Improving Supplier New Product Development Performance: The Role of Supplier Development

Suppliers play an increasingly central role in helping firms achieve their new product development (NPD) goals. The literature implicitly assumes that suppliers are able to meet or exceed the quality standards and technological expectations of the firm, and yet, in practice, suppliers often lack the technological capabilities needed to undertake collaborative NPD. In such situations, a firm may choose to intervene and actively develop the supplier's technological and product development capabilities. We develop a theoretical framework that conceptualizes supplier development activities within interorganizational NPD projects as part of a bilateral knowledge‐sharing process: design recommendations, technical specifications, and new technology flow from supplier to the firm, and in turn, the firm can implement supplier development activities to upgrade the supplier's technological capabilities. Antecedents (supplier responsibility, skills similarity, single sourcing strategy) and consequences of supplier development activities (on supplier, product, and project performance) are examined using a sample of 153 interorganizational NPD projects within UK manufacturers. We find broad support for our hypotheses. In particular, we show that the relational rents (in the form of improved product and project performance) attained from supplier development activities in new product development are not achieved directly, but rather indirectly, via improvements in the supplier's creative and technological capabilities. Our results emphasize the importance of adopting a strategic view of the potential returns available from investing in the NPD capabilities of key suppliers, and provide clues about underlying reasons for the suboptimal experiences of many companies' collaborative NPD projects.     

Efficiency of New Zealand’s District Health Boards at Providing Hospital Services: A stochastic frontier analysis

Journal of Productivity Analysis - The majority of secondary and tertiary healthcare services in New Zealand are provided through public hospitals managed by 20 local District Health Boards. Due to...     

Inter-organizational communication as a relational competency: Antecedents and performance outcomes in collaborative buyer–supplier relationships

Inter-organizational communication has been documented as a critical factor in promoting strategic collaboration among firms. In this paper, we seek to extend the stream of research in supply chain management by systematically investigating the antecedents and performance outcomes of inter-organizational communication. Specifically, inter-organizational communication is proposed as a relational competency that may yield strategic advantages for supply chain partners. Using structural equation modeling, we empirically test a number of hypothesized relationships based on a sample of over 200 United States firms. Our results provide strong support for the notion of inter-organizational communication as a relational competency that enhances buyers’ and suppliers’ performance. Implications for future research and practice are offered.     

The asymmetric information and price manipulation in stock market

The interaction between asymmetrically informed traders has been mostly investigated in theoretical frameworks. Not only there are relatively few empirical studies but, if any, the mostly focus on cross-sectional analysis and use very short samples. In this study, we blend theoretic with empirical, and propose a new signalling system of turning points in the economy to examine the extent of volatility of these markets relative to their tranquil periods. The signalling system proposed here is based on the Markov-switching model. Differing from the existing literatures, the study employs three phases and time-varying transition probability, and captures the states of volatility. After examining the causality between high volatility and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) by using moving average and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, the portfolio's profitability of FPI and individual investors in different periods are compared. Finally, the investigation of FPI's leading effect is studied.     

Joint pricing and design of urban highways with spatial and user group heterogeneity

This paper addresses the joint optimization of capacity investments and toll charges imposed on multi-group users in monopolistic private highways within general road networks. A game-theoretic formulation is provided that leads to a nonconvex bilevel program. The proposed modeling framework handles several complex issues raised in realistic applications, such as regulations on the levels of tolls and service, and the discrete nature of highway capacity, using a genetic optimization technique. Real-application results show the importance of considering the spatial heterogeneity of prices, and the tradeoff between investments and pricing strategies in regulated private highways.     

The Government Transformation Programme of Malaysia: a successful approach to public service reform

The 2009 Malaysian Government Transformation Programme (GTP) could be useful as a model for reform given its positive impact on improving public services in targeted key result areas. This paper assesses the GTP's approach in the context of the wider debate on whether reforms should be based on best practices or whether they should be diagnostic or problem-solving in approach. The GTP's success was largely the result of blending both approaches. The GTP experience in Malaysia provides a number of insights and lessons for delivering intelligent reforms quickly and effectively.     

An even simpler differential demand system

Keller (1984) proposed three simple variants of the well-known Rotterdam demand model. This paper proposes an even simpler differential demand system which has some attractive properties and is easy to estimate. The new model is estimated with Dutch and British data.     

Strategic and Marketing Implications of Consumer Behaviour in Financial Services

As competitive liberalisation and the application of technology in the creation and distribution of financial services have increased consumer choice in the UK personal financial service industry, so consumer choice in the UK personal financial services industry, so consumer behaviour has assumed a greater role in determining the strategic environment in which financial service providers operate. This paper explores the reltionship between consumer behaviour and the strategic choices facing financial consumer behaviour and the strategic choices facing financial service firms by developing a framework of consumer behaviour and linking the forms of behaviour and type of financial service instrument that determines the strategic environment within which financial service providers operate. Based on that interaction the paper develops a contingency view of financial services strategy and argues that to be successful, financial service providers will need to move away from broad service provision and adopt more focused strategies that reflect far more closely the strategic environment in which they operate.