A Measure of Distributive Justice in Distribution Channels: Scale Development and Validation

ABSTRACT

The construct of distributive justice has been conceptualized largely along the three allocation rules of equity, equality, and need. Extant empirical research in the marketing channels area, however, treats distributive justice as a unidimensional, global construct focusing almost exclusively on the allocation rule of equity. As a result, the measurement of equality and need, two distinct and significant allocation rules, has been largely overlooked in the context of people and organizations involved in interorganizational exchange. The current study tests a measure of distributive justice that takes into account each of the three allocation rules. Results indicate valid scales that accurately measure three rules of distributive justice across two independent samples of channel participants in franchise systems. This research represents an important step toward accurately, concisely, and efficiently measuring this important and socially relevant construct in an interorganizational setting.     

A Cross-Regional Exploration of Barriers to the Adoption and Use of Electronic Meeting Systems

Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) are intended to support group collaboration in completing tasks. While there have been many case studies and laboratory experiments on how EMS can support group tasks, large scale macro investigations exploring EMS adoption and use have been practically non-existent. Furthermore, while several barriers to EMS adoption and use have been suggested, their validation across organizations remains unexplored. We undertook a global initiative to explore information technology support for task-oriented collaboration in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and Norway. In this paper, we focus specifically on assessing the adoption and use of EMS, and barriers to their adoption and use in organizations across the four regions. Our results suggest that EMS currently have limited adoption and are used infrequently across all the four regions. A further investigation into barriers to EMS adoption and use suggests that significant numbers of respondents do agree with a list of fourteen suggested barriers. However, while there is significant agreement between two countries (US & Australia) over how these barriers are ranked, there is no significant agreement between the remaining pairs of countries. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers.     

Factors Affecting the Offshore Deployment of Interorganizational Systems in China: A Case Study Analysis

ABSTRACT

Because of the significant market potential in China, many international enterprises are moving their production line to China. Accompanying production offshoring is the shifting of information systems to ensure that the production processes remain efficient and effective both at home and abroad. However, many enterprises encounter problems while deploying offshore information systems in China, especially when the systems are interorganizational systems (IOS) that span organizational boundaries and involve the management of relationships among participants. Therefore, this paper aims to identify critical success factors of offshore interorganizational systems in China through a case study of a supply chain relationship based on an e-procurement system between a Taiwanese personal computer manufacturer and its Chinese partners. Although this system had been well used by Taiwanese users, the performance of this system in China was relatively unsatisfactory in terms of grant complaints from Chinese users. Based on the relational view of the firm, four IOS-specific relational factors are proposed and examined: (1) IOS-specific assets, (2) IOS knowledge-sharing routines, (3) system complementarity, and (4) IOS governance. The case analysis reveals that effective IOS governance most strongly affects the results of offshoring in China, whereas system complementarity has the least influence.     

A Note on the Use of Survey Research Firms to Enable Empirical Data Collection

This forward thinking article examines the risks and rewards of using survey research firms to enable empirical data collection, and issues a cautionary note about its application. An exposition and discussion of this form of data collection in supply chain management is relevant today, due to the “survey‐fatigue” among the population of business professionals from whom we seek a response. While this approach has some history in other disciplines, it is still relatively new among supply chain management researchers. To help supply chain management scholars assess the appropriateness of this type of data collection method, this forward thinking article provides invaluable guidance as derived from the authors' recent experiences with the approach. As such, we share our observations and lessons learned. The conclusion is that the use of survey research firms for empirical data collection can be a viable, alternative approach to self‐administered surveys. However, care should be taken in its application.     

Effect of the Number of Banking Relationships on Credit Availability: Evidence from Panel Data of Spanish Small Firms

This paper investigates how the choice between single or multiple banking relationships affects credit availability for a complete panel of small and medium-sized Spanish firms. The results seem to indicate the existence of rationing, since a substitution relation has been found between trade and bank credit. We also analyse the relationship between the level of indebtedness and the interest rate for each group of firms. The results show that those SMEs that work with fewer financial intermediaries obtain fewer funds for the same increase in the interest rate, which indicates that these companies have more financial restraints.     

Dynamic supernetworks for the integration of social networks and supply chains with electronic commerce: modeling and analysis of buyer–seller relationships with computations

In this paper, we develop a dynamic supernetwork framework for the modeling and analysis of supply chains with electronic commerce that also includes the role that relationships play. Manufacturers are assumed to produce a homogeneous product and to sell it either through physical or electronic links to retailers and/or directly to consumers through electronic links. Retailers, in turn, can sell the product through physical links to consumers. Increasing relationship levels in our framework are assumed to reduce transaction costs as well as risk and to have some additional value for both sellers and buyers. Establishing those relationship levels incurs some costs that have to be borne by the decision-makers in the supernetwork, which is multilevel in structure and consists of the supply chain and the social network. The decision-makers, who are located at distinct tiers in the supernetwork, try to optimize their objective functions and are faced with multiple criteria including relationship-related ones and weight them according to their preferences. We establish the optimality conditions for the manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, derive the equilibrium conditions, and provide the variational inequality formulation. We then present the projected dynamical system, which describes the disequilibrium dynamics of the product transactions, relationship levels, and prices on the supernetwork, and whose set of stationary points coincides with the set of solutions of the variational inequality problem. We also illustrate the dynamic supernetwork model through several numerical examples, for which the explicit equilibrium patterns are computed.     

A Tale of Two Cities: Case Studies of Group Support Systems Transition

Research shows that, under certain circumstances, people using GSS can be substantially more productive than people who do not. However GSS has been slow to transition into the workplace. This paper argues that the Technology Transition Model (TTM) may be a useful way to explain this seeming paradox. The paper presents a case study of GSS transition in two organizations – one where a self-sustaining and growing community of users emerged, and one where it did not. Following TTM, it explores the frequency with which users perceived cognitive, economic, affective, political, social, and physical value from using the system. Comparison of the cases reveals differences in perceptions of value along several of these dimensions that are consistent with TTM. The findings suggest the model may be a useful way to explain the transition of collaboration technology, but more research will be required to test the model more rigorously.     

The Effects of Media and Task on User Performance: A Test of the Task-Media Fit Hypothesis

This research was designed to examine the task-media fit hypothesis, an extension to media richness theory that predicts the objective performance of various media for a number of task types. To examine this model, dyads communicating through face-to-face, videophone, telephone (i.e., audio-only communication), or synchronous computer-mediated communication worked in a laboratory experiment to address an intellective or negotiation task. The intellective task required that each dyad member effectively share factual information that each individual independently held. The negotiation task required that each dyad member effectively share preferences based on personal values and reach an agreement. The results of the study provide mixed support for the task-media fit hypothesis. In general, the results for the negotiation task largely supported the theory while the results for the intellective task did not support the theory. These results help to clarify limitations and provide extensions to the theory by demonstrating how variations in task processes and communication media act to mediate task performance. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.