The influence of variability and strategy of service supply chains on performance

This paper aims to empirically examine how customer-induced variability, process variability, supply chain strategy, and business performance interrelate in a service firm context. Quantitative data were collected via a questionnaire-based survey. A total of 376 organizations responded and 313 responses were usable. This represents an adjusted response rate of 10.43 %. The survey results were analyzed by factor analysis, ANOVA, and regression models. The results provided the basis for testing the proposed model. They indicated a positive association between customer-induced variability and process variability. Since firms have different levels of variability, each firm will have a different strategic focus. The emphasis of that strategy will, in turn, result in greater flexibility and customer satisfaction. More specifically, firms with high and low levels of variabilities are suggested to focus on the cost- and flexibility-oriented strategies, respectively.     

The Russian Tax System and Its International Competitiveness

The last several years were very favourable to the development of the Russian economy. While this has partly been the consequence of favourable conditions on the international markets for raw materials, the economic policy of President Vladimir Putin, including the tax reforms initiated at the end of the 1990s, also played a major role. Our authors examine in detail the effects of the tax reforms to date and point out the room for further improvements under Putin’s successor, Medvedev.     

Simple and Painless? The Limitations of Spillover in Environmental Campaigning

The comfortable perception that global environmental challenges can be met through marginal lifestyle changes no longer bears scrutiny. The cumulative impact of large numbers of individuals making marginal improvements in their environmental impact will be a marginal collective improvement in environmental impact. Yet, we live at a time when we need urgent and ambitious changes. An appeal to environmental imperatives is more likely to lead to spillover into other pro-environmental behaviours than an appeal to financial self-interest or social status.

Sequential Mergers and Antitrust Authority’s Decisions in Stackelberg Markets

This paper analyses a sequential merger formation game in a setting where: (i) firms compete à la Stackelberg; (ii) mergers may give rise to endogenous efficiency gains; and (iii) every merger has to be submitted for approval to the Antitrust Authority (AA). Two different types of AA are studied: first, we assume a myopic AA, which accepts or rejects a given merger without considering that this merger may be followed by other mergers; and, second, a forward looking AA, which anticipates the final industry structure a merger will give rise to, if approved. We conclude that these two types of AA adopt similar decisions whenever a merger would not trigger the exit of outsider firms. Their decisions are, however, shown to be very different when evaluating exit-inducing merger proposals.     

Effects of Family Socialization in the Organizational Commitment of the Family Firms from the Moral Economy Perspective

South Korean industrial conglomerates (chaebols) are discussed in the context of value-based management (VBM). Recent economics and finance literature on the diversion of corporate resources from the firm to the controlling shareholders (tunneling), for which chaebols are notoriously known, is discussed. Chaebols have engaged in empire building and expropriation of minority shareholders, distorting the process of efficient resource allocation in South Korea, and became the root cause of the 1997 financial crisis. We argue that the 1997 crisis should be viewed as a consequence of chaebols’ systematic deviation from the guiding principles of VBM. We use tunneling within chaebols as an example of the need to directly address prohibition of the expropriation of minority shareholders as a primary postulate of VBM. We argue that VBM should require that the value generated by the firm not be expropriated from minorities, or any stakeholders, by dominant shareholders. We also examine moral and ethical considerations and present explanations as to why the unethical practice of tunneling has been tolerated by the South Korean public. We show that public opinion on tunneling is changing and that the treatment of minority shareholders by chaebols’ controlling families is becoming increasingly unacceptable to South Koreans.     

Pricing multi-class network services using the Shapley Value

This paper investigates pricing issues in class-based networks. Classes of packets having lower impatience and longer average delay receive monetary compensations. The inter-class price differential is determined by the inter-class compensations. The paper also presents rules for allocating network resource to each class. The corresponding payoff (disutility share) for each class is driven by the Shapley Value of the associated cooperative game.     

Early Experiences of the Enforcement of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in Scotland

This exploratory study examines the early impact of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC on enforcers in Scotland within the context of current policy developments regarding the use of civil and criminal enforcement mechanisms within the UK. The Directive has been implemented in the UK by means of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 SI 1277 and the duty to enforce the Regulations falls primarily to local authority trading standards services. Twenty-one in-depth interviews were conducted with a range of officers employed within the trading standards service based in eight local authorities in Scotland on their perceptions of the new Regulations. The main findings were that officers’ views of the new Regulations and the civil and criminal enforcement routes available to them was affected by structural, operational, and cultural issues which varied from one authority to another. A number of officers were finding the Regulations a challenge to old ways and there was evidence that many felt unprepared for the Regulations. A number of positive views were expressed regarding the flexibility of the new Regulations and the advantages of the provisions relating to misleading omissions. Overall officers’ experiences of the Regulations were heavily influenced by the complaints received by their particular local authority service.