Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2016 i The European Business Review

UK – the most undemocratic democracy The United Kingdom woke up on Friday 23 June to new realities: the Kingdom was no longer ‘united’ and its constituent parts had broken rank and were wooing new suitors. Scotland voted by 62-38 to remain in Europe while Northern Ireland voted 55.8 - 44.2 to remain. Whilst England returned home, Scotland stayed behind to parley with the rest of EU. No one could have predicted the political meltdown that followed the Brexit vote. The fracas that broke out within the political ranks was totally unprecedented and looked more like the usual macabre offering from an episode of Game of Thrones, except that these are the real political classes of Great Britain. Cameron immediately resigned as the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime…

This unbundling of content was the hallmark of the first wave of digital disruption. Google unbundled news articles from newspapers while Craigslist took the classified ads. Apple’s iTunes unbundled songs from albums. Amazon’s Kindle unbundled chapters from books. A new wave of Internet startups is disrupting established businesses by the process of “decoupling”. In this article, the authors discuss how these new digital disruptors allow consumers to benefit from one activity (e.g., watching shows) without incurring the cost of the other (e.g., watching ads), and offer strategies for established businesses to respond to this threat. The Internet’s 1st wave of disruption, unbundling; the 2nd wave, decoupling. The trade press routinely describes the current stage of the commercial Internet as Web 2.0, largely in reference to the increasingly social usage of…

This article presents some of the most influential drivers of unethical behaviour in business and suggests counter-strategies. Reviewing the literature from relevant disciplines, the authors draw the attention to twelve factors that frequently lead to moral failures of normal people in reputable organisations. The article concludes with questions for managerial reflection to reduce the probability of ethical misconduct. Volkswagen’s use of fraudulent software for diesel engines led to a massive outcry about immoral corporate behaviour – and will cost the company many billions of euros. This is just one of many recent cases, with others such as banks being caught manipulating Libor and firms from different industries and regions getting caught in corrupt practices or establishing cartels. Why do reputable companies that are led by decent managers and that employ…

The technology has been lauded as a means to rethink design, digitise manufacturing, produce to demand, and customise products. Companies struggle to define the value proposition 3D printing brings: While the opportunities for improving products are obvious, how to generate value from it is not. Firms need to first examine its potential and risks along three dimensions: product innovation, customisation, and complexity. Then they need to set clear boundaries for permissible customisation, and decide where to situate 3D printing within their organisation. 3D Printing: Opportunities and Challenges Rapid prototyping technology, the ancestor to 3D printing,1 has been around for over two decades. One might rightfully ask whether there is any substance to the recent hype around this class of manufacturing technology.2 The answer is: Yes. We have reached a critical…

On the battlefield of online, strategy is blending with tactics, while at the same time distinctions between digital pure-plays and hybrid companies are blurring as new business models emerge. These ten principles for success will steer the most digitally ambitious organisations (pure-play or hybrid) safely along on the road to digital success. In the world of digital business, the line between strategy and tactics is blurring. Traditionally, large companies would adopt strategic frameworks with three to five-year timescales, while many digital start-ups had little interest in comprehensive and rigorous strategic processes. They simply set themselves a vision and worked out how to get there empirically. In today’s digital economy, even large established companies are finding that, as digital becomes an important part of their future, their planning process is increasingly…

Research shows that most businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon. But many are not using social media effectively or wisely, exposing themselves to criticism and missing opportunities. Here, Jim Macnamara outlines three key steps for success online. Few businesses today are not using social media. There was a time when many companies banned use of social media at work based on a fear of wasted employee time and potential security breaches. But now most have realised that social media are not only a 21st century media revolution for Generation Y and Millennials, but also part of a wide-ranging social and cultural revolution that requires changing business practices in marketing, customer relations, employee communication, staff recruitment, and public relations. In 2013, McKinsey reported that 83% of companies globally used…

Reports show that many people have four jobs by the age of 32 and recently published data highlights that women job hop more than men. The International Consortium for Executive Development Research (ICEDR) identifies five key themes that emerging women leaders value which companies should focus on to attract, advance, and retain aspiring women leaders. Maggie Georgieva is a deeply talented product manager at HubSpot, a high growth inbound marketing firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Georgieva joined HubSpot out of university and months later set the Guinness Record for the world’s largest marketing webinar. Georgieva is a voracious learner and she strives to learn something new every day. Her eyes light up when she talks about how much she’s learning at HubSpot. “Learning is the most important thing for me.…

Traditional businesses know that if they want to survive the digital revolution, they need to make changes, but where should they start? Companies need to formulate new questions and test different options until they find what really works. How can big data save a traditional company from certain death after it has suffered a 90% drop in profits? This is the situation that Mediq faced in 2012. The company is a major drug retailer and distributor of pharmaceutical products from its warehouses and its network of 200+ pharmacies in the Netherlands. In 2012 the government modified the regulation related to pharmaceutical compensation: instead of being compensated from the markup on a product’s wholesale price, pharmacies received a fixed fee per product sold. This change resulted in an immediate 90% drop…

Organisations that take leadership development seriously outperform organisations that ignore this important matter. To become more effective and reflective leaders, executives need to learn to improve their behavioural reactions to difficult situations and develop greater emotional intelligence. The central theme of this article is to make executives more reflective and effective leaders. To accomplish this objective, transformational experiences are needed. To enable this to happen, to “Know Thyself ” becomes an important credo. Many executives seem to be strangers to themselves with often-disastrous consequences. To accomplish transformational experiences, a number of questions need to be addressed: Why have many executives so little self-knowledge? Why do so many executives behave in a self-destructive manner? Why are so many executives unable to get the best out of their people? Why do so…

In this article, the authors discuss China’s implementation of Circular Economic development programs in order to address the country’s pressing environmental issues. China’s remarkable economic success has been accompanied by unparalleled population growth and extensive resource use. As China continues to grow, the population in urban centers will reach close to 1 billion residents by 2025 and the country will have 221 cities with populations greater than one million. Unfortunately, this growth is unsustainable given that the country has not managed its resources well until now: it suffers from high emission industries, unsafe pollution levels, and severe water contamination. China is also the world’s largest source of carbon emissions and it fails to meet many standards of international health. These environmental issues are directly affecting standards of living – for…