Danny Miller

Bio: Danny Miller is an academic researcher from HEC Montréal. The author has contributed to research in topics: Consumption (economics) & Agency (sociology). The author has an hindex of 133, co-authored 512 publications receiving 71238 citations. Previous affiliations of Danny Miller include University of New Mexico & McGill University.

Ideology, Power and Prehistory

Abstract: The book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory. The contributions argue that past peoples should be understood as actively manipulating their own material world to represent and misrepresent their own and others' interests. The concepts of power strategies and ideological representations are introduced with reference to both contemporary and historical examples, while the core of the book lies in four detailed case studies taken from European prehistory. The nine papers are abstracted separately.- from Publisher

Making Solutions the Answer

Abstract: Many companies hard-pressed to maintain their margins through products alone are turning to 'solutions.' But to succeed, they must not only embrace competitors but also often turn away existing customers. In all sorts of industries, companies that traditionally have made and sold stand-alone products are changing their strategies. They are creating high-value solutions by integrating various products and services--even merging the supplier's and the customer's operations--to solve a complete customer problem. IBM, for example, rakes this approach when it builds and runs the entire infrastructure of a business-to-business e-marketplace for the chemical industry. Solutions are proving lucrative for many companies, even as the profitability and growth of their products have come under pressure. In the case of IBM, $38 billion of its revenue--43 percent of the total--now comes from the solutions--related businesses it has developed since the early 1990s. The market rewards this growth generously, seeing it as durable shareholder value built upon hard-to-copy capabilities, light capital investment, and customization that resists commoditization. Thus IBM improved its market-to-book ratio by 600 percent between 1990 and 1999. [1] Getting it right But it is mighty hard to get solutions right, and many companies fall far short in the attempt. Throughout the 1990s, Xerox promoted itself as a "documents solutions" company but struggled to execute successfully in making the transition. Hewlett-Packard wrestled with three attempts over a decade to integrate its full range of products and technical capabilities into customer solutions. One company that is currently trying to make the transition is Cummins India Limited (CIL), a subsidiary of US-based Cummins. CIL has long dominated the market for diesel engines in India. In the late 1990s, when the opening up of the Indian economy began to dent CIL's profit margins, the company started to develop solutions: commercial customers were provided with dependable backup power, for example, to cope with the country's unreliable electricity grid. CIL'S managers and engineers had concentrated for decades purely on the performance of the company's diesel engines; now these are just one part of its new solutions, for which the management imperative is to integrate a number of products and services. CIL'S chief executive officer, Ravi Venkatesan, says that his organization must "cross a chasm." Why is it so difficult to make the shift? The trouble is that the very strengths of a good product-focused business can hinder its efforts to become a successful solutions provider. Companies, like IBM, that have succeeded with solutions-and those, like CIL, that are still grappling with them- have taken some profound strategic actions that go against the grain of existing product businesses. Four actions stand out. Build value propositions for customer outcomes When product-based companies develop their value propositions, they generally start with the products they have and match those products to the customers' needs. If a customer wants something new, a product feature is added or a new product developed. At CIL, product managers might redesign an engine part to improve its reliability or add a new engine model with a horsepower rating suited to a certain application. But the nature and range of the needs that can be met are ultimately bound by what can be embedded in the product itself. In developing value propositions for solutions, a different approach is required. Managers start not with a product but with a desired outcome for a customer--an outcome that could encompass a whole range of needs. For CIL's power solutions customers, the desired outcome of uninterruptible power depends on far more than a reliable engine. The solutions manager must understand each customer's operating economics to determine the value of uninterruptible power, pull together all the components of the required generator system, work it into a customer's operating environment, and develop maintenance and testing programs. …

Modernity - An Ethnographic Approach: Dualism and Mass Consumption in Trinidad

Abstract: Trinidad and modernity modernity as a general property Christmas, carnival and temporal consciousness household as cultural idiom mass consumption - origins and articulations modernity as a specific condition.

Socioemotional Wealth Across the Family Firm Life Cycle: : A Commentary on 'Family Business Survival and the Role of Boards'

Abstract: The differences among family firms can be as telling as their overall distinctiveness from other forms of enterprise. In order to advance and condition the arguments of Wilson, Wright, and Scholes, we employ a typology of family firm evolutionary development to illustrate how changes in patterns of family involvement in the business can influence several socioemotional wealth priorities and how these in turn can shape the board composition required to enhance firm survival. We conclude by arguing how public listing and environmental competitive circumstances can condition these relationships.

West Meets East: Toward an Ambicultural Approach to Management

Abstract: Executive OverviewIn the aftermath of the recent economic crisis, the world is looking for fresh ideas and new perspectives. Business reality has transformed from “West leads East” to “West meets East.” A thriving Chinese business culture represents not only a source of economic partnership but a potential fount of managerial wisdom that can help renew Western economies. Unfortunately, the cultural distance between East and West makes Chinese examples too different, and at times inappropriate, for Western firms to emulate. Outstanding entrepreneurs such as Stan Shih, who have taken the best managerial practices from the East and the West while avoiding the shortcomings, represent ideal “intermediate” role models. By employing such an “ambicultural” approach to management, Shih provides a model for both bridging cultures and instructing organizations in the East and West. In this essay, we discuss these linkages and some of the useful lessons for managers from both cultures. Indeed, “Chinese” as a way of t...

Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance

Abstract: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter's groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into 'activities', or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage. Now an essential part of international business thinking, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE takes strategy from broad vision to an internally consistent configuration of activities. Its powerful framework provides the tools to understand the drivers of cost and a company's relative cost position. Porter's value chain enables managers to isolate the underlying sources of buyer value that will command a premium price, and the reasons why one product or service substitutes for another. He shows how competitive advantage lies not only in activities themselves but in the way activities relate to each other, to supplier activities, and to customer activities. That the phrases 'competitive advantage' and 'sustainable competitive advantage' have become commonplace is testimony to the power of Porter's ideas. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE has guided countless companies, business school students, and scholars in understanding the roots of competition. Porter's work captures the extraordinary complexity of competition in a way that makes strategy both concrete and actionable.

Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers

Abstract: Theorists in various fields have discussed characteristics of top managers. This paper attempts to synthesize these previously fragmented literatures around a more general “upper echelons perspective.” The theory states that organizational outcomes—strategic choices and performance levels—are partially predicted by managerial background characteristics. Propositions and methodological suggestions are included.

Clarifying the Entrepreneurial Orientation Construct and Linking It To Performance

Abstract: The primary purpose of this article is to clarify the nature of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) construct and to propose a contingency framework for investigating the relationship between EO and firm performance. We first explore and refine the dimensions of EO and discuss the usefulness of viewing a firm's EO as a multidimensional construct. Then, drawing on examples from the EO-related contingencies literature, we suggest alternative models (moderating effects, mediating effects, independent effects, interaction effects) for testing the EO-performance relationship.

Social Identity Theory and the Organization

Abstract: It is argued that (a) social identification is a perception of oneness with a group of persons; (b) social identification stems from the categorization of individuals, the distinctiveness and prestige of the group, the salience of outgroups, and the factors that traditionally are associated with group formation; and (c) social identification leads to activities that are congruent with the identity, support for institutions that embody the identity, stereotypical perceptions of self and others, and outcomes that traditionally are associated with group formation, and it reinforces the antecedents of identification. This perspective is applied to organizational socialization, role conflict, and intergroup relations.