Efficient versus Responsive Supply Chain Choice: An Empirical Examination of Influential Factors

Contemporary strategies in operations management suggest that successful firms align supply chain assets with product demand characteristics in order to exploit the profit potential of product lines fully. However, observation suggests that supply chain assets often are longer lived than product line decisions. This suggests that alignment between supply chain assets and demand characteristics is most likely to occur at the time of initial market entry. This article examines the association between product demand characteristics and the initial investment in a supply chain at the time of market entry. We characterize supply chains as responsive or efficient. A responsive supply chain is distinguished by short production lead‐times, low set‐up costs, and small batch sizes that allow the responsive firm to adapt quickly to market demand, but often at a higher unit cost. An efficient supply chain is distinguished by longer production lead‐times, high set‐up costs, and larger batch sizes that allow the efficient firm to produce at a low unit cost, but often at the expense of market responsiveness. We hypothesize that a firm's choice of responsive supply chain will be associated with lower industry growth rates, higher contribution margins, higher product variety, and higher demand or technological uncertainty. We further hypothesize that interactions among these variables either can reinforce or can temper the main effects. We report that lower industry growth rates are associated with responsive market entry, but this effect is offset if growth occurs during periods of high variety and high demand uncertainty. We report that higher contribution margins are associated with responsive market entry and that this effect is more pronounced when occurring with periods of high variety. Finally, we report that responsive market entry also is correlated positively with higher technological demand uncertainty. These results are found using data from the North American mountain bike industry.     

Financial reporting by charities: a matched case study analysis from four countries

This paper analyses financial reporting requirements applicable to charities in four jurisdictions—Australia; England; Ireland; New Zealand—using case study analysis which compares the actual financial statements of four charities operating in the same field and with similar levels of total income. The authors highlight common issues and implications in terms of the concepts underpinning not-for-profit organization (NPO) financial reporting and argue the case for harmonized international NPO accounting standards.     

Processing Technology,Market Power and Price Transmission

This paper focuses on the extent to which price changes occurring at the farm-level are transmitted to the retail sector. A price transmission elasticity is derived which is shown to depend on the degree of market power in the food industry and the nature of the food industry's processing technology. The offsetting role of the processing technology and market power in determining the extent of price transmission are highlighted. A case-study reports values for the price transmission elasticity for the US beef and pork sectors.     

Person‐environment fit and transfer of training

Results support the hypothesis that individuals transfer their training to the job when their ‘real’ environment matches or fits the preferred ‘ideal’ environment. Five aspects of environment were assessed: supervisory encouragement, sufficient resources, worker’s perceived freedom, workload pressures, and perceived worker creativity. In addition to the traditional criteria of hiring people whose skills match the job, organizations might consider creating environments to match employees’ needs.     

If you build it,will they come? Student preferences for Makerspace environments in higher education

The Maker Movement inspires people to express their creativity by making things in a self-directed and, often, collaborative learning endeavor. The excitement of the movement has spurred the development of various types of Makerspaces across the United States and the World to further enable people to make and innovate. The education community has recognized the potential for Makerspaces as learning environments that can foster interdisciplinary collaboration and self-directed learning. As such, there is much excitement to create Makerspaces within K-12 schools, libraries, colleges and universities. However, contrary to the formal design process used to build many school facilities, successful grass-roots makerspaces are most often created when those with like-minded interests come together and adapt the building around them to fit their needs. The research in this paper focuses on the design of such spaces by applying the environmental preferences predictors psychology construct. The study surveyed 276 students from art and design, engineering, and liberal arts majors to better understand their preferences as related to images of eight different Makerspaces. The results are broken down by the four predictors of preference, major, and gender. The results highlight differences among the images along with design considerations for creating spaces that welcome a broader audience.     

Green Knowledge Sharing,Stakeholder Pressure,Absorptive Capacity,and Green Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms

A central issue faced by many Chinese manufacturing firms is how to absorb and utilize green knowledge shared among supply chain members for superior green innovation. Invoking the indirect research stream of organizational learning theory, we develop a moderated mediation model in which absorptive capacity mediates the interactive effects of green knowledge sharing and stakeholder pressure on green innovation. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 247 Chinese manufacturing firms. The results from multiple regression and bootstrapping tests reveal that absorptive capacity fully mediates the link between green knowledge sharing and green innovation, and the mediation effect is positively contingent upon stakeholder pressure. These findings provide managerial implications for Chinese manufacturing firms, recommending that these firms effectively develop their absorptive capacities and closely monitor stakeholder pressure to realize the green innovation benefits of green knowledge sharing.     

Understanding the motivations of coastal residents to voluntarily purchase federal flood insurance

Federally-backed flood insurance is the primary mechanism by which residents in the United States (US) prepare for and recover from floods. While there is a growing literature on the general uptake of flood insurance, little work has been done to address the factors motivating residents to voluntarily buy and maintain federally-based insurance policies. We address this issue by conducting a survey of coastal residents in four localities in Texas and Florida. Based on survey responses, we quantitatively examine the factors influencing whether residents located outside of the 100-year floodplain obtain insurance policies when it is not required. Using two-sample t-tests and binary logistic regression analysis to control for multiple contextual and psychological variables, we statistically isolate the factors contributing most to the decision to purchase insurance. Our findings indicate that a resident located outside the 100-year floodplain who has voluntarily purchased federal flood insurance can be characterized, on average, as more highly educated, living in relatively expensive homes, and a long-time resident who thinks about flood hazard relatively infrequently but who, nonetheless, thinks flood insurance is relatively affordable. Unexpectedly, the physical proximity of a respondent to flood hazard areas makes little or no discernible difference in the decision to obtain flood insurance.     

The role of customer participation in building new product development speed capabilities in turbulent environments

In a sample of 204 SMEs, this study investigates how customer co-creation impacts firms’ ability to increase new product development (NPD) speed. The results show firms that collaborate with customers in the NPD process at greater levels are able to increase NPD speed capabilities and commercialize products at a faster rate. In addition, environmental turbulence is investigated as to how it may impact the relationship between customer participation and NPD speed. The results show that customer participation in NPD allows firms to better manage turbulent environments by enhancing the speed at which new products are brought to market. Finally, the results show that NPD speed mediates the relationship between customer participation and the performance of new products, thus highlighting the importance of developing new products faster. The principle contribution of the study is the examination of an additional moderating factor in regard to customer participation and NPD speed. The second contribution of this research is that while previous studies have examined the individual impacts of customer participation on NPD speed and NPD speed on NPD performance, this research statistically demonstrates the mediating process among the three constructs.

     

Producing New Spaces of Violence: Libya and the Changing Style of NATO Interventions after the Global Financial Crisis

This paper argues that the way NATO conducts its interventions has altered since the Global Financial Crisis. The pressures of the Global Financial Crisis have forced NATO to shift from the sustained peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan to what I refer to as the trans-scalar space of intervention in Libya. Trans-scalar spaces of intervention are spaces where violence is temporarily concentrated by a transnational military apparatus to eliminate a perceived threat as efficiently as possible. The threats targeted are contained within a particular national locale and are unable to manifest themselves transnationally; their capacity is therefore several orders of magnitude below the force projection abilities of the transnational military force seeking its destruction. I examine how NATO’s creation of these new types of spaces has impacted global security and undermined territorial-based forms of governance. Despite the ensuing chaos which enveloped Libya after NATO departed, with their low cost and speed at which they can be organized this style of intervention will likely be replicated in the future.