Relational and Process Multiplexity in Vertical Supply Chain Triads: An Exploration in the U.S. Restaurant Industry

Both supply chain relationships and process connections between organizational units have been studied in business research, to enhance the understanding of supply chain integration, and to explore the differential outcomes of both types of connections for business and functional performance. However, the extant research remains deficient in two ways: within individual studies, researchers have operationalized supply chain connectivity unidimensionally, with the concept of connectivity constrained to either social relations or operational/process ties while disregarding the other viewpoint. Additionally, researchers have persistently designed studies to evaluate dyadic structures, while foregoing the larger, more intricate structures representative of complex supply chains. We address these issues by modeling supply chain connectivity as having multiple relational‐ and process‐based threads comprising linkages, and by empirically testing a set of theorized relationships describing vertical triadic supply chain networks (manufacturer, broker, retailer) within the U.S. restaurant industry. We find that increased supply chain connectivity improves chain performance, but this improvement is more directly attributable to process‐based linkages than relational linkages, which impact performance only through the process mediator variable, suggesting that current theories of interorganizational relationalism may lack complete conceptualization. Implications of these findings for managers and the academy are highlighted, and areas of follow‐on research are discussed.     

Naturalizing bodies and places: Tourism Media Campaigns and Heterosexualities in Costa Rica and New Zealand

Drawing on feminist, queer and poststructuralist theories of sexuality this article contributes to the field of tourism branding. Research findings on tourism media campaigns-New Zealand’s ‘100% Pure campaign’, and Costa Rica’s ‘No Artificial Ingredients’—illustrate how places and bodies are co-constructed and heterosexualized. We argue that both campaigns employ familiar landscape tropes of ‘nature’, ‘pureness’, ‘wilderness’, and ‘escape’, which discursively construct places and bodies as ‘natural’, ‘exotic’, and ‘romantic’. We draw on ethnographic and interview data to consider the lived experiences of these discourses for tourists and tourism businesses. By paying attention to the sexualized representations made and remade through tourism media campaigns the article challenges hegemonic conceptualizations of sexualities and offers an exciting future research agenda for tourism studies.     

Did Office Market Size Matter in the 1980s? A Time-Series Cross-Sectional Analysis of Metropolitan Area Office Markets

Recent contributions to the literature have resulted in a standard modelling of office markets. The models provide considerable insight into the working of office markets. • Nonetheless, a major difficulty is the use of data for a single city or aggregate data for the U.S. The latter implicitly assumes that model structure is invariant across cities. In this article we test for structural differences in office markets by size class. Rental data from REIS Reports for twenty-one metropolitan areas for the time period 1981 to 1990 are used to model office market behavior. Results suggest market outcomes vary by city size, larger markets are better modelled using standard procedures, and Manhattan behaves quite differently from the other markets.     

Succession Planning in Small Accounting Practices in Regional Far North Queensland

The importance of succession planning, particularly in small and medium accounting practices, continues to become increasingly important with the impending retirement of the ‘baby boomer’ generation. Planning for succession and retirement within a small practice is even more critical in rural, regional and remote areas where staff recruitment and retention is already an issue. This study provides insight into the views of principals of small accounting practices toward succession planning within a regional area of Australia. Applying Sambrook's model of succession, findings reveal that formal succession planning is no longer considered possible by these principals given the perception of generational differences and a change in employment and workplace expectations within the small accounting practice environment.     

Communication about a communication technology

As genetically modified (GM) products approach the market stage, the UK government and agro-food industry have faced a suspicious or hostile public. Since 1998 many retail chains have undertaken to exclude any GM-derived ingredients from their own-brand lines. This commercial blockage has intensified pressures for greater precaution, even for a moratorium on cultivating GM crops. Political protest has led to strategies for precautionary commercialization. Government and industry have cooperated to plan a ‘managed development’ of GM crops. Across the agricultural supply chain, industry has devised voluntary guidelines to ensure segregation of GM crops and to limit the spread of GM herbicide-tolerance. In particular UK regulators seek to test the risk that broad-spectrum herbicide sprays could damage wildlife habitats; they have broadened the advisory expertise accordingly. These measures open up the precautionary content to further debate, at both national and EU levels. Market-stage precautions establish a means to test claims that GM crops are environmentally-friendly products. By translating public concerns into broader risk-assessment criteria, the UK procedure involves critics in potentially influencing standards of scientific evidence and environmental harm. This social process has become a prerequisite for legitimizing commercial use.     

Public perception of scientific uncertainty in relation to food hazards

The research reported here aims to understand how people react to statements expressing risk uncertainty information in the context of a commonly experienced potential hazard, food related risks. Public perception of seriousness of risk for themselves, and for other people was examined for different types of uncertainty, for each of five different food hazards. The results indicated that participants responded to the different types of uncertainty in a uniform way, suggesting that perception of risk associated with uncertainty is not affected by the 'type' of uncertainty. The results further indicated that the seriousness of risk, in the presence of statements of uncertainty, was perceived to be greater for pesticides and genetic modification compared to BSE, high fat diets and Salmonella . It was argued that this could be due to the perceptions of low personal control, and high societal responsibility to protect people and societal control over exposure to the potential risks of pesticides and genetic modification. Under circumstances where people feel they have little personal control over their exposure to a particular hazard, and those social institutions that are perceived to be in control of protecting the public indicate that there is uncertainty associated with risk estimates, the hazard may appear to be 'out of control', which is associated with a perception of serious risk.     

The auditor’s strategy selection for negotiation with management: Flexibility of initial accounting position and nature of the relationship

The audit partner is usually the first mover in a negotiation with client management and has an intended strategy set going into such a negotiation. Negotiation strategies that make up the set may be integrative (both parties can gain or at least not lose) and distributive (there is a winner and a loser). We focus on five strategies: two integrative (expanding the agenda or problem solving) and three distributive (contending, conceding or compromising) and measure the audit partner’s intent to use these strategies’ associated tactics. We report the results of an audit negotiation experiment in which 140 highly experienced audit partners planned a negotiation in response to a case scenario that incorporated two key theoretical variables: the flexibility of the client initial accounting position and the nature of the prior relationship between the auditor and client management. In addition to intended tactics, we also examine these two variables’ effects on commitment to the goal of reducing net income. Our results indicate that in contrast to findings in the generic negotiation literature that show negotiators have a preference for distributive tactics and have difficulty employing integrative ones, our audit partners generally favored the use of integrative tactics over distributive ones when entering negotiations, irrespective of circumstance. However, the two theorized variables led to particular strategic choices when distributive tactics were intended; for example, when the audit partner perceived he or she was facing a client management that was inflexible in its initial accounting position, the partner was more likely to use contending tactics and less likely to use conceding and compromising tactics. Finally, we discuss implications of these results for practice and research.     

Roles, role performance, and radical innovation competences

Despite the importance of radical innovations (RI), few firms have the capability to develop such innovations internally; success is increasingly linked with relationships and networks. However, the way(s) in which relationships and networks support RI is less clear. Successfully launching RIs requires the development of four distinctive competences; discovery, incubation, acceleration and commercialization. This paper examines how networks support the development of RIs, focusing on when and how network partners become involved and how their role performances support the development of the four competences. The study context is the automotive industry, which is heavily dependent upon RI and complex interrelationships. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with network participants involved in developing several RIs. Five task-oriented and three network-oriented roles are uncovered and the performance of these roles supports the development of different competences, with some roles being exclusively connected with particular competences and others supporting several competences. Focusing on role performance offers a useful means for distinguishing between acontextual actors, and the activities and resources they bring. In doing so, the paper enhances understanding of the links between network participants, role performances and the development of RI competences, and identifies a number of important implications for theory and practice.