WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS EMPLOYEES: LINKING PERSON‐ORGANIZATION FIT,JOB SATISFACTION,AND COPING RESPONSES

Employee turnover in the warehousing industry has historically been extremely high. The current research proposes that one of the keys to maximizing employee retention is focusing on good person‐organization fit. The research examines the relationships between person‐organization fit, job satisfaction, and coping behaviors (escape and control behaviors) within a sample of 667 warehouse operations employees.     

SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS INTEGRATION: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The current study was undertaken to further understanding of supply chain process integration. It is suggested that supply chain integration, the practice of realigning firms' operating structures, should be understood from an internal‐external perspective and a process view. Drawing upon four theories—Strategy‐Structure‐Performance framework, the resource based view of the firm, transaction cost economics, and social network analysis—and combining industry inputs, a theoretical framework of supply chain process integration is developed. It is argued that a firm's strategic priorities are key factors of supply chain process integration. Superior performance is likely to be achieved when necessary supply chain capabilities are developed through supply chain process integration.     

MANAGING LOGISTICS OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIPS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION IN CHINA

While many companies outsource their logistics functions, creating a collaborative relationship with third‐party logistics service providers remains a challenge. The current study explores the effects of often overlooked human factors in this context. Data on buyer perspectives were collected in China. The analysis results suggest that buying firm's top management championship, supplier firm's designated employees, and the buyer‐seller personal relationships (i.e. Guanxi) at different levels, all have significant impacts on inter‐firm collaboration, which in turn enhances the buying firm's logistics performance.     

The quality of service desired by public transport users

This article describes the methodology used to study the quality of service desired by users of a public transport system. The desired quality is different from the perceived quality because it does not represent the daily experiences of the users, but rather what they desire, hope for or expect from their public transport system. This is why it is important to study the desired quality, knowledge of which gives local authorities the background information for personalised marketing policies based on the user’s requirements rather than their daily perceptions. The methodology goes through several stages, such as the use of focus groups to choose the most important variables for the users, the design and use of unlabelled stated preferences surveys and the calibration of discrete choice models. All of these help determine the weight of the most relevant variables. The analysis is carried out with different categories of users and potential users (those people not currently using public transport).Waiting time, cleanliness and comfort are shown to be the public transport variables that users most valued, but the degree to which they are valued varies according to the category of user. Variables such as driver kindness, bus occupancy and journey time are generally given less weight. The first two vary little by user category, but some variability appears for journey time.For potential users the more important variables when defining expected quality from public transport are waiting time, journey time and above all, level of occupancy. They consider the other variables to be of little importance when defining an efficient public transport service.In order to improve service quality and attract more passengers to public transport in general, the application of this methodology provides the authorities and operating companies with useful information to plan personalised marketing policies specifically directed at different categories of users and potential users of public transport.     

Heterogeneous nonmarket benefits of managing white pine bluster rust in high-elevation pine forests

This article describes a nonmarket valuation study about benefits of managing the invasive disease white pine blister rust in high-elevation forests in the Western United States. Results demonstrate that, on average, households in the Western United States are willing to pay $154 to improve the resiliency of these forests. Factor analysis shows that long-run protection of the forests dominates recreation in motivating support. Cluster analysis suggests three groups of survey respondents: those indifferent to the program and not willing to pay, those wanting to protect the future of the high-elevation forests, and those wanting to protect both the forests and related recreational opportunities.     

Cross-Cultural Examination of Relationship Quality

ABSTRACT

This study of relationship quality contributes to the field of global industrial services marketing by examining relational and economic determinants and an outcome of relationship quality in a cross-cultural setting. The sample includes 202 buyers of industrial services from 42 countries. A conceptual model is proposed and tested using structural equation modeling. The study concludes that a buyer's expectation of continuity with a service provider is influenced more by relationship quality than by perceived economic value. Relationship quality, in turn, is impacted by perceived economic value, relationship bonds, and relationship investments. Results partially confirm the interpersonal predispositions of collectivist cultures. For example, buyers from collectivist cultures place significantly more emphasis on relationship investments than do buyers from individualist cultures. These findings have important implications for marketing theory and practice.     

Rules of Origin and the EU‐Med Partnership: The Case of Textiles

This paper analyses the impact of rules of origin on patterns of trade in the context of the pan‐European system of diagonal cumulation. The paper first highlights the importance of rules of origin in all preferential trading arrangements while arguing that those rules can easily lead to trade suppression and/or trade diversion. We then focus on the introduction of the pan‐European system in 1997 and show evidence to suggest that the introduction of the system materially impacted on trade between the EU, and its CEFTA, EFTA and Baltic states partner countries. The main body of the paper then empirically explores the impact of the lack of cumulation in the textile industry on the countries of the Southern Mediterranean. The results suggest that rules of origin may indeed substantially constrain trade between non‐cumulating countries, possibly by as much as 70–80 per cent in aggregate. While preferential trading agreements thus serve to increase intra‐PTA trade through the liberalisation of trade barriers, they may also be doing so by effectively raising external barriers to trade through the use of constraining rules of origin. To the extent that they do so increases the likelihood of trade diversion and trade suppresion.     

Managing AIDS in Africa: HRM challenges in Tanzania

The impact of the AIDS epidemic in developing countries, and in Africa in particular, is now a matter of great concern to policy makers, managers, and academics on a global scale. The magnitude of the potentially disastrous effects of the disease has severe implications for management in organizations, and, in particular, for HRM. The AIDS epidemic is imposing, and will continue to impose, in the foreseeable future, a significant burden on the way people are managed. Little has been written on HRM in Africa, and the present literature on AIDS and HRM in Western societies is inappropriate and insufficient in relation to African organizations. Fifteen organizations in Tanzania took part in this study, which is probably the first of its kind, to produce a picture of current developments and approaches in managing people under the threat of AIDS.     

Product Development as Core Competence: How Formal Product Development Practices Differ for Radical,More Innovative,and Incremental Product Innovations

Although universally recognized as an important consideration in building product development (PD) competency, the effect of a firm's ability to vary its PD practices to develop winning products has been given scant attention in large‐scale, multiorganizational, quantitative studies. This research explores differences in formal new PD practices among three project types—incremental, more innovative, and radical. Using a sample of 380 business units, this research investigates how development practices differ across these three classes of innovation with respect to the formal PD process, project organization, PD strategy, organizational culture, and senior management commitment. Our results diverge from several commonly held beliefs about formal PD processes and the management of radical versus incremental innovations. Our results indicate that radical projects are managed less flexibly than incremental projects. Instead of being an offshoot of less strategic planning, radical projects are just as strategically aligned as incremental projects. Instead of being informally introduced entrepreneurial adventures, radical projects are often the result of more formal ideation methods. While these results may be counterintuitive to suppositional models of how to radical innovation happens, it is the central theme of this research to show how radical innovation actually happens. Our findings also provide a foundation for reexamining the role of control in the management of innovation. As the level of innovativeness increased, so too did the amount of controls imposed—e.g., less flexibility in the development process, more professional, full‐time project leadership, centralized executive oversight for new products, and formal financial assessments of expected NP performance.