Digitalization and its Impact on the Future Role of SCM Executives in Talent Management – An International Cross-Industry Delphi Study

In the field of supply chain management (SCM), attracting and developing appropriate talent is critical for achieving most SCM goals, as extensive skills are necessary to do the job properly. In order to ensure that future-proof talent can continue to emerge in this discipline, the role of SCM executives is extremely important. Although many studies have been conducted in the field of talent management (TM), the future role of SCM executives has been mostly neglected in research. The present empirical study addresses this gap, taking into consideration the fourth industrial revolution, as innovation in technology continues to drive significant changes in the SCM field. Aiming to investigate the extent to which increasing digitalization is influencing the future role of SCM executives, a Delphi study with 103 experts from industry, academics, and politics/associations was carried out. In order to identify meaningful topic clusters from the data, fuzzy c-means clustering was used. From an actor-network theory perspective, our results show that in some areas of TM, digitalization is leading to a strong fusion of SCM executives and digital technologies, as well as to a clear division of roles, in which either SCM leaders or technology will dominate in the future.     

Listen to the voice of the customer—First steps towards stakeholder democracy

Recently, calls have grown louder for more stakeholder democracy that is, letting stakeholders participate in the process of organizing, decision‐making, and governance in corporations, especially in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Despite the relevance of the subject, the impact of customer involvement in CSR on their company‐related attitudes and behaviors still represents a major research void. The paper at hand develops a conceptual framework of consumer involvement in CSR based on the existing literature, theories of stakeholder democracy, and organizational boundaries as well as drawing from the qualitative focus group interviews (N = 24). The framework is tested on a large scale, two‐time point field‐experimental study (N = 3,397). More specifically, consumer reactions to three degrees of customer involvement (i.e., information, feedback, and dialogue) are tested in two different CSR domains (i.e., company‐internal business process vs. company‐external philanthropic CSR). Results indicate that the customer involvement in CSR has a more beneficial effect in terms of strengthening customer outcomes in CSR domains that directly affect external stakeholders of the company (i.e., philanthropic CSR) than in domains that mainly concern company‐internal stakeholders (i.e., business process CSR).     

Gender invariance of dignity in non-terminal elderly patients with chronic diseases: a multicentric study

Quality & Quantity - The Dignity construct, originally developed in end-of-life care, includes perceptions, cognitions and emotions related to the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect....     

The dynamics of relational competencies in the development of born global firms: A multilevel approach

From a multilevel approach, this paper focuses on the born global firms and the relational competencies that they use to initiate, maintain, and expand their international social networks. To do so, we detail the three levels of relational competencies (individual, collective, and organizational) and undertake an exploratory qualitative research based on interviews with French entrepreneurs of born global firms and experts who support their development. This study allows us to reach two sets of findings: firstly, a repository of thirteen relational competencies mobilized in born global firms as well as their development mechanisms; secondly, a dynamic view of these competencies, based on initiation, consolidation and expansion situations in which relational competencies and their development mechanisms are activated. Our study may lead entrepreneurs to identify competencies they hold at all levels (individual, collective, and organizational) but without necessarily implementing, as well as provide keys to develop any that are lacking in order to improve their internationalization strategy.     

Job search in thick markets

I analyze empirically the effects of urban and industrial agglomeration on both search behavior and the efficiency of matching. The analysis is based on a unique panel data set from the Italian Labor Force Survey micro-data, covering 520 randomly drawn Local Labor Market Areas (66% of the total) over the four quarters of 2002. I compute transition probabilities from non-employment to employment by jointly estimating the probability of searching and the probability of finding a job conditional on having searched. I then test whether these are affected by market size, industrial variety and/or industry specialization. The main results indicate that market size and industry-specialization raise job seekers’ chances of finding employment (conditional on having searched), while industrial variety is not significantly different from zero. Finally, the effect of agglomeration on non-employed individuals’ search behavior cannot be significantly distinguished from zero.     

Basking in reflected glory: Using customer reference relationships to build reputation in industrial markets

Corporate reputation is an important intangible asset that enables firms to establish customer relationships. Customer relationships, specifically customer reference relationships, can in turn be utilized to build supplier reputation in industrial markets. The aim of this conceptual article is to analyze the combination of these two concepts. It lays the foundation for further investigations into the effectiveness of reference customer relationships in enhancing supplier reputation. By developing propositions on the determinants impacting effectiveness of reputation transfer between customer and supplier firm, implications for practice and research in business marketing and corporate reputation management are derived.     

Representation of Destination Cultural Factors on Hotel Websites: Content Analysis of Beijing Hotel Websites

The extant tourism literature contains virtually no studies examining the issue of destination culture in the context of hotel website evaluations. The research presented herein examined 168 Beijing hotel websites. Content analysis of these websites was carried out using 12 destination cultural factors identified by the researchers. The aim was to examine whether the performance of the hotel websites under investigation differed in terms of these factors by hotel category. The results indicate that the majority of Beijing hotels do not include destination cultural factors on their websites. Although the websites of privately owned, chain, and international hotels, as well as those with higher star ratings were found to feature more of these factors, the differences were not statistically significant. Among the 12 destination cultural factors identified, Forbidden City was the most commonly included on the hotel websites, and Temple Fair and Pet Birds were completely absent.     

Requirements for developing green services

Innovating with services and integrating sustainability in economics are research issues of increasing importance. Green services are a recently relevant type in service research combining both fields. The potential seen in ecologically sustainable services is high, while a comprehensive approach in new service development is still missing. Based on an empirical study, a set of requirements for developing green services is introduced, considering specific criteria of ecological sustainability.     

Are temporally reframed prices really advantageous? A more detailed look at the processes triggered by temporally reframed prices

In this paper, we analyze effects of prices temporally reframed to a short period of time. We transfer a theoretical framework from a similar field of research to the context of temporally reframed prices. Based on this framework, we conduct a new empirical study. The results of the study show that temporally reframing prices leads to higher price attractiveness. However, this positive effect is overcompensated by negative effects of consumers’ feeling of being manipulated and of an increased perceived complexity of the price structure when temporally reframed prices are used instead of aggregate prices.     

Retaining Employees Through Anti–Sexual Harassment Practices: Exploring the Mediating Role of Psychological Distress and Employee Engagement

The present study utilized sexual harassment, organizational climate, and engagement theories to articulate a process model of how perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents relate to affective commitment and intentions to stay. The authors hypothesized that perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents would relate to employee engagement, both directly and indirectly through psychological distress. Moreover, psychological distress and employee engagement were hypothesized to mediate the relationships of perceived anti–sexual harassment practices and sexual harassment incidents with affective commitment and intentions to stay. Study findings supported these hypotheses within two subsamples of female (N = 3,283 and 3,207) and male (N = 3,460 and 3,300) military personnel. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.