Threats to the Validity of Logistics and Supply Chain Management Research

To increase the relevance of logistics and supply chain academic research, this paper recommends the development and testing of middle‐range theory and practice‐level theory. Yet, there are a number of research issues that arise when academic researchers test middle‐range and practice‐level theory, both in measuring constructs and in testing theoretical relationships between constructs. Concerning the measurement of constructs, this paper recommends that academic researchers pay more attention to content validity and undertake rigorous processes to ensure content validity. In addition, academic researchers need to more explicitly define constructs as either reflective or formative. If the construct is defined as formative, then the traditional statistical approaches to validate these measurement scales are not recommended. The appropriate use of employing single‐item measures for concrete constructs is discussed. In regard to conducting hypothesis tests, research issues associated with multicollinearity and omitted variable bias are discussed. Relative weight analysis is ideal for testing theoretical models and research hypotheses when survey data are obtained, multicollinearity is present, and there are a large number of independent variables predicting a dependent variable. Thus, relative weight analysis is ideal for testing research hypotheses in logistics and supply chain management.     

Bank market power and the intensity of borrower discouragement: analysis of SMEs across developed and developing European countries

Small Business Economics - This paper analyzes the effect of bank market power on the financial constraints of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the study of borrower...     

Prediction based on entrepreneurship-prone personality profiles: sometimes worse than the toss of a coin

Small Business Economics - The human personality predicts a wide range of activities and occupational choices—from musical sophistication to entrepreneurial careers. However, which method...     

The evolution of world trade from 1995 to 2014: A network approach

This paper employs network analysis to study world trade from 1995 to 2014. We focus on the main connective features of the world trade network (WTN) and their dynamics. Results suggest that countries’ efforts to attain the benefits of trade have resulted in an intertwined network that is increasingly dense, reciprocal, and clustered. However, these features do not correspond to a linear aggregation of the characteristics of its constituents (trade sectors). Trade linkages are distributed homogeneously among countries, but their intensity (i.e. their value) is highly concentrated in a small set of countries. The main connective features of the WTN were not affected by the 2007–2008 international financial crisis. However, we find that the crisis marks a turning point in the evolution of the WTN from a two-group (led by the US and Germany) to a three-group (led by the US, Germany, and China) hierarchical structure.     

VERTICAL CONTRACTING WHEN COMPETITION FOR ORDERS PRECEDES PROCUREMENT*

This paper reverses the standard order between input supply negotiations and downstream competition and assumes that competition for orders takes place prior to procurement of inputs in a vertical chain. It is found that oligopolistically competitive outcomes will result despite the presence of an upstream monopolist. Here, vertical integration is a means by which the monopolist can leverage its market power downstream to the detriment of consumers. However, it does so, not by foreclosing on independent downstream firms, but by softening the competitive behaviour of its own integrated units.     

War and economy. Rediscovering the eighteenth-century military entrepreneur

Abstract

The detrimental effects traditionally assigned to warfare in the development of pre-industrial economies have obscured the prominent role that military entrepreneurs played in economic development in this period. Historiography minimises the extent to which war and the concomitant strengthening of the central state provided a whole new range of opportunities for capital investment, a tendency that has been strengthened by the paradigm of Redlich’s ‘decline of the soldier-entrepreneur’ and the technological determinism of the debate on the Military Revolution among others. The aim of this introduction is to look into the background of this relative lack of interest and to reaffirm the mutual dependence of eighteenth-century state-formation and the business of war.     

Framing Sustainable Consumption in Different Ways: Policy Lessons from Two Participatory Systems Mapping Exercises in Hungary

Sustainable consumption as a complex phenomenon at the boundaries of different (ecological, economic, social) systems requires theoretical approaches that do justice to its complex causality and dynamism. Participatory systems mapping offers a tool to achieve this purpose. Its policy relevance lies in its ability to include diverse views, multiple actors, and offer options for policy intervention. The research reported here applied participatory systems mapping in order to define and identify system boundaries for sustainable consumption and uncover perceived causal relationships among the determining factors of sustainable consumption. By revealing the mental models of an expert and a conscious consumer panel on sustainable consumption in general, we can shed light on the cognitive constructions of sustainable consumption and identify most important boundaries that were chosen and their implications on policy-making. The expert panel framed the boundaries as lack of sustainable consumption, while the conscious consumer panel employed a positive framing as strong communities in sustainable consumption. The two panels also differed in their focus on scale: Experts targeted the national scale, while conscious consumers concentrated at the local scale.     

Determinants of Fair Trade Product Purchase Intention of Dutch Consumers According to the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour

The study reported in this paper investigated the determinants of fair trade (FT) product purchase intention among Dutch consumers according to the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour and determined whether the effects of those determinants differ between male and female consumers. To test the various research hypotheses, an online survey with 499 respondents from a Dutch research panel was employed. Results of the multi-group analysis using a structural equation modelling approach reveal that FT product purchase intention of both male and female consumers are predicated on moral obligation and self-identity. The impact of subjective norm on purchase intention is statistically significant for male consumers only. Analyses reveal that, indeed, the impact of subjective norm on FT product purchase intention is moderated by consumers’ gender.     

Understanding hospital quality: the case of cumulative and balanced quality

A more precise way to conceptualize and operationalize hospital quality is needed to increase hospitals’ productivity. This paper investigates how hospitals’ conformance quality (CQ) and experiential quality (EQ), in terms of their combined magnitude (i.e. their interaction) and relative balance (i.e. the absolute difference between them) impact hospital productivity. First, we explore the impact of both the ‘combined dimension of quality’ and ‘balance dimension of quality’ on hospital productivity. Second, we investigate quality dominance to analyze its impact on productivity when CQ is greater than EQ, and vice versa. Secondary data (January 2015 to December 2015) were collected from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and American Hospital Directory (AHD) for US acute care hospitals. The results provide strong empirical support for the benefit of minimizing the gap between the two types of quality. In addition, the results suggest that considering quality dominance (experiential vs. conformance) might be useful in shedding light on the inherent tension that exists when firms are forced to allocate resources to provide different types of quality simultaneously.     

Should Cookie Monster adopt a healthy lifestyle or continue to indulge? Insights into brand icons

Developing a brand icon has been a way for marketers to humanize and forge relationships with consumers. Icon development takes time. During this time, marketers have to face how much they stay true and consistent with their icons and how much they allow their icons to adapt to cultural changes in the marketplace. Little is known about how consumers respond to changing icons, and even less is known about whether there may be certain consumer groups that are more or less receptive to such changes. Four experiments and qualitative interviews were undertaken to gain insights into these issues. People who have a low need to belong were most impacted by changes in the icon, with effects most evident among consumers with a fearful attachment style. Feelings of rejection were found to amplify these effects. These findings have implications both for theory and practice.