Antecedents to supplier integration in the automotive industry: A multiple-case study of foreign subsidiaries in China

Supplier integration has become an important concept for improving supply chain performance. The aim of this paper is to identify factors that facilitate and inhibit supplier integration in the context of the Chinese automotive industry. An inductive approach based on grounded theory was chosen as the research methodology, where data was collected through 30 detailed case interviews with subsidiaries of foreign automotive companies operating in China. The results indicate that buyer-side leadership is an important antecedent for building motivation, trust, and commitment among suppliers and for shaping their mindsets. This, in turn, facilitates strategic alignment and enables suppliers to build collaborative capabilities, which are finally shown to be a key enabler for successful supplier integration.     

Marketing and development out of poverty: introduction to the special issue

• Reducing poverty by meeting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is an interdisciplinary undertaking, in which Marketing Science logically plays a role. The papers in this special issue cover a range of methods, from traditional consumer research experiments (on images of poverty, donation behaviour) and sample surveys on the credibility of celebrity marketing, to observational studies of community values and customs (on micro-finance or agricultural enterprise). Consumers of aid appeals, celebrity lobbying and financial services—these methods reveal—are behaviourally complex. They are infused with contradictory, competing and complementary tendencies. Underlying those different tendencies however is a common but often overlooked thread. For poverty to be significantly reduced by 2015, attention needs to be paid not only to goals, that is to task but also towards understanding the human relationships in the poverty reduction market. Marketing practise and research can contribute to poverty reduction by helping build (1) perspective-sharing, (2) accommodation to local needs and (3) appreciation of socio-economic and socio-cultural behavioural systems.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employee perspectives on communication and consultation: findings from a cross-national survey

Highlighting the ongoing significance of national models of employment relations, this paper examines whether variation in communication and consultation practices between countries is reflected in employee perceptions. Drawing upon a survey of around 3,500 employees in four European countries – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – the paper explores whether workers' views on various aspects of communication and consultation are similar or different. It finds that there are certain similarities, with particular types of information and forms of communication being valued across the countries. However, differences are also identified. It is suggested that national institutions may well shape employee expectations about the nature of communication and consultation, feeding through to how satisfied they are with these processes.     

Perceived organizational support and expatriate performance: understanding a mediated model

What are the mechanisms by which multinational corporations (MNCs) can facilitate the effective performance of their expatriate staff in foreign countries? There is a substantial literature on expatriation, yet few studies have addressed how perceived organizational support (POS) may impact upon expatriates' work adjustment and affective commitment, and then on their job performance. We use data on 118 expatriates working at the German subsidiaries of Japanese MNCs, and demonstrate that career POS has a direct positive influence on work adjustment and affective commitment. Our results indicate that work adjustment fully mediated the relationship between career POS and task performance. We further discovered that both work adjustment and affective commitment play a pivotal role in mediating the impact of career POS on contextual performance. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and provide suggestions for future research.     

An interactional perspective on perceived empowerment: the role of personal needs and task context

This study examines the influence of individual needs and task characteristics on a multifaceted definition of perceived empowerment using an interactional perspective. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees and most of them lower-level or nonmanagerial level workers in business organizations. We used regression analyses to test a number of hypotheses informed by social psychology theories. The significant findings indicate that perceived empowerment is predicted by individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power), task situations (receipt of task feedback, competency-based reward system, participation in goal setting) and their interactions. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.     

Why politics needs marketing

This paper examines the survey evidence for the low standing of politics, politicians and political institutions in the mind of the British public, and discusses its consequences. Present public opinion about political parties in Britain, and about politicians in general, is predominantly negative. Politicians are distrusted, to a considerably greater extent than can be explained solely by their bad press. Nor is the public very familiar with politicians or political institutions. Yet it can be shown that in general (and not only in the political field) ‘familiarity breeds favourability, not contempt’. This may be feeding through into hostility towards the entire sector—not only the strictly ‘political’, but other institutions such as public services which the public associates with politics or government. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Fully endogenous mechanism selection on finite outcome sets

Summary This paper defines a choice process over social outcomes in which agents choose the institutional rules ormechanisms themselves without outside interference. Truly endogenizing the mechanism selection process in this way, however, involves facing an infinite regress problem in which outcomes are chosen by games which are themselves chosen by games, ad infinitum. This paper allows the possibility of such an infinite regress which we callfully endogenous mechanism selection.We introduce the notion ofFree Choice which restricts the class of mechanisms in the regress to those which prevent agents from being locked in to an equilibrium outcome by the actions of others. Under this condition, the infinite regress is shown to get truncated with the number of selection iterations endogenously determined. It turns out that the outcomes resulting from a Free Choice-constrained regress are (Weakly) Pareto optimal; in particular, these outcomes solve a weighted Rawlsian Maxmin criterion. We also show that these outcomes are invariant to the equilibrium concept used to evaluate games in the regress.This paper is based on the author's dissertation from the University of Minnesota (November, 1989).I am very grateful for the guidance, advice, and encouragement from my advisor, Marcel K. Richter, and for the many helpful suggestions from David Levine. I have also benefited from conversations with Nabil Al-Najjar, Gerhard Glomm, Leonid Hurwicz, James Jordan, Ramon Marimon, Andrew McClennan, Ariel Rubinstein, and William Thomson.     

Export survival and the dynamics of experience

This paper focuses on developing countries’ pioneer exports to the OECD and obtains several important results on export dynamics, linking export experience and export survival. Using product level data at the SITC 5-digit level for 114 developing countries over the 1962–2009 period, we show that prior export experience obtained in non-OECD markets significantly increases survival of pioneer exports toward the OECD. The experience does not need to last long, as gaining experience for more than two years does not confer any additional benefit. The effect of experience depreciates rapidly with time: a break in export experience prior to entering the OECD reduces the advantage on survival. Finally, the role of prior export experience is particularly relevant for survival in the first two years upon entry into the OECD. The geographic dynamic of export experience reveals that experience is acquired in neighboring, easy to access markets before reaching more distant, richer partners and ultimately serving the OECD with a higher probability of survival.