A fuzzy-QFD approach to supplier selection

This article suggests a new method that transfers the house of quality (HOQ) approach typical of quality function deployment (QFD) problems to the supplier selection process. To test its efficacy, the method is applied to a supplier selection process for a medium-to-large industry that manufactures complete clutch couplings.The study starts by identifying the features that the purchased product should have (internal variables “WHAT”) in order to satisfy the company's needs, then it seeks to establish the relevant supplier assessment criteria (external variables “HOW”) in order to come up with a final ranking based on the fuzzy suitability index (FSI). The whole procedure was implemented using fuzzy numbers; the application of a fuzzy algorithm allowed the company to define by means of linguistic variables the relative importance of the “WHAT”, the “HOW”–“WHAT” correlation scores, the resulting weights of the “HOW” and the impact of each potential supplier.Special attention is paid to the various subjective assessments in the HOQ process, and symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers are suggested to capture the vagueness in people's verbal assessments.     

The myth of flexibility in organizational change

In this article we examine the complex nature of organizational flexibility. We question the myth of flexibility as exclusively a top management interpretation of constant adaptiveness to environmental change by exploring the various rigidities involved in a seemingly adaptive organization. Our long-term study of a major Finnish commercial bank under deregulation identified several dominant forms of temporal flexibility–rigidity configurations: formal rigidities, flexible rigidities, rigid flexibilities and defensive rigidities. These configurations were revealed by focusing on the structural tensions which emerge between different levels of management and on the different interpretations given by competing groups to the notion of “organizational flexibility” within a process of change.     

A typology of de-coupling strategies in mixed services

A typology of a class of service systems is proposed. The typology links strategic operational objectives to the decision to de-couple work between the front and back offices of a service system. Four specific ideal types of a strategy/de-coupling mix are described; each of which has distinct operational, marketing and human resource ramifications. A type that has had significant representation in traditional literature is the “Cost Leader” type, where back-office activities are de-coupled from the front office for the purpose of lowering costs. Another traditional type representative of the craftsman legacy is the “Personal Service” type, which retains back-office tasks in the front office to pursue non-cost-oriented strategic goals. Theoretical and empirical evidence is also given for two non-traditional types: the “Kiosk” type, where all tasks remain in the front office to achieve lower costs, and the “Focused Professional” type, which de-couples front- and back-office activities to enable front-office workers to provide higher service, rather than to reduce costs. Empirically, retail bank lending systems are analyzed to support the typology.     

Shifts in autonomy, responsibility and control from centre to periphery in public administration: the case of the ministry of finance in Italy

In tackling administrative reform and in the hope of improving the effective allocation of resources, most European governments have shown a growing interest in adopting private sector management models in the public administration. The assumption underlying this paper is that the decisive variables in the different national contexts have to do with the relationships between the central and the peripheral administrative levels, and the way in which administrative actors at the two levels interpret their roles and participate in the reform process. The paper examines the case of the reform of the Italian Ministry of Finance. In seeking to improve its performance and the services it provides, the ministry reform is intended to introduce a management system in which the key concepts are the planning, programming and control of administrative action and results. According to reform rhetoric, shaping a new class of administrative managers at the local level is the crux of the question. However, research results hint that the “creation” of this new local executive staff is yet to be completed. The working hypothesis advanced is that this is due to local executives’ lack of confidence in the “system”, inasmuch as the reform process has so far been characterised by a tendency to give them responsibility without autonomy and autonomy without control. The greater their lack of trust, the lesser their willingness to risk the consequences of failure and the greater their tendency to stick to defensive positions and to return to previous “bureaucratic” conceptions and ways of operating.     

Integrating sustainable development in the supply chain: The case of life cycle assessment in oil and gas and agricultural biotechnology

It is widely accepted that firms play an important stewardship role in addressing sustainable development concerns. A key challenge in this role is to balance the often conflicting pressures created by sustainable development—firm-level economic performance versus environmental degradation and social disruption. Drawing on complexity theory, risk management, stakeholder theory and the innovation dynamics literature, we discuss the problems of integrating sustainable development concerns in the supply chain, specifically the applicability of life cycle assessment (LCA). Many authors have emphasized the importance of the “cradle to grave” approach of LCA in optimizing closed-loop supply chains, improving product design and stewardship. Based on two case studies (an agricultural biotechnology and an oil and gas company) with supporting data collected from key stakeholders, we argue that sustainable development pressures have increased complexities and presented ambiguous challenges that many current environmental management techniques cannot adequately address. We provide a framework that addresses these deficiencies and discuss implications for practitioners and management theory.     

On Certain Indices for Ordinal Data with Unequally Weighted Classes

In this paper, some new indices for ordinal data are introduced. These indices have been developed so as to measure the degree of concentration on the “small” or the “large” values of a variable whose level of measurement is ordinal. Their advantage in relation to other approaches is that they ascribe unequal weights to each class of values. Although, they constitute a useful tool in various fields of applications, the focus here is on their use in sample surveys and specifically in situations where one is interested in taking into account the “distance” of the responses from the “neutral” category in a given question. The properties of these indices are examined and methods for constructing confidence intervals for their actual values are discussed. The performance of these methods is evaluated through an extensive simulation study.     

Use transnational teams to globalize your company

The authors report on their two-year study of successful transnational teams, in which they examined how such teams are designed and managed to help their firms pursue global business strategies. Based on this study, they present a comprehensive model of team effectiveness that includes the key characteristics differentiating a transnational team from other types of work teams. The model shows how transnational teams operate—how they are staffed and led, communicate across great distances, and cope with cross-cultural issues. In closing, they describe how a company's human resources department can help an “international” or “multinational” team become a “transnational” team—one that has successfully transcended the cultural, geographic, and managerial barriers to team effectiveness.     

Shaping buyer–supplier relationships in manufacturing contexts: Design and test of a contingency model

Although the idea that buyer–supplier partnerships can yield considerable benefits to firms is largely diffused among researchers and practitioners, the approach adopted in this paper is that no “one best way” exists in buyer–supplier relationships, but rather a “best way” for each specific exchange context. Hence, this paper proposes a contingency model for shaping and managing buyer–supplier relationships in manufacturing contexts. In order to test the model, an empirical study was performed on a sample of 45 buyer–supplier relationships within the Italian white goods industry. A three-dimensional performance indicator was computed to compare supplier performance achieved within relations matching the model's suggestions with those set differently. The results strongly suggest that suppliers involved in relationships set accordingly to the contingency model are likely to enjoy superior performance.     

Levels of strategic purchasing: Impact on supply integration and performance

The growing importance of supply chain management has led to an increasing recognition of the strategic role of purchasing, which has recently evolved and expanded from “buying” to “procurement” and “supply management”. In this study, we chart our sample firms’ advance in strategic purchasing, characterized by the strategic focus, strategic involvement of the purchasing function and the status and visibility of the purchasing professionals, into three stages.This study provides strong empirical support for the importance of strategic purchasing by showing that, by moving towards the more advanced stages, firms at the nascent stage of strategic purchasing can achieve better supply integration, a second-order construct composed of four facets of relational, process, information, and cross-organizational team integration. Our analyses further reveal that strategic purchasing can have a profound impact on supply chain performance for both buyer and supplier firms.     

Value investing anomalies in the European stock market: Multiple Value, Consistent Earner, and Recognized Value

Empirical academic studies have consistently found that value stocks outperform glamour stocks and the market as a whole. This article extends prevailing research on existing value anomalies. It evaluates simple value strategies for the European stock market (compared to many other studies that test market data on a country-by-country basis) as well as sophisticated multi-dimensional value strategies that also include capital return variables (Consistent Earner Strategy) and momentum factors (Recognized Value Strategy), the latter reconciling intermediate horizon momentum and long-term reversals of behavioral finance theories. It can be shown that these “enhanced” value strategies can produce superior returns compared to returns of the whole market or “simple” value strategies without capturing higher risks applying traditional risk measures.     

Tax Policy Coordination, Vertical Externalities, and Optimal Taxation in a System of Hierarchical Governments

Tax policies of two levels of government (state and federal) with overlapping tax bases are considered. This overlap leads to “vertical” fiscal externalities are considered when several different commodities are in the tax base and the tax bases of the two levels of government may not be identical. When the governments share a tax base, the mix of combined taxes is optimal. With different tax bases, combined taxes are no longer optimal as federal tax rates are adjusted to reflect state public service levels. When grants are available, a welfare-maximizing mix of taxes and public services is obtained.     

From quality to innovation: Evidence from two French Employer Surveys

In this article we investigate the impact of quality systems on innovation performance using the method of propensity matching. We use two French microeconomic surveys, the “Organizational Changes and Computerization” (COI 1997) and the “Community Innovation Survey” (CIS3 1998–2000). The first hypothesis indicating that quality (ISO 9000 certification) impacts positively on innovation is supported for certain areas of innovation performance. Furthermore, the second hypothesis states that different levels of quality differentially improve innovation performance. Results indicate that the innovation performance of firms with Top Quality Level is higher than that of firms with Medium Quality Level which is also higher than that of firms with Low Quality Level for certain areas of innovation. However, we found that the difference in innovation performance between firms with Medium and Low Quality Levels is not of a great magnitude. This study implies that in order to achieve a significant innovation performance improvement via quality systems, a very well-established quality system is needed within a firm.     

Service Guarantee Strength: The key to service quality

While most authors describe a service guarantee as a “zero-one variable” indicating the presence or absence of an explicit written service guarantee, this paper develops a construct called “Service Guarantee Strength” (SGS) that is a continuous variable. This construct measures the degree to which a firm sets clear service quality standards for itself on dimensions that customers care about, and has an formal policy for quickly giving meaningful compensation to customers when these standards are not met.The paper builds upon established micro-level behavioral theory to develop the “Service Guarantee Strength Framework”. This framework posits that high Service Guarantee Strength leads to improved service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty through three intervening variables—marketing communications impact, employee motivation and vision, and learning through service failure.An empirical investigation was conducted to test the SGS Framework using both employee and customer data from three pairs of firms, with each pair in a different industry. None of these firms had an explicit service guarantee. Unlike many behavioral research studies, this study measured both employee and customer perceptual data and compared the two. The research finds that Service Guarantee Strength is positively related to customer perceptions of service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.     

Evaluating shifts in Japan's quality-of-life

This paper presents a Data Envelopment Analysis/Malmquist index (DEA/MI) analysis of the change in quality-of-life (QOL), which is defined as the state of a social system as measured by multiple social-indicators. Applying panel data from Japan's 47 prefectures for the period 1975–2002, we identify significant movement in the country's overall QOL using a “cumulative” frontier shift index. Results suggest that Japan's QOL rose during the so-called “bubble economy years” (second half of the 1980s), and then dropped in the succeeding “lost-decade” (1990s). We also identify those prefectures considered most “responsible” for the shift(s) in QOL. Moreover, the use of both upper- and lower-bound DEAs enabled an evaluation of both “good” and “bad” movements in QOL.     

Antecedents of supply chain visibility in retail supply chains: A resource-based theory perspective

Although visibility has become a popular buzzword in the supply chain literature it remains an ill-defined and poorly understood concept. It is assumed that if companies across supply chains have visibility of demand, inventory levels, processes, etc., that organizational performance improves. This research explores the antecedents of high levels of supply chain visibility from a resource-based theory perspective across five different external supply chain linkages. We find that the level of visibility across these linkages differs considerably based on various contributing factors which are both technology and non-technology based. Using resource-based theory, we identify those factors that can give a sustainable competitive advantage to a supply chain linkage through a “distinctive” or high level of visibility.     

Microworlds and Simuworlds: Practice fields for the learning organization

Management is one of the few professions, the authors note, in which members have no formal “rehearsal space” for honing their skills. In response to this need, organizations such as The Center for Creative Leadership, MIT's Learning Center, and The Stern School of Business at New York University have created a brave new world of management simulations—“practice fields” for the learning organization. Some of these new games (“simuworlds”) use computer programs to replicate an entire industry and give participants an opportunity to play out one company's strategy in that setting. Other simulations (“microworlds”) engage participants in complex behavioral role playing, based on scenarios that typically develop within a company. Still other simulations combine both approaches. The authors take their point of departure from Peter Senge's definition of the “learning barriers” that develop in any organization: solving fragmented “problems” rather than dealing with systemic issues; overemphasis on competition at the expense of cooperation; and a failure to innovate until forced to do so. The new simulations, the authors argue, are particularly useful in helping managers learn how to overcome these barriers.     

Diagnoses by general practitioners: Accuracy and reliability

Only 10% of the results of consultations in primary care can be assigned to a confirmed diagnosis, while 50% remain “symptoms” and 40% are classified as “named syndromes” (“picture of a disease”). Moreover, less than 20% of the most frequent diagnoses account for more than 80% of the results of consultations. This finding, confirmed empirically during the last fifty years, suggests a power law distribution, with critical consequences for diagnosis and decision making in primary care.Our results prove that primary care has a severe “black swan” element in the vast majority of consultations. Some critical cases involving “avoidable life-threatening dangerous developments” (ALDD) such as myocardial disturbance, brain bleeding, and appendicitis may be masked by those often vague symptoms of health disorders ranked in the 20% most frequent diagnoses. The Braun distribution predicts the frequency of health disorders on a phenomenological level and reveals the “black swan” problem, but is not a tool by itself for arriving at accurate diagnoses. To improve predictions and enhance the reliability of diagnoses we propose standards of documentation and a systematic manner by which the risk facing a patient with an uncertain diagnosis can be evaluated (diagnostic protocols).Accepting a power law distribution in primary care implies the following: (1) primary care should no longer be defined only by “low prevalence” properties, but also by its black-swan-incidence-problem. This includes rethinking malpractice and the requirements of malpractice litigations; (2) at the level of everyday practice, diagnostic protocols are tools to make diagnoses more reliable; (3) at the level of epidemiology, Braun’s system of classification is useful for generating valid information by which predictions of risks can be improved.     

The cultural significance of accounting in Japan

We have had a spate of works on “Japanese Management” in the world, but very few on “Japanese Accounting”. In this article it is made clear that the functioning of accounting is contingent on the culture in which the accounting systems are incorporated, and that in order to discuss this intermingling of accounting and culture a perspective elaborated in Scandinavia can be relevant despite the uniqueness of Japanese culture. For only non-rationalistic or “naturalistic” perspectives can provide a basis for understanding the cultural dynamics of Japanese organizations and Japanese society. Thus the roles of accounting in Japan go far beyond what has been discussed in accounting textbooks.     

Business formation — a network approach

This article suggests that the key to entrepreneurial success is to be found in the ability to develop and maintain a personal network. In elaborating this proposition I regard the environment of the business venture as “enacted”. The inexperienced new entrepreneur needs support to create a personal network and to manage the enacted environment. The concept of the “organizing context”, defined as a clustered sociocentric network, is introduced to provide a tool with which the entrepreneur can deal more efficiently with the different subprocesses that create his or her reality. The approach supplies a framework within which various forms of entrepreneurship — indigenous, corporate, etc. — can be compared and analysed beyond their institutional differences. The interaction between various forms of entrepreneurship and organizing contexts is empirically illustrated from case studies.     

The impact of employee satisfaction on quality and profitability in high-contact service industries

The extant operations management literature has extensively investigated the associations among quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. However, the influence of employee attributes on these performance dimensions has rarely been examined. In this study we investigate the impact of employee satisfaction on operational performance in high-contact service industries. Based on an empirical study of 206 service shops in Hong Kong, we examined the hypothesized relationships among employee satisfaction, service quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. Using structural equations modeling, we found that employee satisfaction is significantly related to service quality and to customer satisfaction, while the latter in turn influences firm profitability. We also found that firm profitability has a moderate non-recursive effect on employee satisfaction, leading to a “satisfaction–quality–profit cycle”. Our empirical investigation suggests that employee satisfaction is an important consideration for operations managers to boost service quality and customer satisfaction. We provide empirical evidence that employee satisfaction plays a significant role in enhancing the operational performance of organizations in the high-contact service sector.