Relational and Process Multiplexity in Vertical Supply Chain Triads: An Exploration in the U.S. Restaurant Industry

Both supply chain relationships and process connections between organizational units have been studied in business research, to enhance the understanding of supply chain integration, and to explore the differential outcomes of both types of connections for business and functional performance. However, the extant research remains deficient in two ways: within individual studies, researchers have operationalized supply chain connectivity unidimensionally, with the concept of connectivity constrained to either social relations or operational/process ties while disregarding the other viewpoint. Additionally, researchers have persistently designed studies to evaluate dyadic structures, while foregoing the larger, more intricate structures representative of complex supply chains. We address these issues by modeling supply chain connectivity as having multiple relational‐ and process‐based threads comprising linkages, and by empirically testing a set of theorized relationships describing vertical triadic supply chain networks (manufacturer, broker, retailer) within the U.S. restaurant industry. We find that increased supply chain connectivity improves chain performance, but this improvement is more directly attributable to process‐based linkages than relational linkages, which impact performance only through the process mediator variable, suggesting that current theories of interorganizational relationalism may lack complete conceptualization. Implications of these findings for managers and the academy are highlighted, and areas of follow‐on research are discussed.     

Globalization and imperfect labor market sorting

This paper focuses on the ability of the labor market to efficiently match heterogeneous workers to jobs within a given industry and the role that globalization plays in that process. Using matched worker–firm data from Sweden, we find strong evidence that openness improves the matching between workers and firms in industries with greater comparative advantage. This suggests that there may be significant gains from globalization that have not been identified in the past — globalization may improve the efficiency of the matching process in the labor market. These results remain unchanged after adding controls for technical change at the industry level or measures of domestic anti-competitive regulations and product market competition. Our results are also robust to alternative measures of the degree of matching, openness, and the trade status of an industry.     

Reconciling Alternative Theories for the Safety of Owner–Operators

Motor carrier safety is an important concern of shippers, carriers, policy makers, consignees, insurance providers, and the motoring public. One aspect of carrier safety that has garnered substantial attention is whether carriers making greater use of owner–operators are more or less safe vis‐à‐vis carriers making greater use of employee drivers. Currently, conflicting theoretical predictions exist regarding the direction of this relationship. In this article, we offer a reconciliation of the alternative theoretical predictions by developing a coherent theory that merges sociological rational choice theory and theory regarding motor carrier safety. We subject our theory to empirical testing by fitting a series of seemingly unrelated regression models to a vector of safety measures tracked as part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program. Our results are consistent with our proposed theory of owner—operator safety and provide meaningful theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.     

Profiling consumers of own brands and national brands using human personality

Traditional methods of market segmentation based on demographic variables have shown mixed results in differentiating between those who are more likely to buy own brand products and those who prefer national brands. Taking advantage of the emerging convergence in human personality research on the Big Five dimensions, we focus on the potential of human personality as a method of identifying different customer segments. Two types of own brands are considered, those labelled with the retailer's corporate name and those labelled with a name independent of the retailer. Two product categories are included, cola as an example of a low-involvement product and cosmetics as an example of a high-involvement product. The personality profiles of buyers of these and the leading national brands in each category are compared. Stepwise regression is used to identify those aspects of shopper personality that predict purchase rates of all products. Individuals who are more ‘open to experience’ report higher purchases of corporately named products, while individuals who are more ‘extrovert’ report higher purchases of national brands. Those reporting higher rates of purchase for own brands with independent names tend to be more ‘agreeable’ and ‘extrovert’. The positioning of the three types of brands against the 5 dimensions of human personality is illustrated using correspondence analysis. The clear potential to use human personality to segment and profile markets for own brands and national brands is discussed.     

The influence of social capital on strategic choice: An examination of the effects of external and internal network relationships on strategic complexity

In this research we investigated the direct contributions of social capital via network involvement to the strategic complexity of firms. Specifically, we looked at three network types - trade associations, external personal networks, and internal personal networks - to assess their individual and collective effects on strategic complexity. We empirically tested the relationships in the rural telecommunications industry using a mailed survey to this population's CEOs. We obtained 203 responses (30% response rate). Using Poisson regression, we found that all three network types were positively associated with strategic complexity, which was measured as product portfolio breadth. We also discovered that initial conditions affected strategic outcomes, with larger firms and cooperative ownership associated with greater strategic complexity.     

Connecting the Two Faces of CSR: Does Employee Volunteerism Improve Compliance?

In 2004, the United States Sentencing Commission amended the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to allow firms that create “effective compliance and ethics programs” to receive better treatment if prosecuted for fraud. Effective compliance and ethics, however, appear to be limited to activities focused on complying with the firms’ internal legal and ethical standards. We explored a potential connection between the firms’ external corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviors and internal compliance: Is there an organizationally valid relationship between these two firm activities? That is, when organizations demonstrate CSR with behaviors external to the firm, such as employee volunteerism, are their employees more likely to demonstrate uncompromised legal and ethical compliance behavior internally? We collected data from 164 working professionals enrolled in a top-tier MBA program in the southeastern United States regarding their employer-sponsored volunteer activities and their intentions to comply in various organizational compliance vignettes. We found that employer-sponsored volunteerism is associated with uncompromised compliance choices in one of the three vignettes. This finding indicates preliminary support for further inquiry into the relationship within the firm between external CSR behaviors and policies regarding organizational compliance. Post hoc analyses suggest that employer-sponsored volunteerism is strongly associated with a positive organizational identity, but organizational identity is not associated with the significant compliance vignette. This evidence suggests that the underlying mechanism that connects external CSR behaviors and internal compliance intentions is complex and requires future study.     

Local Content Requirements Versus Tariff Equivalents: How We Measure Matters

This article develops a mechanism to measure the impact of local content requirements as quantitative restrictions. We compare effects of the novel quantitative approach to the effects of a tariff equivalent, which is more traditionally used to analyse these types of policies. Local content requirements increase output and value added in the affected sector, but at the expense of other sectors, leading to declines in GDP and trade across the economy. Comparing the two modelling approaches, the differences in outcomes are shown to be significant.     

Flexible estimation of price response functions using retail scanner data

Kalyanam and Shively [1998. Estimating irregular pricing effects: a stochastic spline regression approach. Journal of Marketing Research 35 (1), 16–29] and van Heerde et al. [2001. Semiparametric analysis to estimate the deal effect curve. Journal of Marketing Research 38 (2), 197–215] have demonstrated the usefulness of nonparametric regression to estimate pricing effects flexibly. The empirical results of these two studies, however, also revealed that nonparametric regression may suffer from too much flexibility leading to nonmonotonic shapes for price effects. In this paper, we show how the problem of nonmonotonicity can be dealt with without losing the power of flexible estimation techniques. We propose a semiparametric approach based on Bayesian P-splines with monotonicity constraints imposed on own- and cross-price effects. In an empirical application, we illustrate that flexible estimation of own- and cross-price effects can improve the predictive validity of a sales response model substantially, even when price response curves were constrained to show a monotonic shape, as suggested by economic theory. We also discuss the consequences from an unconstrained estimation of price effects.