On the quest for supply chain transparency through Blockchain: Lessons learned from two serialized data projects

The ability to look into the supply chain has long enticed SCM scholars and practitioners. The possibilities created by such visibility are endless—from risk reduction and continuity planning to inventory management and cost reduction, nothing is off the table when end‐to‐end visibility is a possibility. Because of such enticements, there is usually much buzz in the industry every time a new technology that promises visibility and transparency is brought forward. Yet, years later, stories sometimes emerge that said technologies either failed to deliver or were not everything they were made out to be. Blockchain is yet another emerging technology in this space. Some consultants promise that it will be the final answer to the transparency and visibility woes that companies currently face. Yet, there is little empirical investigation regarding how the technology may benefit adopters, what the bottlenecks may be, and to what extent it may be able to deliver on these promises, without massive system‐wide upgrades of extant hardware and computing prowess. The current study takes a step in this direction by investigating a blockchain‐driven proof of concept across an industry consortium to identify promises, possibilities, and challenges of blockchain.     

OPTIMAL FORECAST COMBINATION UNDER REGIME SWITCHING*

This article proposes a new forecast combination method that lets the combination weights be driven by regime switching in a latent state variable. An empirical application that combines forecasts from survey data and time series models finds that the proposed regime switching combination scheme performs well for a variety of macroeconomic variables. Monte Carlo simulations shed light on the type of data‐generating processes for which the proposed combination method can be expected to perform better than a range of alternative combination schemes. Finally, we show how time variations in the combination weights arise when the target variable and the predictors share a common factor structure driven by a hidden Markov process.     

Sickness Presenteeism, Sickness Absenteeism, and Health Following Restructuring in a Public Service Organization

abstract    This study examined the relationship between sickness presenteeism, sickness absenteeism, organizational outcomes and employee health. In particular, we wanted to investigate to what degree employees were substituting sickness presence for sickness absence. Three hypotheses were tested to formalize this 'substitution proposition'. We surveyed a Canadian public service organization which was involved in a large scale downsizing initiative. For this study, 237 Personnel Corporation (pseudonym used) employees responded to the survey, representing a 66 per cent response rate. Survey results indicated that, while the workforce was of average health, sickness absenteeism was less than half that of the national average. The difference could be accounted for by sickness presenteeism – the average number of days employees attended work while ill or injured was greater than the number of days of sickness absence. The pattern of results supported the notion that employees were substituting presenteeism for absenteeism. The frequency and type of self-reported health problems were highly similar for presenteeism and absenteeism. Work factors (e.g. job security, supervisor support and job satisfaction) tested were significantly correlated with presenteeism. Presenteeism appears to be a stronger predictor of health than absenteeism, suggesting that efforts to improve workplace health may have a more immediate impact on presenteeism than on absenteeism.     

Applying Burke’s Dramatic Pentad to scenarios

Describing the evolution of possible futures in the narrative form is widely practised. However, while stories are intuitively recognized, the ability to compose a comprehensible story is often difficult. Ambiguities or inconsistencies within a scenario-as-story are not simply aesthetic faults, but are failings which can weaken the use of the technique in a learning or decision-making process. This paper provides a working understanding of narrative as a particular kind of knowledge and proposes an adaptation of Kenneth Burke’s Dramatic Pentad as a way to explicitly capture this kind of knowledge within a scenario construction process.     

Price determinants of bred heifers: Do reputations matter?

Replacement brood cows are among the most significant investments for cow-calf operations, thus crucial to profitability. Many cow-calf producers find it cost effective to purchase replacements from a reliable replacement heifer seller, though by doing so they increase risk of reproductive inefficiency due to unknown characteristics of the heifers. When important information about a product is missing to buyers, a seller can build a reputation over time that acts as signal for quality. Previous work has explored reputation effects in feeder cattle markets, but to our knowledge we are the first to explore reputation effects in bred replacement cattle markets. Using data from an annual replacement heifer sale, we analyze the values of heifer characteristics and test for premiums from reputation development. After controlling for reproductive practices, breed, and other characteristics, we find reputation does not play the role that Shapiro theorized. In this sale, the lot order is strategically chosen and may indicate bred heifer quality to buyers, replacing the need for reputation as a signal. This study highlights the importance of quality signals and regional preferences in bred replacement cattle marketing and lays the empirical groundwork for future studies to test Shapiro's theory.     

Examining bank SEOs: Are offers made by undercapitalized banks different?

Despite extensive monitoring, banking operations are often considered opaque, and despite explicit capital adequacy regulation, banks may have substantial discretion in their financing. Both monitoring and capital regulation have changed substantially over time, with the adoption of FDICIA being one important breakpoint. This article empirically studies seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) by banks to understand how opacity and capital regulation interact to determine the timing of bank SEOs and their market valuation. SEOs both by banks that are undercapitalized relative to regulatory standards and also well-capitalized banks are fully discretionary when it comes to SEOs, even before FDICIA. Both undercapitalized and well-capitalized banks experience similar and significantly negative stock price reactions to SEO announcements, and also have similar prior patterns of insider trading and similar economic drivers of the issuance decision. Moreover, post-SEO abnormal stock returns are similar to benchmark returns for both types of issuers in the long run, suggesting that, contrary to the well-documented evidence for industrial SEOs, investors understand the value implications of bank SEOs upon announcement. The evidence implies that undercapitalized banks' SEOs are more discretionary and that all bank SEOs are less opaque than implied by earlier studies.     

Successful programs wanted: Exploring the impact of alignment

Alignment between formulation and implementation of business strategy can be important for achieving successful programs. The authors have explored the development of a program management alignment theory. Statistical testing showed that interaction between the study model variables was found to be multidimensional, complex, and subtle in influence. Thus, the authors conclude that programs have both deliberate and emergent strategies requiring design and management to be organized as complex adaptive systems. Program life‐cycle phases of design and transition were often formed from an unclear and confusing strategic picture at the outset, which can make those phases difficult to control. Learning was established as an underlying challenge. The study model demonstrated continuous alignment as an essential attribute contributing toward successful delivery. This requires program design and structure to adopt an adaptive posture.