The birth of the Internet changes the way people live, work, and shop. One of the most significant development coming along with the Internet if e-commerce. Nowadays we have observed a new era of digital economies. New challenges to business and management follow as a result. Changes in competitive environments and consumer behavior due to the digital economy bring about more challenges in making managerial decisions. This special issue is aimed at looking at how digital economy impacts on managerial decisions, and how managerial decisions evolve to cope with such changes in the digital economy. Original research investigating the interplay of the digital economy and managerial decision making is welcome. Discussions of different aspects of managerial decisions are covered, such as strategies, marketing, human resources, and other management issues as related to the digital economy.

General management/leadership is ultimately charged with the responsibility of organizational performance. Organizational performance has come under scrutiny in recent years as it is argued that it could be improved. Organisational performance is associated with goal achievement, which is linked with economic results (Drucker, 1954) and expressed as financial gain (Drucker, 1954; Ronda-Pupo & Guerras-Martin, 2012) ensuring the sustainability of the organization (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 2002; Drucker, 1954). Economic results are dependent on a number of multi-facetted, interrelated and interacting factors.

Strategy is the tool management uses to achieve organizational goals. To be effective strategy should be based on competitive advantage which arises from something the organization does better than its competition, or something the competition cannot do, in offering customer value (Kotler & Armstrong, 2000). Competitive advantage has been described as valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable and is associated with the resource based view of the firm (Barney, 1991). Moreover, competitive advantage consists of three interrelated dimensions, namely the arena where the organization chooses to compete; customer value; and access to resources to provide customer value in the chosen arenas (Nienaber, Cant & Strydom, 2002). To be persistent competitive advantage should be embedded in the organization. Resources are entrenched in the organization and thus potentially persistent. Human capital is the most important among the resources, to provide customer value, specifically the knowledge, skills, experience and attitudes they bring to the workplace, which may change owing to changes in the workplace (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 2002; Campbell, Coff & Kryscynski, 2012; Crook, Todd, Combs, Woehr, & Ketchen, 2011;Owen, 1813; Pfeffer, 2010; Whelan & Carcary, 2011).

Different views exist in the literature as to the role of human capital in achieving competitive advantage (Aguinis, Joo & Gottfredson, 2012; Becker, 1962; Huselid & Becker, 2010; Beechler & Woodward, 2009; Campbell, Coff & Kryscynski, 2012; Farndale, Scullion & Sparrow, 2010; Nilsson & Ellstr?m, 2012; Preston, 2012; Schuler, Jackson & Tarique, 2011; Vaiman, Scullion & Collings, 2012; Whelan & Carcary, 2011). Nevertheless, the literature is unanimous that attracting, developing and retaining of the right human capital across occupations and hierarchies to implement strategy remain an important task of management to ensure organizational performance. Hence human capital is at the forefront of business agendas, though it would seem that little success is achieved in ensuring organizational performance. A number of factors contribute to this state of affairs ranging from the different treatments of human capital in achieving a competitive advantage to skills shortages to the voluntary turnover of staff.

A research agenda dealing with the intricacies of human capital as source of competitive advantage has emerged. Though more research is needed to advance this agenda, which is the purpose of this special issue of Management. In particular this special issue seeks to explore responses to the role of human capital in shaping competitive advantage. Key considerations influencing human capital as source of competitive advantage include:

• • What is human capital?

• • Is human capital exclusive or inclusive; and why would it matter in shaping competitive advantage?

• • Can generic human capital (as opposed to firm specific human capital) contribute to competitive advantage? If so, how?

• • How would the view that human capital is fixed/malleable influence shaping competitive advantage? How does this view influence the development of human capital in shaping competitive advantage?

• • What is the prevalence and impact of human capital wastage (either over qualified for a role or potential that is untapped) on shaping competitive advantage?

• • What factors, apart from demand for their skills, would cause workers to choose to stay with an employer, while willingly contribute their best to ensure organizational performance?

• • Is there a place and time for work ethic considerations in linking human capital to competitive advantage?

• • Do managers consider the above issues in shaping competitive advantage and/or strategy implementation? If so, how do they deal with these issues in facilitating competitive advantage, strategy implementation and organizational performance?

Both empirical (qualitative and quantitative) and conceptual papers, that provide new insights on the role of human capital in competitive advantage, are welcome.

The special issue of the Journal of Management aims to bring together current state of the art research from theory and practice of management in agriculture and food industries.

The special issue of the Journal of Management aims to bring together current state of the art research from theory and practice of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP) in the areas of modern management problems at business, industry and governmental level.

Systemic analysis of the complex problems using AHP/ANP includes qualitative, quantitative and sometimes conflicting factors that are taken into consideration. AHP/ANP has been using to solving complicated decisions by individuals and groups in the light of benefits, opportunities, costs and risks (BOCR).

Even under normal conditions, the management of a supply chain includes a large number of challenges and issues that demand decisions and resolution under strict environmental, cost and time constraints. These challenges are amplified in the event of high-impact crises, disasters and catastrophes that require the immediate increase of the capacity of a system to forecast, assess, plan and deliver under intensive pressure and stress (Gordon Levitt, 2010). While disasters are increasing in frequency and in their impact on humanity, mainly due to populations' continued growth, climate change and human-made errors, it is only in the last few years that the Disaster Management (DM) scientists are beginning to understand the importance of Supply Chain Management (SCM) for the rapid and effective response to a catastrophic event and the relief of its results on infrastructures and, most importantly, on people that inhabit the affected area.

In the intersection of these two scientific area lie Humanitarian Logistics and Disaster Relief Supply Chain Management (DRSCM) a multidisciplinary research area that addresses the technical, social and management problem of meeting the resources demand in times of critical incidents and high-impact events (Jahre et al., 2009; Tatham & Spens, 2009). DRSCM includes a variety of approaches that examine how supply chains operate, suffer and should be adjusted to the pressure of disasters as systems collapse, demand for delivery of resources increases dramatically and conditions of limited information and time constraints apply (Zhang & Nunamaker, 2002; Ponis & Koronis, 2012).

This special issue - to be published in SAP’s journal on ‘Management’ – aims to stimulate new research and gather original contributions of research work in the area of Disaster Relief Supply Chain.

New technologies have impacts on marketing and sales strategies of companies. Technologies that enable physical mobile interaction (PMI) get more and more popular among companies. PMI describes such interactions in which the user interacts with a mobile device and the device interacts with the objects in the real world. Mobile tagging is a way of realizing PMI. It describes working with tags and metadata included by tags through using a mobile device that you have with you. Pointing at a tag on a billboard advertisement with a mobile device (e.g. smart phone) that is equipped with an embedded camera is an example for mobile tagging. More and more companies understand the importance of the use of mobile devices and mobile tagging in their marketing strategies due to developments in mobile device technologies, growing number of smart phones, 3G/4G devices owned worldwide and developments concerning tags (e.g. NFC tags, 2D codes) such as decline of size, cost and energy. Most large companies in the world (e.g. Starbucks, H&M (Hennes & Mauritz)) have conducted campaigns comprising tags. Mobile tagging will probably be an inherent part of many companies’ marketing campaigns in the near future. It can be used by marketing managers for different purposes. For example, it is essential for marketing managers to offer products that meet customer needs and wants. In order to determine needs and wants of customers, marketers need a good customer database. They may use mobile tags to provide links to specific mobile sites in which through various tools (e.g. questionary, voting) information about the needs and wants of customers are collected. The captured information are then analyzed and used to determine offerings for the target customer. Advertising is a powerful form of communication. Using tags for advertising of a product or for linking to a mobile commerce enabled web site is also another example for the application of mobile tagging in marketing. This special issue of Management invites submissions concerning mobile tagging applications in marketing campaigns.

This special issue focuses on the latest thinking and research in the application of mobile tagging in marketing. Without limiting the scope of the papers to be submitted, the special issue encourages submissions of empirical and theoretical papers focusing on the following questions:

Purpose: To provide multidisciplinary researches reflecting significant impact on the innovative development of enterprises and organizations, global markets, technology and knowledge.