Two-stage flowshop earliness and tardiness machine scheduling involving a common due window

This paper studies a non-preemptive two-stage flowshop scheduling problem to minimize the earliness and tardiness under the environment of a common due window. The window size and the window location are considered to be given parameters. The just-in-time problem exists naturally and has many practical applications. The problem is shown to be NP-complete in the strong sense. We develop a branch and bound algorithm and a heuristic to solve the problem. We conduct the computational experiments to test the performances of the algorithms. A strong lower bound is derived for the branch and bound algorithm that can efficiently solve 15 jobs problem for about 5 minutes. The heuristic is shown to be efficient and effective, which can solve the problem of 150 jobs for about 20 seconds and provide near-optimal solution. We justify that the heuristic is an excellent solution approach for large problem instances. We also show that four special cases are either polynomial solvable or NP-complete in the ordinary sense.     

Malaysia – Trade Policy Review 2006

The Trade Policy Review (TPR) is an important document for small open economies like Malaysia. It provides an outsider perspective of its trade policies and implementation. In this paper we provide an update of the Malaysian economy emphasising the degree of competitiveness vis‐à‐vis other Asian counterparts. We also discuss the issue of regional and bilateral trading agreements involving Malaysia with a focus on the services sector. Finally, we briefly consider the issue of tariff protection – an issue raised by many commentators of the TPR.     

The impact of supplier development on buyer competitive advantage: A path analytic model

As manufacturing firms increasingly realize that supplier performance is crucial to their establishing and maintaining competitive advantage, supplier development has been a subject of considerable research in supply chain management. We develop and test a path model to explore how supplier development practices affect buyer-supplier performance from the buying firm's perspective in the context of Hong Kong's electronics industry. The results show that top management, supplier evaluation, and supplier strategic objectives are significant determinants of transaction-specific supplier development, and that buyers that have closer collaborative relationships with suppliers may strengthen their competitive advantage.     

China's one belt one road initiative: The impact of trade facilitation versus physical infrastructure on exports

The One Belt One Road (OBOR) project is perhaps China's most significant international relations initiative in recent times. It is based on openness, harmony, inclusivity, mutual benefit and market operations and aims to connect the economically vibrant East Asia and the developed Europe by land and by sea, and in the process, it brings growth and development to tens of countries along the modern Silk routes. In this paper, we compare the impact of the main initiatives of OBOR, namely enhancements in physical infrastructure and improvements in border administration, on the trade of countries that have signed on to this project, especially countries along the six economic corridors. We find overwhelming evidence that shows improvements in border administration has the greatest impact on exports of corridor countries. Although physical infrastructure is important for trade, the Chinese government should place equal attention to improvements in trade facilitation to ensure trade routes operate seamlessly across the various corridors.     

Strategic supply management,quality initiatives,and organizational performance

Researchers in supply chain management have found over the past two decades that supply management should be not merely a purchasing function but a strategic tool for supply chain integration. Supply management, the cornerstone of the integration of industrial supply chains, has evolved as a key research area. Based on quantitative and qualitative investigations of 225 electronics manufacturing firms, we examine the organizational impacts of strategic supply management (SSM) and the contexts of company size, process type, ISO 9000 certification, and quality management (QM) implementation that facilitate such an endeavor. We reveal that SSM is essentially a quality management initiative that requires bilateral efforts for continuous improvement and thus is not associated with the basic requirements of ISO 9000. We find that SSM improves on-time shipments, reduces operational costs, and leads to customer satisfaction and improved business performance. Developed based on contemporary premises in supply chain and QM, this research refines our understanding of the relationships among quality initiatives, SSM, and organizational performance.     

Creative destruction and firm-specific performance heterogeneity

Traditional U.S. industries with higher firm-specific stock return and fundamentals performance heterogeneity use information technology (IT) more intensively and post faster productivity growth in the late 20th century. We argue that this mechanically reflects a wave of Schumpeter's creative destruction disrupting a wide swath of industries, with successful IT adopters unpredictably undermining established firms. This validates endogenous growth theory models of creative destruction and suggests intensified creative destruction as explaining findings associating greater firm-specific performance variation with higher per capita GDPs, economy growth rates, accounting standards, financial system development, and property right protection.     

Earnings Attribution and Information Transfers

Managers frequently attribute the news in their earnings forecasts to various economic events. Using textual analysis, we identify the economic factors underlying earnings news from press releases. We document a wide range of industry‐wide shocks and firm‐specific actions to which the earnings news in management forecasts is attributed. As expected, earnings attributions significantly affect peer firms’ price reactions to the earnings news. Specifically, earnings news attributed to industry‐wide trends or firm structural changes leads to positive information transfers but earnings news attributed to firm competitive moves triggers negative information transfers. Information transfers are much stronger when each economic factor is mentioned the first time in a given industry‐year. Further analysis reveals that the strength of information transfers varies with firm‐level rivalry within the industry (i.e., similar business strategies, market position, and level of competition).     

Selling to the urban Chinese in East Asia: Do CSR and value orientation matter?

Most multinationals have a presence in the East Asian region and target the urban Chinese population. In an effort to win over the loyalty of consumers, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been used increasingly as a marketing strategy. This paper explores how personal values influence the attitude and behavior towards CSR among Chinese consumers. By collecting data from three major East Asian cities — Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, and employing factor, cluster, conjoint and correspondence analyses, the authors demonstrate that Confucian value orientation can be a powerful antecedent of CSR support.     

Manufacturing and Distribution Strategies,Distribution Channels,and Transaction Costs: The Case of Parallel Imported Automobiles

We examine how constraints on transnational corporations' official distribution channels, asset specificity, and bounded rationality of franchise dealers and parallel traders contribute to the sustainability of the parallel importation of automobiles. The manufacturing and distribution strategies employed by transnational corporations considerably add to the regional differences in the pricing and availability of specific models, as well as vehicle specifications. These necessary conditions enable opportunistic parallel traders to engage in arbitrage. The asset specificity of franchise dealers, bounded rationality, and opportunism of dealers and arbitrageurs sustain the parallel importation of automobiles. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.