电子商务环境下物流配送中心选址决策与评价方法研究

电子商务环境下的物流配送中心选址涉及到多方面的因素,是一项复杂的系统工程。为此,提出了定量化的启发式算法来初步确定电子商务环境下配送中心选址方案。方案的确定是为了决策,因此依据定量计算和定性分析的结果,采用协调分析方法来科学地决策符合电子商务环境下的最优选址方案。     

工厂布置的模糊综合评价

工厂布置是一个复杂的系统工程,涉及要素繁多,有着不同的目标。引入模糊综合评价法对工厂布置进行评价,能比较有效地衡量工厂布置的合理性问题。     

Facility design consequences of different employees’ quality perceptions

An important challenge for facility management is to integrate the complex and comprehensive construct of different service processes and physical elements of the service facility into a meaningful and functional facility design. The difficulty of this task is clearly indicated by the present study that shows that different employee categories for interpersonal services have quite different perceptions of the facility design that stem from different but coherent needs and interests. Employees with management perspectives (i.e. top managers and facility managers) were significantly more positive about the facility design than frontline employees and their supervisors with providers’ perspectives. Also, providers attributed a more important role to facility design with respect to delivering interpersonal services than management did. We found strong indications for the need for cross-functional cooperation in decision making about the facility design, creating a more balanced setting and possibly empowering providers for the service encounter.     

Tiger Woods,Nike, and I are (not) best friends: how brand's sports sponsorship in social-media impacts brand consumer's congruity and relationship quality

This study examines the effects of brand's sports sponsorship in social media on brand consumer's congruity and brand relationship quality. The study included a survey of targeting consumers whose ages range between early twenties and late forties; data from 322 respondents were collected. The results are as follows. First, brand's sports sponsorship in social-media activities relating to sports brands has significant effects on brand consumer's congruity. Second, this congruity significantly influences brand relationship quality. Third, male consumers, who have previously purchased products and services associated with a sports brand, perceive the sponsor's brand image more positively when they are exposed to the sponsor's brand's sports sponsorship in social-media activities, compared to those consumers having no previous purchases of the sponsored brand. Lastly, consumers in their forties with prior experience consuming the sponsor's brand products are most affected by the level of self-congruity with the sports brand compared to younger or older consumers.     

Global competitive conditions driving the manufacturing location decision

Given today's rapidly shifting global competitive conditions—including customer location, natural disasters, currency valuation, labor and transportation costs and availability—many U.S. companies are revisiting decisions about their preferred manufacturing location(s). The purpose of this research is to understand some of the trends that affect whether U.S.-based companies bring their production back to the United States or relocate it to different geographical locations (reshore). The focus is on the key factors that affect companies’ manufacturing location decisions, the importance of these factors, and how the importance has changed over time. Because of the complexity involved in the manufacturing location decision, key risk factors inherent in the manufacturing decision are also assessed. Survey responses from 319 companies that currently manage offshore manufacturing plants are analyzed. Among other insights, this study found that 40% of these companies perceived a trend toward reshoring to the U.S. in their industries. The companies involved in this study also place an increasing importance on where their customers want them to locate, as well as how the location could help expand into new customer markets. These and further results and implications for U.S. manufacturing companies are presented herein.     

中美纺织品贸易摩擦及美方利益集团分析——基于特定要素模型的解释

近年来,中美贸易摩擦不断升级,而纺织品贸易摩擦一直是碰撞的焦点。然而,根据传统国际贸易理论,美方在中美纺织品贸易中应该会获利,贸易冲突将不会产生。基于这一理论和现实的错位,文章在国际贸易特定要素模型基础之上,通过对模型的修正,描述了各利益集团在贸易中的得失,及在政治中所扮演的角色。研究表明,中美贸易摩擦产生的根本原因在于贸易中美方各利益集团不同的利益,由此中美纺织品贸易摩擦的本质在于中方与美方某一利益集团的冲突和摩擦。     

Non-explicit FOREX intervention: The role of the Central Reserve Bank in a dollarized economy and its effects on expectations from the “peso problem” perspective: The case of Peru

We use the Markov-switching model based on Hamilton (1990) among others. The non-explicit intervention of the Central Reserve Bank changes the expectations of economic agents. This change in expectations clearly shows that the public is aware of non-explicit interventions in a dollarized economy and said interventions have been altering the expectations of economic agents in terms of the foreign exchange market. We conclude that market participants assume that the Central Reserve Bank is more efficient in reducing volatility in periods in which the domestic currency appreciates rather than depreciates. The results show that the Markov-switching model behaves more than satisfactorily in the sample period but less so in periods of extreme volatility such as the recent sub-prime crisis. Central Bank's forex interventions are policy instruments that can be followed and interpreted by the public.     

Risk Attitudes Appraisal and Cognitive Coordination in Decentralized Decision Systems

In decentralized decisions systems, coordination and efficiency encounter major difficulties. To solve the problem, it is argued, the analyst needs to raise a cognitive representation question, in particular the question of the criteria according to which the problem at hand is being assessed in view of the whole organization. This, in turn, raises the issue of how these criteria are evaluated by the different individuals. An example based on a subset of the risk management system, namely the maintenance system in nuclear power plants, is used throughout the text. The paper argues that generalizing MAUT to rank dependent risk treatment is of utmost importance in order to deal with such problems. One additional theorem is proved in that perspective and an appropriate software reported upon and illustrated on an example. Beyond the technical problems examined in the paper, the way to use the decision analysis framework is discussed.     

Coordination in shared facilities: A new methodology

Shared facilities are a good example of the difficulties inherent in coordination problems and the benefits to be derived from creative solutions. Traditional methods employed by engineers and others, because they ignore an important aspect of the problem, can yield solutions that appear successful but which significantly underutilize these facilities. This article is intended to be an introduction to the types of problems that can arise and to a new method for systematically studying these problems. The method is illustrated with the results of a study done for NASA, on the coordination of the use of a Space Station, which produced a new computer‐assisted institution that outperforms existing institutions.     

Decision making under conditions of conflict

A real-world application is employed to explain three general types of decision situations that can arise under conditions of conflict. In addition, meaningful connections and relationships among these areas of decision making are clearly pointed out. To permit useful decision technologies to be employed by practitioners for better understanding and for resolving a variety of actual decision problems, a range of flexible decision support systems is discussed. Subsequently, interesting research developments contained in the upcoming sequence of 12 articles on decision making under conflict are summarized and compared. The research articles not only present unique approaches to decision making involving multiple participants, each of whom may have multiple objectives, but suggest a variety of challenging research problems to be investigated in the future.     

Interfirm Arrangements in Different Institutional Environments

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the effect of the institutional environment variables on the organizational choice by franchise chains that share a business format. Inasmuch as this type of franchising requires strict standardization, a comparative analysis of the same franchise chain operating in different institutional environments allows for the control of several variables, such as product and firm strategies, so that the observed organizational differences may be attributed to institutional variables. Different rules of the game may explain different governance structures in the transaction between franchisor and franchisees and their procurement contracts. In this paper, we did case studies based on semi-structured interviews with procurement and franchising managers of McDonald's in France and Brazil. The main finding is that McDonald's uses in Brazil governance structures that provide more control on transactions, both in the transactions with their outlets and their suppliers. In accordance with our results, institutional environment features explains differences in the organizational choice in each country. Results suggest the need for further research in two directions: a larger sample of countries and the investigation of other franchise chains.     

Firm size and growth in Sweden's life insurance market between 1855 and 1947: A test of Gibrat's law

Using data for the period from 1855 to 1947 and the two sub-periods, 1855–1902 and 1903–47, the article examines whether the organic growth rates of 38 Swedish life insurance firms are independent of size, as predicted by Gibrat's (1931) Law of Proportionate Effects. Using panel unit root tests and panel Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) regression, the article finds a significant difference between the growth rates of small and large Swedish life insurance firms (with smaller firms tending to grow faster than larger firms), a result that clearly contradicts Gibrat's Law as a long-run tendency in the Swedish life insurance sector. significant influences were also found on firm growth from profitability, organisational form, reinsurance, the real rate of interest and the Swedish regulatory environment.