In the line of fire: managing expatriates in hostile environments

Abstract

This study explores best practice in the preparation and protection of strategic HRs deployed by Multinational corporations (MNCs) in hostile environments. By building on the literature from the areas of strategic and IHRM, expatriation, as well as risk and crisis management, the limitations and gaps of the extant research are highlighted. This provides a foundation for our investigation through a series of in-depth interviews with corporate executives, and insurers and relocation specialists with professional expertise in protecting and supporting HRs. This represents the first time such a detailed picture of the partnerships between MNCs and the specialists, required to deliver preparation and protection in hostile environments, has been depicted in the IHRM literature. The findings identify the challenges MNCs face when protecting their HRs and highlights the importance of specialist expertise, knowledge, and management. A framework for managing HRs within international hostile environments is subsequently developed offering an opportunity to systematically consider some of the ethical and strategic issues associated with the contemporary challenges of international mobility.     

Top management: the missing stakeholder in the HRM literature

Abstract

Despite the significant influence that top management exerts on different aspects of people management, it remains the missing stakeholder in the HRM literature. In this paper, we take stock of previous research, and conclude that it is scarce and lacks consolidation. On the basis of our findings, but also thinking in terms of what is still missing, we develop a conceptual framework that may guide further research, advocating for the need to consider co-evolutionary approaches in an attempt to integrate selection and adaptation perspectives, as well as multi-level and multi-actor factors. Future work should systematically address and distinguish top management characteristics from top management agency and link these more clearly to a diversity of HRM dimensions. By doing so, scholars will help to firmly incorporate the role of top management in the research agenda of HRM and pursue different avenues that can be scientifically sound as well as practically relevant.     

众创空间集聚的连续距离测度及影响因素分析

基于253家浙江省众创空间的微观数据，文章在运用连续距离的测度方法测算众创空间集聚水平的基础上，采用零膨胀负二项回归等方法实证分析众创空间集聚的影响机制。研究发现，众创空间的地理分布存在显著的区域差异，主要分布在杭州和宁波市辖区，选址具有明显的集聚特征。回归结果显示，区域创新能力和生态环境均对众创空间的地理集聚具有促进作用，但两者之间存在明显的替代效应；尽管不能直接促进众创空间的集聚，政策引导与创新能力之间具有较显著的互补效应。据此，文章从培育创新能力和优化创新激励等方面提出了政策建议。     

Points mechanisms and rewards programs

I study points programs, such as frequent flyer and other rewards programs, as a revenue management tool. I develop a two‐period contracting model where a capacity‐constrained firm faces consumers who privately learn their valuations over time. The firm cannot commit to long‐term contracts, but it can commit to allocate any unsold capacity through a points program. This points scheme creates an endogenous and type‐dependent outside option for consumers, which generates novel incentives in the firm's pricing problem. It induces the firm to screen less ex interim, and to offer lower equilibrium prices, reversing the intuition of demand cannibalization.     

Organizational career management practices and objective career success: A systematic review and framework

The theorization of the relationship between organizational investments in career development and individual success remains underdeveloped, and empirical tests of this relationship, which have been dispersed among several disciplinary areas, have produced inconsistent results. Addressing these issues, the purpose of this article is to propose a theoretical framework that illustrates why and how organizational career management practices translate into career success and under what circumstances the relationship is effective. Using a systematic review of empirical studies on career management practices and objective success, we identify three theoretical mechanisms - developmental, informational, and relational - and two groups of contingency factors that explain this relationship. Our framework advances the extant literature on organizational career management and provides suggestions to companies for designing effective career management systems.     

ERP与MRO系统集成过程建模与应用研究

为了实现产品生产阶段到服务阶段业务与数据的有效集成,从业务层和数据层对制造服务系统中的大修维护维修(MRO)与企业资源计划(ERP)的集成过程进行了建模与分析,对ERP与MRO系统之间的业务过程和信息交互过程进行了分析,建立了二者的业务集成框架模型,分析了ERP与MRO系统的数据结构转换过程,提出了二者数据集成模型。应用Web Services完成了ERP与MRO的系统集成开发,包括服务BOM集成、备品备件管理集成等。研究结果实现了制造和服务阶段关键产品数据信息的集成与反馈,打通了从制造到服务阶段的数据传递与集成,对进一步研究复杂产品生命周期管理的信息集成具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Evaluating discounts as a dimension of customer behavior analysis

Today, increased competition between organizations has led them to seek a better understanding of customer behavior through identifying valuable customers. Customers’ expectations about the price and quality of products and services play an important role in their selection process. In online businesses, competition and price differences between suppliers is high, so discounts will attract different customers. As a result, discounts and the frequency and amount of purchases can lead to better understanding of customer behavior. Customer segmentation and analysis is essential for identifying groups of customers. Hence, this study uses a model based on RFM called RdFdMd, in which d is the level of discount used to analyze customer purchase behavior and the importance of discounts on customers’ purchasing behavior and organizational profitability. The CRISP-DM and k-mean algorithm were used for clustering. The results indicate that using the R_dF_dM_d model achieves better customer clustering and valuation, and discounts were identified as an important criterion for customer purchases.     

The airfare pricing and seat allocation problem in full-service carriers and subsidiary low-cost carriers

This study investigates the competitive market situation in the air transport industry considering full-service carriers (FSC), subsidiary low-cost carriers (LCC) and rival LCCs on the flight-leg level while subsidiary LCCs are established by FSCs against rival LCCs to keep the market share and to make more profit. It is assumed that the demand of economy class for each airline follows a known distribution, and the mean value of that distribution is a function of its airfare and the airfare differences with other airlines. In addition, no-shows and cancellations are introduced to reflect a real situation. Based on this situation, a mathematical model is developed to derive efficient airfare pricing and seat allocation for each airline for maximizing the profit sum of both FSCs and subsidiary LCCs using a repeated game. A repeated game model integrated with a Tabu search algorithm and an EMSR based heuristic is suggested to deal with the proposed repeated game. A numerical example is provided to validate the model and solution procedure with hypothetical system parameter values under two kinds of market situations that show before and after the emergence of subsidiary LCCs.     

Gender Matters in Hospitality (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

This article is a review paper, which examines the place of gender in hospitality research and education and discusses the significance of hospitality for women's employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. The paper’s main purpose, however, is to speculate on the future of hospitality gender research and women’s employment prospects in the industry. It suggests that, despite the emergence of gender perspectives in hospitality research and the recent rise of popular feminism in response to high-profile sexual harassment cases and a well-publicised gender pay gap, gender still does not occupy mainstream territory in the field. The paper stresses the continued missed opportunities of neglecting female talent and calls on female and male leaders to shape a gender-just future in hospitality study and practice by mentoring and holding hierarchies to account. The paper identifies AI and robotics and sexual exploitation and harassment as two areas in which hospitality gender scholars could lead scholarship and policy debates on gendered human experiences.     

Developing design principles for the digitalisation of purchasing and supply management

This paper develops an approach to evaluating designs for digitalisation interventions in purchasing and supply management (PSM), and identifies some fundamental design principles for such interventions. A set of advanced technologies for digitalisation and a theory-based set of seven value drivers for PSM are identified for the proposed grid to facilitate the design of applications and interventions for digitalising PSM. The grid relates the digital technologies to the PSM value drivers in a matrix-like manner, allowing the structured consideration of the space defined by these two dimensions. The proposed approach to the strategic evolution of digitalisation in PSM is tested and its utility is demonstrated in analyses of practitioner literature and multiple case-study-based perspectives on PSM digitalisation. Two fundamental design principles relating to the use of the grid, or to the filling of its space, are set out, thus the research provides new theoretical perspectives on the design of advanced forms of PSM digitalisation. The proposed grid may be used in application design, communicating current and future states of PSM digitalisation to stakeholders, and specifically in developing a future-oriented strategy with a digitalization element for the PSM function.