The selected determinants of manufacturing postponement within supply chain context: An international study

Modern supply chains focus on an ultimate consumer satisfaction and often require essential dynamic reconfiguration. Manufacturing companies constitute important central nodes in supply chains, where almost all physical flows are concentrated.Postponement is the operating concept, which aims at delaying activities until a customer’s order has been received. The growth of interest in the postponement concept partially results from the increased demand for customized products.Data for the analysis has been collected through the survey carried out by researchers in several countries. The main research instrument used for this research was a questionnaire developed by the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG). The conclusions formulated on the basis of data analysis proved that market and demand characteristics do not seem to be important for the choice between postponement and speculation strategy. The research showed that assembly postponement depends mostly on managerial decisions about the goals of company and the level of acceptance of an assembly postponement strategy on the market. Full postponement strategy is dictated mainly by the level of product customization and capacities of manufacturing and logistics systems. Production postponement has to be accepted on the market and should be associated with excellent forecasting techniques.     

Identifying service strategies in product manufacturing companies by exploring environment-strategy configurations

Higher market complexity and increasing competitive intensity are forcing traditional product-manufacturing companies to change their position in the goods-services continuum by continuously extending the service business. However, the existing literature tends to be somewhat vague in defining service strategies for manufacturing companies wishing to move along the continuum. The purpose of this study is to identify service strategies that correspond with specific environment-strategy fits. Using an exploratory factor and cluster analysis for testing Western European firms, the study highlights four different service strategies. The four service strategies include after-sales service providers (ASPs), customer support providers (CSPs), outsourcing partners (OPs), and development partners (DPs). After-sales service providers concentrate on cost leadership and ensure proper functioning of the product. Customer support providers form a unique value proposition by investing in a strong product and service differentiation. Outsourcing partners combine cost leadership with service and product differentiation to offer attractive prices for operational services. Their goal is to assume the operating risk and full responsibility for the customer's operating processes. Development partners provide research and development services to create a situation in which customers benefit directly from their development competencies.     

The impact of lean practices on inventory turnover

Lean manufacturing (LM) is currently enjoying its second heyday. Companies in several industries are implementing lean practices to keep pace with the competition and achieve better results. In this article, we will concentrate on how companies can improve their inventory turnover performance through the use of lean practices. According to our main proposition, firms that widely apply lean practices have higher inventory turnover than those that do not rely on LM. However, there may be significant differences in inventory turnover even among lean manufacturers depending on their contingencies. Therefore, we also investigate how various contingency factors (production systems, order types, product types) influence the inventory turnover of lean manufacturers. We use cluster and correlation analysis to separate manufacturers based on the extent of their leanness and to examine the effect of contingencies. We acquired the data from the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) in ISIC sectors 28-35.     

Implications of service processes outsourcing on firm value

Outsourcing is one of the important strategies acknowledged by firms recently. With an increase in globalization and the proliferation of information technology, more and more firms outsource not only their production but also their service processes including back office business processes and information technology functions to external suppliers. Recognizing the criticality of outsourcing service processes in marketing management, the authors build on the outsourcing literature and integrate it with the finance literature on market efficiency to develop a conceptual framework. The authors collect outsourcing announcements from the Wall Street Journal and business news available at Lexis-Nexis between 1995 and 2005 to conduct an event analysis. Results indicate that outsourcing in general creates positive firm value, i.e., cumulative abnormal returns; however, such effects vary depending upon different levels and dimensions of an outsourcing decision. The authors conclude with managerial implications and future research at the end.     

我国电网企业国际化人才管理策略研究

随着电网企业国际化战略的实施,国际化人才对电网企业具有越来越重要的意义。在分析国际化人才对电网企业重要意义的基础上．总结了电网企业国际化人才的特点,对比当前电网企业国际化人才队伍存在的主要问题,从人才引进、教育培训、薪酬福利等方面提出电网企业加强国际化人才管理的建议。     

A comparative study of the adoption and implementation of target costing in the UK, Australia and New Zealand

Most of the studies on target costing (TC) only provide insight into the adoption and perceived benefits of TC, and do not address the levels of implementation of the technique. These studies also assume that TC is only relevant to manufacturing firms and therefore do not investigate the adoption of this technique in service firms, and consequently exclude service firms from their surveys and analysis. Furthermore, most studies do not examine factors influencing the adoption of TC systems. Contributing to these gaps in the literature, this paper reports the results of a survey among CIMA-qualified management accountants working in manufacturing and service firms in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on the adoption and implementation of TC. The study examines the importance of attributes of TC (namely relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use, result demonstrability, trialability) for decision makers to adopt and implement such cost and management accounting innovation. The survey indicates that TC is equally prevalent among manufacturing and service firms while in terms of the levels of implementation there is a significant difference between manufacturing and service firms. The study shows that there is a growing interest in the examination of all cost-reducing strategies at the planning stage and adoption of value engineering to incorporate customer requirements rather than focusing on the adoption of cost-cutting strategies at the production stage.     

Towards theory building in agile manufacturing strategies—Case studies of an agility taxonomy

Agility is widely accepted in the manufacturing industry as a new competitive concept. However, how to develop a manufacturing strategy based around agility is not fully understood. A numerical taxonomy of agile manufacturing strategies was developed recently by the author, based on a large scale questionnaire study of UK industry. The taxonomy suggested the existence of three basic types of agility strategies: quick, responsive, and proactive. This paper presents a case-based investigation of the practical details of the three basic types of agility strategies. Typical cases from the basic strategy types were chosen and studied to establish why companies choose each type of the strategies, what distinctive agility drivers they are faced with and why, and whether and what typical action programs are used to implement the strategies. A cross-case analysis found that the choice of agility strategies is related to the nature of markets and competition, the characteristics of products (life cycles and degrees of maturity), and market positions of individual companies.     

Flexibility planning for managing R&D projects under risk

Incorporating managerial flexibility in an innovative R&D project is important, because managers face greater uncertainty in today's competitive and dynamic changing environment. It is essential to bring managerial flexibility into R&D project planning to decrease technical and market risks, while increasing potential market value. The objective of this paper is to develop a flexibility planning methodology based on real option analysis to improve managerial flexibility for R&D projects. The proposed methodology identifies potential risks that may occur during every R&D stage. It also recognizes a cascading option structure to resolve the identified risks, and evaluates and selects adequate options that maximize the potential value of the project. Instead of using a traditional option pricing method, a dynamic programming model that considers multidimensional product performance and market payoff is used to evaluate the R&D project value. Using the proposed methodology, managers can identify future scenarios as a function of their management actions. The proposed flexibility planning methodology can help managers improve managerial flexibility of R&D project and increase the success rate of product launch. A drug development project is used to illustrate the proposed methodology.     

潞安集团构建立体化人才管理运行机制探索

潞安集团围绕企业转型跨越发展目标,实施人才强企战略,着力构建以“1个体系”为核心,“3大原则、3个重点和3支队伍”为内容,“10大人才工程”为支撑的面向转型跨越发展的立体化人才管理运行机制,提升了企业的核心竞争力。     

Service productivity and service quality: A necessary trade-off?

This paper is about service productivity and perceived service quality. Both a high service productivity and a high customer perceived quality are two main drivers of good performances in service companies and they simultaneously occur as a consequence of a synergy of several drivers such as employees' competences and motivation, organizational efficiency, technical devices availability, information technologies employment, etc. In scientific literature a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality is asserted and several cases derived both by market observations and academic research could bear such trade-off out. But, is it possible to state that, under some circumstances, such a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality could be avoided? And if yes, why such certified substitution should not work?In this paper, in order to trace some theoretical answer to the above questions, a managerial model based both on service science and production economics will be proposed. The model aims to find out some key causes that allow to explain the foundations of the mentioned trade-off and the potential conditions for its overcoming; moreover, such model will be employed in order to integrate services' productivity function with new variables and to provide some managerial guidelines for improving service management.     

公允价值会计下上市公司盈余管理探讨

公允价值会计的全面导入实现了我国会计准则与国际财务报告准则的实质性趋同。就公允价值会计在我国上市公司中的应用情况进行了深入研究,发现部分上市公司为避免亏损、ST扭亏、避免退市和平滑利润,通过安排真实交易和会计手段利用公允价值会计进行不当盈余管理,掩盖了其真实价值创造能力,削弱了公允价值会计的决策有用性。针对公允价值会计被用于不当盈余管理的实际情况,提出了改善公允价值会计应用效果的措施和建议。     

Measuring new product success: an empirical investigation of Australian SMEs

New product development (NPD) has long been recognised as one of the corporate core functions. However, measuring new product success has remained elusive. This paper attempts to examine several conceptual issues underlining the measurement of new product success and the measurement practice adopted in Australian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The sample included 276 SMEs from two most innovative industries: chemical and machinery industries. Results have indicated that four factors underline the commonly used success measurement: financial performance, objective market acceptance, subjective market acceptance, and product-level measures. These four factors are related to each other and can be used to well predict the overall measurement. The most frequently used specific measures in Australian SMEs are customer acceptance, customer satisfaction, product performance, and quality.     

基于Web Service的建设项目集成化管理信息系统研究

Web Service是一种基于对象／组件模型的分布式计算机技术，其优势在于跨平台的互操作性和软件复用。在研究了我国建设项目管理信息化现状及存在的问题的基础上，分析了建设项目集成化管理对建设项目管理信息集成系统提出的要求，建立了基于Web Service技术的建设项目集成化管理信息系统的框架模型，并对该模型的具体实现进行了深入地研究。     

企业人力资源外包动因及风险规避策略浅析

企业人力资源管理外包日益受到广泛关注,将企业中"非核心"业务外包给专业的服务商,为企业人力资源管理的科学化、专业化提供了有效途径,而这一外包过程必然会给企业带来一定的风险.文章对企业人力资源外包的动因以及可能会遇到的风险进行了探讨,并提出了基于风险控制的人力资源管理外包策略.     

Understanding the strategies of late-movers in International Manufacturing

This paper analyzes the internationalization of new multinationals from emerging countries. It also focuses on Production's role in firm internationalization, a subject seldom addressed because the discipline of International Manufacturing is still embryonic, while International Business tends to overlook production. The authors integrate International Business and International Manufacturing concepts and frameworks in order to analyze new multinationals from emerging countries, using the empirical evidence of a survey plus case studies of Brazilian multinationals for understanding late-movers’ strategies and competences, with emphasis on production.     

Managerial ties,firm resources,and performance of cluster firms

Previous research has documented the relationship among managerial ties, firm resources, and performance in emerging economies such as China. While managerial ties may be embedded in a particular location, some of these ties may be non-location-bound. Therefore, for firms located within one geographically concentrated cluster, how do managerial ties and firm resources affect performance? Using data from 163 firms in two Chinese clusters, we demonstrate that managerial ties and firm resources—independently and in combination—help firms improve market performance. Results support the view that both network-centered strategies (utilizing managerial ties) and market-centered strategies (leveraging firm resources) are critical determinants of firm performance.