Högskolan i Skövde

Even though, the human resource management literature has highlighted the importance of having employees that are committed to the organization, research on strategic human capital has yet to fully consider how commitment is related to human capital resources. In order to overcome the dominant individual-level conceptualization of commitment and to detail how commitment affects human capital resources, we develop the unit-level concept of commitment capital, which we divide into three levels: affiliative commitment capital, affinitive commitment capital, and absolute commitment capital. These conceptualizations are based on a 10-year case study and incorporate commitment into a strategic human capital framework, thus bridging the current gap between organizational commitment and human capital resources. 

Resource orchestration (RO) is a strategic management framework that details various processes by which how firms structure, bundle, and leverage resources. This study reviews how RO has been considered in environmental management research.The review highlights some limitations on how RO has been used in studies on environmental management, and it also illustrates a lack of knowledge accumulation in the field. To realize the full potential of RO, the concept of green RO is developed. Green RO (GRO) is defined as a firm's capability to coordinate and manage the structuring of resources and the bundling and leveraging of capabilities to create economicvalue for the company while simultaneously creating environmental benefits. Three main research areas for GRO are described: GRO as an organizational or managerial meta-capability, management of specific GRO processes, and the synchronization ofseveral GRO processes.

Although it is widely accepted that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) improves firm performance, scholars have advised that particular attention should be paid to the context. In this research, we investigate a less explored context of franchising where business systems and procedures are usually dictated to franchisees by franchisors. Therefore, whether a franchisor should allow franchisees to pursue EO (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy) is not clear. In the context of franchising, the majority of prior studies have mainly focused on the employment of EO as a unidimensional construct and at the franchisor level. In this research, we take a bottom-up perspective and evaluate the impact of different dimensions of EO on franchisees’ performance. Our analysis of a multi-group of 183 restaurant franchisees located in Sweden and Iran reveals that only the pursuit of proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness improves a franchisee’s performance and other dimensions do not play a significant role in improving performance in this context.

Green product innovation (GPI) is a cornerstone of environmental management. Recent reviews on GPI have shown that research on GPI antecedents has mainly focused on identifying specific factors influencing the use of GPI. However, most studies lack a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the findings. In this study, which is based on a sample of 303 Swedish small manufacturing firms, antecedents to GPI are examined using the attention-based view of the firm. Two attentional perspectives, namely entrepreneurial orientation and environmental sustainability orientation, were found to positively influence the use of GPI. Moreover, situated attention, in terms of competitive intensity, strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and GPI. The study highlights the usefulness of an attention-based view on GPI and environmental management in small firms.

Purpose: This paper strives to understand the role of resource orchestration (RO) in the rapid growth of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach: Based on a comparative case study, RO is compared between a high-tech family firm and a high-tech non-family firm. To capture the complexity of RO, this study applies a longitudinal approach using a large volume of archival and interview data gathered over ten years. Findings: The configuration of family-firm paradoxical growth-oriented RO emphasizes RO based on collectivism and responsibility, although relying on large-scale conforming normative control. In contrast, the configuration of non-family-firm growth-oriented RO emphasizes administrative-based delegation and management-supported value creation. Originality/value: By suggesting ownership-based RO configurations, this study provides insights into how ownership types, i.e. family firms and non-family firms, affect RO in firms operating in complex and dynamic environments. These configurations explain how and why RO is arranged in a growth context. 

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been used to examine the role of resources and capabilities in product innovation and how product innovation is related to overall firm performance. Moreover, the natural RBV (NRBV) has addressed how resources affect the natural environment, whereas the relational RBV has highlighted the importance of relational resources, that is, resources shared with stakeholders outside the focal firm. In order to consider these extensions of the RBV in product innovation, this article applies a relational NRBV (RNRBV) on product innovation. Using data from 305 Swedish small manufacturing firms, structural equation modeling is used to examine the relationships between green product innovation (GPI), differentiation advantage and firm performance, and how these relationships are influenced by a relational resource in terms of green suppliers. The results demonstrate that GPI affects differentiation advantage and that this relationship is strengthened by having green suppliers. The article offers a RNRBV on product innovation and illustrates the importance of incorporating additional dependent variables other than aggregated performance measures when researching GPI. Moreover, the study shows that green suppliers can provide important products and complementary resources in order for the focal firm to fully realize its GPI capability.

This study presents a multidimensional taxonomy of “ecopreneurship” for small manufacturing firms. Based on a cluster analysis of 312 Swedish firms, four distinct clusters are identified: pioneers, green dumpers, overlookers, and recyclers. These clusters are compared regarding their level of entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. Based on the results, and because of the resource constraints associated with small firms, managers of such companies are advised to examine the economic consequences of specific environmental business practices and to adopt a less aggregated approach to ecopreneurship. This study illustrates the usefulness of a multidimensional scale when researching environmental behaviors and is a response to the lack of an empirically based classification of ecopreneurship configurations.

The resource orchestration concept has attracted considerable interest in contemporary innovation research. However, resource orchestration is a manager-centric framework and not all of its components necessarily reflect the value-creation processes of organizations focusing on team-based innovation. Drawing on a single-case study of an innovative Swedish software company, we illustrate the roles of autonomous teams, customers, and top managers in orchestrating resources for team-based innovation. Moreover, we introducethe concept of resource flocculation to describe how key actors co-orchestrate various resource orchestration processes. The study contributes to research on resource orchestration by adapting the model to the conditions characterizing team-based innovation, and to research on team-based innovation by addressing how innovative teams are related to overall resource orchestration processes and, ultimately, organizational innovation outcomes.

Firm-specific human capital (HC) is widely recognised as the most important resource for superior firm performance. Contemporary literature on the resource-based view (RBV) and resource orchestration has stressed the importance of organising resources, such as firmspecific HC, in order to fully exploit them. However, companies with idiosyncratic resources cannot rely on established resource exploitation practices, making the exploitation of firmspecific HC a complex issue. Nevertheless, few studies have empirically examined how to orchestrate firm-specific HC. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine how resource orchestration – operationalised as collaborative human resource management (CHRM) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) both individually and combined – moderates the relationship between firm-specific HC and firm performance. Based on a sample of 151 Swedish manufacturing firms, the findings demonstrate that CHRM and EO do not independently influence the relationship between firm-specific HC and performance. However, firms with firm-specific HC benefit from either being highly entrepreneurial and relying on CHRM or being non-entrepreneurial and not focusing on CHRM; they perform worst if they are entrepreneurial without using CHRM. Whereas previous RBV-studies on resource exploitation have mainly stressed that HC has to be exploited, this study contributes to the RBV by examining how firm-specific HC should be exploited.

The core question addressed in the natural resource‐based view (NRBV) of the firm is how to develop and exploit resources beneficial for both the natural environment and firm performance. Due to the resource constraints and increased competition facing small manufacturing firms, achieving this is a challenge for such companies. Building on the NRBV and resource orchestration literatures, we examine the relationship between green purchasing capabilities (GPCs), CEO's environmental orientation(EO), and firm growth. Results from 304 Swedish small manufacturing firms indicate a significant relationship between GPC and growth, and this relationship is positively moderated by the EO of the CEO.