable Development 04026-002Goals (SDGs), and social stakeholders that cooperate with this implementation process, helping to develop sustainable infrastructure, processes and technologies to increase the sustainable transformation of these companies towards Industry 4.0. The method used was literature research, and the Delphi technique was used to ask specialists to contribute with their experience to evaluate and propose improvements to the model, in the form of a consensus. The model contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals 9, 12 and 15. This holistic and sustainable model is a contribution to theory and practice, helping executives, technicians, entrepreneurs and those involved with Industry 4.0 to base the implementation process in the needs and specificities of each company, avoiding the “one fits all” models, considering the peculiarities of each company and the complexity of the implementation process in a more efficient and collaborative digital production ecosystems base, seeking to reduce inequalities, through the joint effort of social stakeholders to find ways to restore and/or improve social harmony, impacted by Industry 4.0.

Drivers of implementing Big Data Analytics in food supply chains for transition to a circular economy and sustainable operations management

Purpose

The aim of this study is to evaluate Big Data Analytics (BDA) drivers in the context of food supply chains (FSC) for transition to a Circular Economy (CE) and Sustainable Operations Management (SOM).

Design/methodology/approach

Ten different BDA drivers in FSC are examined for transition to CE; these are Supply Chains (SC) Visibility, Operations Efficiency, Information Management and Technology, Collaborations between SC partners, Data-driven innovation, Demand management and Production Planning, Talent Management, Organizational Commitment, Management Team Capability and Governmental Incentive. An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) methodology is used to indicate the relationships between identified drivers to stimulate transition to CE and SOM. Drivers and pair-wise interactions between these drivers are developed by semi-structured interviews with a number of experts from industry and academia.

Findings

The results show that Information Management and Technology, Governmental Incentive and Management Team Capability drivers are classified as independent factors; Organizational Commitment and Operations Efficiency are categorized as dependent factors. SC Visibility, Data-driven innovation, Demand management and Production Planning, Talent Management and Collaborations between SC partners can be classified as linkage factors. It can be concluded that Governmental Incentive is the most fundamental driver to achieve BDA applications in FSC transition from linearity to CE and SOM. In addition, Operations Efficiency, Collaborations between SC partners and Organizational Commitment are key BDA drivers in FSC for transition to CE and SOM.

Research limitations/implications

The interactions between these drivers will provide benefits to both industry and academia in prioritizing and understanding these drivers more thoroughly when implementing BDA based on a range of factors. This study will provide valuable insights. The results from this study will help in drawing up regulations to prevent food fraud, implementing laws concerning government incentives, reducing food loss and waste, increasing tracing and traceability, providing training activities to improve knowledge about BDA and focusing more on data analytics.

Originality/value

The main contribution of the study is to analyze BDA drivers in the context of FSC for transition to CE and SOM. This study is unique in examining these BDA drivers based on FSC. We hope to find sustainable solutions to minimize losses or other negative impacts on these SC.