PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to look at a Thai manufacturing small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) in order to develop a basic understanding of the innovation concept and process in Thailand, and to investigate how the five factors associated with innovation interact with Hofstede's five cultural dimensions to influence the innovation process.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a qualitative methodology, using a case‐study approach.FindingsAll the studies of national culture and innovation potential use Hofstede's dimensions but this study suggests that in Thailand there may be cultural factors other than Hofstede's that influence innovation and that modify the effects of Hofstede's model on innovation. Allied to this, it appears that the traditional cultural values could be shifting, as younger people absorb an increasing amount of influence from Western media. The first finding from this study suggests that Thai SMEs may tend to more effectively produce or adopt incremental innovations rather than radical ones. The second finding is that, if the research company is typical of Thai SMEs, Thai SMEs are likely to experience difficulties with adopting completely novel innovations effectively. This is because four (except the dimension of long versus short‐term orientation) of Hofstede's five Thai cultural dimensions were clearly found to obstruct the innovation process. Also there are some cultural factors peculiar to Thailand, not mentioned by Hofstede, that impact on the innovation process.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper underlines the need to understand local culture and environment, which play a crucial role in the success or failure of innovation activities of firms, particularly SMEs.Originality/valueThere have been very few studies on innovation with reference to Thai SMEs.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to review the epistemology of benchmarking and identify methodological elements of a theory of benchmarking. Design/methodology/approach -A thematic approach is applied to origins, primal and functional definitions of benchmarking. Findings -Benchmarking remains theoretically underdetermined, with publications focusing on pragmatism and praxis rather than epistemology. Analysis of the literature leads to a new definition of benchmarking focusing around the teleological processes that lead to state-transformation of organizations. Research limitations/implications -A theoretical foundation for benchmarking should be consistent with current organizational paradigms. Going forward the paper aims to develop a theory of benchmarking based on illustrative model derived from the thematic review. Practical implications -The paper initiates the development of a more rigorous theoretical base for future benchmarking practice, which will strengthen organizations' business cases for undertaking such processes. Originality/value -Recasts much of the extant literature in beginning to focus on the fundamentals of benchmarking.
We live in times of increasing dynamism in the natural, social and business environments; with such dynamism comes fear, uncertainty and doubt. As a result the discipline of risk management is in the ascendancy. In a recent influential report the UK’s Royal Society called for research into the role that organization design plays in risk management. Defines a theoretical framework that is being used to investigate a part of that relationship: the link between risk management strategy and organizational behaviour. Organizations are identified with either a proactive or a reactive approach to risk management. The research issue is whether the “choice” of approach is dependent on organization structure or is it independent? Does structure determine the approach or does the approach determine the structure? What other factors play a role? The critical factor of risk perception in managers and its impact on implementation strategy is considered. The types of risk strategy an organization follows and its structure are defined using various measures of distinct factors. By establishing the nature and cause of relationships between the measures and factors, the relationship between organizational approaches to risk and organization structure may be identified. Describes a method for evaluating this relationship.
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