Business in brief library

Strategy and Planning Techniques

Contingency Theory of Leadership

Contingency Theory of Leadership

Learn why leaders behave differently across different situations and consider the importance of understanding a leader's personal style. A summary of the contingency theory's strengths and limitations is presented, as well as real case examples from across different sectors and industries.

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Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement spans operations, strategy and digital transformation, evolving into an organisation-wide capability guided by phased models (Lameijer, 2023). It strengthens when leaders set aims, invest in coaching, standardise problem-solving routines, and cultivate autonomy with accountability and psychological safety (Löfqvist, 2024).

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Coopetition

Coopetition

Coopetition is an innovative business approach that emphasises win-win scenarios between competitors. The concept details the strengths and disadvantages of cooperating with competitors, and case study evidence illustrates the types of relationships that can be achieved.

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Core Competencies

Core Competencies

Core competence is among the best-known strategic management concepts. A core competence it is believed to constitute and sustain the firm’s competitive advantage. The importance of core competencies for organisations is explored, in addition to technical capacities as one of the elements that allow organisations to be competitive in the market.

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Core Lean Principles

Core Lean Principles

The Core Lean Principles provide a systematic approach to maximising value by eliminating waste. By defining value from the customer’s perspective and optimising the value stream, organisations can enhance flow, respond to real demand, and pursue continuous improvement. These principles create lean, responsive systems.

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Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting

Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting

CR&S reporting is how an organisation communicates its social, environmental and governance performance to the outside world. Getting it right builds trust whilst getting it wrong invites accusations of greenwashing. This technique covers what good CR&S reporting looks like, the principles behind it, and the different forms it takes.

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility

This concept explores the different ways in which CSR is defined and provides an account of success factors and business evidence.

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Corporate Sustainability

Corporate Sustainability

Corporate Sustainability (CS) integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into business strategies to enhance resilience, ethical alignment, and long-term growth. It drives innovation, attracts talent, meets stakeholder expectations, and creates lasting value for society.

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Corporate/Organisational Culture

Corporate/Organisational Culture

This concept explores how organisations build up their own culture through tradition, history and structure. It also suggests that culture provides organisations with a sense of identity.

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Cost-to-Serve Model

Cost-to-Serve Model

This concept discusses the usefulness of cost-to-serve model and offers additional insights into the model’s measurements and implementation steps.

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Countertrade

Countertrade

This concept examines advantages and disadvantages of countertrade and discusses the implications, strengths, weaknesses and success factors of this trading approach.

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Crisis Management

Crisis Management

Crisis management focuses on rapid response and continuity, but recent work adds three priorities: a structured readiness process, leadership for continuous (not one-off) crises, and contingent performance indicators aligned to crisis type and phase (Björck, Bläse and Bastida, 2024; Hällgren and Buchanan, 2024; Deverell and Ganic, 2024).

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Cross-Functional Supply Management

Cross-Functional Supply Management

The concept examines current practices and trends in the field of cross-functional supply-chain management and provides practitioners with both a specialist knowledge and basic information in related business disciplines to design and manage efficient and effective cross-functional supply chain systems.

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Customer Centric International Shared Services

Customer Centric International Shared Services

Learn how customer centric international shared services can help your company achieve savings of 20%-30% or more, while significantly improving service delivery to internal customers across the globe. Case study evidence highlights the factors for success and provides step-by-step implementation advice.

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Customer-driven Strategy

Customer-driven Strategy

Customer-driven strategy is an essential business philosophy that all organisations should embrace. The concept provides a detailed summary of the key elements of customer-driven strategy and offers critical implementation advice and success factors.

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