The purchasing department's leadership role in developing and maintaining a preferred customer status

Developing and maintaining a preferred customer status is one of the main objectives of organizations that want to obtain a better access to supplier's information, resources, and innovation. This paper addresses the extent and the nature of the purchasing department's leadership role in the process of developing and maintaining a preferred customer status. A qualitative exploratory approach based on eleven cases has been used in order to take into consideration the context specific to the buyer-supplier relationship in a preferred customer scenario.Our study shows that the purchasing department performs four main categories of roles: (1) identifies and selects the best supplier, (2) structures and segments the supply base, (3) builds close relationships with selected suppliers and (4) develops working relationships, using an effective communication. Each of these roles is related to three key components of the purchasing department's capabilities: boundary, relational, and coordination. These four categories of roles illustrate supply's ability to recognize and understand the specifics of the preferred customer situation. Based on our analysis, the purchasing department should be viewed as extending an organization's resource base, making the organization more competitive.Our analysis also shows that the purchasing managers' leadership is critical for the development and the coordination of activities with selected suppliers, as well as proper communication with them. Specifically, the purchasing manager's transformational leadership generates more internal user and supplier involvement through the creation and articulation of a common vision, by establishing shared goals with other organizational units, and by focusing on activities that benefit the organization; this allows to move from initiative-driven efforts to an “institutionalized preferred customer status management” in the organization.     

Habit,Decision-Making,and Rationality: Comparing Thorstein Veblen and Early Herbert Simon

The article aims to contribute to the convergence between institutional and neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics. It intends to help unify the behavioral foundations of these two strands of thought by returning to the original views of their main historical inspirations. It thus proposes a comparative analysis of the theory of human behavior developed by Thorstein Veblen and Herbert Simon, respectively. The article notably discusses how Simon’s early work links together the notions of habit, rationality, and the decision-making process, and explores the extent to which his views are consistent with, complementary to, or divergent from Veblen’s. The article highlights several commonalities between Simon and Veblen’s views on habits. However, Simon departs from Veblen in developing a dual model of human behavior which clearly differentiates habit-based from decision-based behaviors. The article argues that neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economists should go beyond this binary model and build on the pragmatist-Veblenian approach, in which these two dimensions are intimately entangled. This process could allow the economists in question to take advantage of the most valuable insights of institutional economics regarding the interactions between individual choices and habits and institutions.     

Places as authentic consumption contexts

Consumers build social capital through purposeful consumer–place interactions. Airbnb claims that consumers want to “experience a place like [they] live there.” Previous research concentrates primarily on authenticity of objects, brands, and people, with limited development of place authenticity as a concept. But place authenticity represents an increasingly important marketing concept as consumers today, particularly millennials (Schulz, P. (2015, August 8). Not just millennials: Consumers want experiences, not things. Adage. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/digitalnext/consumers-experiences-things/299994/ ), value experience over “stuff.” Authenticity provides an important place characteristic that if perceived, potentially unlocks a truly valuable consumer experience. Consequently, the research presented here develops an auxiliary theory of place authenticity (PA). The theory proposes a second‐order factor indicated by three coordinate subdimensions. Phase I of the research consists of five studies that develop PA, explore its dimensionality, and confirm the PA scale's construct validity. Phase II of the research involves a sixth study, which examines a set of hypotheses that begin to establish PA's nomological net. The results shed light on the psychology by which consumers extract value from experience and into ways marketing efforts can build effective place–value propositions.     

Attitudes toward the extension and parent brand in response to extension advertising

This paper investigates how ads for extensions can trigger different reactions with respect to consumers' attitudes towards new line and brand extensions of familiar brands. Using a structural equation model, the authors research the influence of attitude towards the ad (Aad), parent brand quality, and perceived fit on attitude toward the extension (Aext), and resulting feedback effects on attitude toward the parent brand (Apb) with a sample of 509 Belgians. Results are compared between two types of advertising strategies (informational vs. positive emotional). The findings indicate that informational appeals, in comparison to emotional appeals, reduce the effects of parent brand quality and fit, but Aad is all the more important. In terms of feedback effects to the parent brand, Aext transfers more easily to Apb with an informational appeal than with a positive emotional appeal. On the other hand, Aad directly influences Apb for positive emotional appeals, but not informational appeals.     

Innovation Portfolio Management as a Subset of Dynamic Capabilities: Measurement and Impact on Innovative Performance

Innovation portfolio management has been touted as a new dynamic capability following the evolution of team‐ and project‐based organizational forms. In this article, we conceptualize innovative dynamic capabilities as a multidimensional construct that comprises distinct but related aspects in managing innovation. We test our model, which links this capability to innovative performance by using survey data from a sample of 923 firms. We find empirical support for our conceptualization and its impact on firm innovative performance.     

Progreso social y producción mundializada. El caso del sector de los textiles y el vestido

La especialización vertical generada por la fragmentación de la producción en redes mundiales no solo está motivada por la ventaja comparativa, sino también por las estrategias de deslocalización de las empresas líderes, que determinan el papel y el poder negociador de los productores locales. Este estudio examina las consecuencias de tal especialización en los textiles y el vestido en 26 países con abundante mano de obra de 1990 a 2007. Las regresiones de efectos fijos con datos de panel revelan que el sector no siempre gana con la integración comercial internacional: se observa una correlación negativa entre la especialización vertical y los salarios reales relativos.     

Model misspecification analysis for bond options and Markovian hedging strategies

In this paper, we analyse the model misspecification risk of Markovian hedging strategies for discount bond options. We show how to decompose the Profit and Loss that results from model misspecification, and emphasize the importance of the position’s gamma in order to control it. We further provide mathematical results on the distribution of the forward Profit and Loss function for specific univariate term structure models. Finally, we run numerical simulations for options’ hedging strategies in order to examine the sensitivity of the forward Profit and Loss function with respect to the volatility of the forward rate curve, the frequency of the position rebalancing and the characteristics of the position being hedged.      

Economic impacts of the ASEAN single aviation market: focus on Cambodia,Laos, Myanmar,The Philippines and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Since 2004, the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has decided to move towards liberalization of air transport inside the region as well as outside by signing multilateral agreements with other countries. In this article, we focus on the economic impact of liberalization. We show that by liberalizing up to the 5th freedom right, given the expectations with respect to tourism development, national GDP is expected to increase yearly from 1% (Cambodia) to 6.1% (The Philippines). Regarding partner states involved in multilateral agreements, the case of China shows that ASEAN airlines might well face possible competition distortions as a result.