PLANNING MULTIPLE LOCATION INVENTORIES

Supplying customer demand from comparable alternate inventory locations when an item is out of stock at its primary stocking point creates a virtual inventory for that item. The expectation is that if more inventories can be drawn upon, the inventory for an item would be lower, the fill rate would be higher, or both. While generally true that safety stocks will be lower, regular stocks, on the other hand, may rise with such cross filling of demand. In this study, a methodology is developed that balances the cross filling effects on both regular and safety stocks for determining whether an inventoried item should be cross‐filled. An example and guidelines are given to show how the methodology can be simplified and applied in practice.     

RELATIONSHIP MAGNITUDE AND ITS ROLE IN INTERORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIP STRUCTURE

Close relationships between and among supply chain members are becoming more prevalent. However, there is lack of agreement in the literature and in practice concerning the characteristics of different interorganizational relationships. The resultant confusion is an obstacle to the progression of research and could cause problems among firms in a supply chain. Based on previous research and an exploratory study conducted with company executives responsible for supply chain management activities, this article seeks to introduce the concept of relationship magnitude (i.e., the extent or degree of closeness or strength of the relationship) and differentiate it from relationship type (i.e., classes of relationships that share common traits). Implications for managers and opportunities for future research are provided.     

Changing Risk Premia: Evidence from a Small Open Economy

Little is known about the differences in the relation between risk and return in large economies such as the U.S. compared with smaller, less studied, markets. In this paper, Sweden serves as a representative for small open economies. The price of risk on the Swedish stock market is estimated using a conditional asset pricing model that allows for time variation in the risk. Four different GARCH-M models are used in the econometric specification. The estimates of the price of risk are invariably positive and significant, and we conclude that there exists a time-varying risk premium in the Swedish stock market. Our results show that there are small differences in the preferences towards risk of representative investors in small and large economies.     

Information Disclosure to Employees and Rational Expectations: a Game-Theoretical Perspective: a Comment

In this comment we identify the key features of the Frantz and Walker (1997) game theoretic model that drive the non-disclosure equilibrium result in their paper. We argue that, although technically correct, their model fails to capture certain aspects of real-world wage bargaining that will be important in determining optimal disclosure strategies in practice. However, Frantz and Walker's paper illustrates the potential of analytical techniques to contribute to the employee disclosure debate.     

家乐福:为全球零售商上课

家乐福集团在中国开设的大型超市就像零售业中的一个"海峡"--从东方和从西方卷来的大浪交织在一起:东方--在超市一边的货架上,可以看到大量鲜活的鱼、虾、牛蛙甚至甲鱼;西方--在另一边不远的冷藏柜里,又能看到真空包装的烟熏咸肉和意大利腊肠.这个来自法国的超级零售商运用现代的模式,结合当地人的口味,在中国经营着他们的零售帝国.