Blockchain in Additive Manufacturing and its Impact on Supply Chains

Additive manufacturing (AM) appears to be a particularly attractive use case for blockchain. This research combines inductive in‐depth interviews with the Delphi method to explore what potentials blockchain technology in AM creates, which adoption barriers firms need to overcome, and how supply chains will be affected by the integration of these two potentially disruptive technologies. The results suggest opportunities that are related to intellectual property (IP) rights management, the monitoring of printed parts throughout their lifecycle, process improvements, and data security. The most important barriers for blockchain adoption in AM are an absence of blockchain‐skilled specialists on the labor market, missing governance mechanisms, and a lack of firm‐internal technical expertise. By addressing important limitations of AM, blockchain is expected to improve the competitiveness of AM in parts’ production, catalyzing the trend toward more decentralized manufacturing resulting in more agile, resilient, and flexible supply chains and reduced logistics costs. Beyond that, blockchain‐based AM platforms are expected to enhance supply chain visibility, drive supply chain digitalization, support supply chain finance, and contribute to the emergence of shared factory systems.     

Deducing a state-of-the-art presentation of the Eclectic Paradigm from four decades of development: a systematic literature review

Management Review Quarterly - For over four decades the Eclectic Paradigm has experienced a myriad of interdisciplinary advancements and evolved into an ever-broader and complex accumulation of...     

Exploring customer online reviews for new product development: The case of identifying reinforcers in the cosmetic industry

This study analyzes online customer reviews in order to investigate customers' preferences regarding cosmetic products. Based on the marketing firm theory, this research explores the possibility of enhancing the bilateral contingent relationships between the customer and the marketing firm within the cosmetics domain. Hence, this study applies market-search concepts by extracting customer reviews and employing text analytics to identify reinforcers and factors in cosmetic products, which customers are expecting, and their sentiments towards them. Our results suggest that some reinforcers are shared among all customers, but some vary among the different customer segments based on their age and skin tone.     

Electoral cycles in MPs’ salaries: evidence from the German states

Members of parliament (MPs) often set their own salaries. Voters dislike self-serving politicians, and politicians are keen to please voters. In line with political business cycle theories, politicians thus may delay giving themselves a salary increase until after elections. We investigate electoral cycles in the salary increases of German state MPs. Using data for 15 states over the period 1980–2014, we find no evidence that increases in MP salaries are influenced by election cycles. Politicians can increase their salaries at any point during the legislative period without negative consequences. We posit that this may be because even those voters who are most disenchanted with politics likely understand that all politicians benefit from a salary increase and thus do not punish the governing party at the polls.     

Client Focus,Cooperation, and Coherence: (Re)professionalising Processes for Elderly Care

This paper suggests the study of professionalism and the professionalising processes within public sector organisations. Sociologists propose that professionalism is changing into a new variant developing under the premise of organisational management and control. This paper disputes the perspective that the use of management control leads to deprofessionalisation in terms of the routinisation of reflective professional tasks or weakened professional values. This paper proposes that, with client focus, professionals and accountants can cooperate and create coherence between management control system elements and professional values. This dynamic contributes to the retention of professional values and more reflective work procedures.     

Equal opportunity and poverty reduction: How should aid be allocated?

This paper analyzes a model of aid allocation equalizing the opportunity between recipient countries to reach a common poverty reduction goal. We propose a fair and efficient aid allocation based on a multicriteria principle. The model considers structural handicaps in recipient countries in terms of lack of human capital and economic vulnerability, their initial poverty, and the natural gap between the growth rate required to reach a development goal and the observed one. We show that our proposed aid allocation favors poor and vulnerable countries with our multicriteria principle. It substantially differs from the observed allocation. Analyses also shed light on the impact of the donors' aversion to the low natural growth gap in recipient countries on the optimal aid allocation and the marginal efficiency of aid.     

Behaviour‐Based and Outcome‐Based Control Systems: A Meta‐Analytic Study

Sales control systems are instruments used by firms to improve performance and other organizational outcomes. To understand their antecedents and consequences, this paper conducts a meta‐analysis based on 104 studies. The results showed significant relationships between behaviour‐ and outcome‐based control systems and the complexity of the products, bonuses, financial performance, sales innovation, organizational support and satisfaction with supervisors. The outcomes revealed that behaviour‐based control systems were the most effective mechanism in turbulent markets and for determining financial performance. However, outcome‐based control systems were the most efficient instrument for complex products.     

Fetal Iodine Deficiency and Schooling: A Replication of Field,Robles, and Torero (2009)*

Scholars have theorized that congenital health endowment is an important determinant of economic outcomes later in a person's life. Field, Robles, and Torero (2009, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1, 140–169) find large increases in educational attainment caused by a reduction of fetal iodine deficiency following a set of iodine supplementation programs in Tanzania. We revisit the Tanzanian iodine programs with a narrow and wide replication of the study by Field et al. We are able to exactly replicate the original results. We find, however, that the findings are sensitive to alternative specification choices and sample restrictions. We try to address some of these concerns in the wide replication; we increase the sample size fourfold, and we improve the precision of the treatment variable by incorporating new institutional and medical insights. Despite the improvements, no effect is found. We conclude that the available data do not provide sufficient power to detect a possible effect, as treatment assignment cannot be measured with sufficient precision.