The impact of buyer-supplier relationship quality and information management on industrial vending machine benefits in the healthcare industry

Despite the calls for a deeper understanding of SCM in the healthcare industry, theoretical research focused on healthcare buyer-supplier collaboration, specifically inventory management issues, remains nascent and fragmented. Although slow to change, healthcare organizations have begun to consider alternative inventory management systems to improve inventory control and patient care. Industrial vending machines (IVM) can help healthcare organizations address inventory management issues. Grounded in transaction cost economics and contingency theory, this research develops and empirically tests a model that highlights the critical role of information management in the link between buyer-supplier relationship quality and performance outcomes within the context of IVM implementation and use in the healthcare industry. Based on survey data from healthcare managers, results indicate that both information management and relationship quality are tied to a series of benefits in the context of collaborative buyer-supplier IVM agreements.     

Ethical Decision Making: Are Men and Women Treated Differently?

This exploratory study finds that ethical choices made by decision makers are influenced by a social factor, the gender of other individuals affected by the decisions. In contrast to Schminke's (1997) study this investigation focuses on ethical decision making and finds that both men and women are more often charitable to women participants in most situations, although this effect appears to be greater for men. This study contributes to extant literature on ethical decision making by identifying participant gender (gender) as a critical influence on ethical choices. Respondent sex (sex) effects are also found in some situations. In response to Robertson's (1993) call, several methodological improvements on past studies are made, and behavioral intentions as indicants of future ethical behaviors, rather than ethical attitudes, are employed. Managerial implications are drawn and suggestions for future research are made.     

Factors Influencing a Manager's Decision to Discipline Employees for Refusal to Work with an HIV/AIDS Infected Coworker

This research investigates the influence of gender, fear of AIDS, and the likelihood that a manager will share AIDS-related health information about an HIV/AIDS infected coworker with subordinates on a manager's decision to discipline an employee for refusing to work with the HIV/AIDS infected coworker. Data was obtained using questionnaires administered to 194 managers employed in service, manufacturing, and government organizations. Both fear of AIDS and sharing AIDS-related health information exhibited a significant unique negative relationship with the decision to discipline. No significant unique relationship was found between gender and the decision to discipline. However, gender was found to moderate the relationship between fear of AIDS and the decision to discipline. There was a significant negative relationship between fear of AIDS and the decision to discipline among male but not among female managers. Study findings, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Willingness to pay for environmental goods in Norway: A contingent valuation study with real payment

The study seeks to determine the maximum willingness to pay (MWTP) among a random sample of Norwegians, for membership in the largest environmentalist association in Norway, Norges Naturvernforbund (NNV). The study includes three stages: (1) a contingent valuation study, testing hypothetical MWTP; (2) those whose stated MWTP is at or above the current membership fee are then asked to pay this fee; (3) those individuals who do not pay in stage 2 are interviewed, and asked to consider revising their MWTP statement. The study is seemingly the first of its kind in comparing hypothetical and actual MWTP by typing valuation of a public good (the environment) to the value of a private good (membership of the NNV). The results show a rather poor correspondence between hypothetical and actual MWTP, since only 6 out of 64 who stated that they were willing to pay the membership fee in stage 1, actually paid this voluntarily in stage 2. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed, on the basis of data from the telephone interview in stage 3, and on information gathered in stage 1. The data indicate that a substantial part of this discrepancy is due to MWTP being overstated in stage 1, but that other reasons also are important.     

Tax distortions, household production, and black-market work

This paper studies an economy with high- and low-productivity households. Household services are produced either by households themselves or are purchased in a white or black market. Black market work is inefficient (efficient) when it otherwise would have been done in the white market (within the household). With low (high) tax wedges, the black market reduces (increases) welfare by competing with white-market production (own-household production). With intermediate tax wedges, the welfare effect of a black market is ambiguous: welfare is improved (reduced) when black services are demanded by low- (high-) productivity households. An increase in the tax wedge may then reduce the benefits from a black service market.     

State monopolies and alcoholic beverage consumption

Fifteen states have state monopolies to regulate the retail distribution of distilled spirits or wine. One objective of state ownership is the reduction of consumption. However, previous research supports both no effect and a negative effect of state monopoly (control) states on consumption.Using improved data on prices, this paper provides a mixture of classical and Bayesian estimates of beverage-specific demand functions. The analysis is carried out at the state level for the year 1982. Independent variables include the real own-price, substitute prices, income, tourism activity, religious sentiment, youth proxy, and several regulatory measures including monopoly control, bans on price advertising, minimum legal drinking age, and restrictions on the number and type of retail outlets.The results indicate no direct effect of monopoly control on consumption that is separate from effects manifested by higher prices or, for beer, limited outlets. Furthermore, average prices are not significantly greater in the monopoly states. Several possible explanations are advanced to explain these results, including the likelihood that the higher transaction costs in the monopoly states are a tax on consumption of alcohol.     

Lies,Damn Lies,and Statistics: Why a Widely Used Sustainability Metric Fails and How to Improve It

Most of the world's major corporations now publicly report their sustainability performance for a number of key parameters, such as water use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and waste generated. The metrics most often used to track progress are “total inventory” (for example, the total liters of water used, or the total tons of GHGs emitted) and average intensity (total liters of water used per ton of product or per $1 million revenue). Because average intensity is normalized for the company's level of business activity, it is commonly presented and viewed as a measure of the company's actual year‐to‐year efficiency. But average intensity is often not a reliable measure of a company's true performance in sustainability. An improvement in efficiency requires a company to consume fewer resources or generate less waste in delivering a specified unit measure of goods or services. This article demonstrates that, although efficiency directly contributes to average intensity, the measure is influenced by a number of confounding factors that make the change in average intensity a potentially misleading indicator of improvements in efficiency. The authors present a more reliable measure of changes in efficiency—one that is likely to benefit corporate managements as well as users of sustainability data—that makes use of flexible budgeting techniques. Examples are provided that illustrate Bacardi Limited's application of the sustainability efficiency metric for external sustainability reporting.