Supply Chain Management Competency and Firm Financial Success

Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well‐established. Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi‐style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968) Z‐score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z‐scores than their close competitors and industry averages.     

Rules,standards, and ethics: Relativism predicts cross-national differences in the codification of moral standards

This research examines the relationship between the code of ethics adopted by businesses in a country and the ethics positions of the inhabitants of that country. Ethics Position Theory (EPT) maintains that individuals’ personal moral philosophies influence their ethical judgments, actions, and emotions. The theory, when describing individual differences in moral philosophies, stresses two dimensions: relativism (skepticism with regards to inviolate moral principles) and idealism (concern for positive outcomes). Extending previous research that identified differences in relativism and idealism between residents of different countries and world regions, we examined the relationship between relativism, idealism, and the regulatory standards governing commercial activities of firms headquartered in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, and the US. The results indicated that the level of relativism of a nation's populace predicted degree of ethical codification of commerce in that nation. These findings suggest that the ethical conduct of business will be more closely regulated in countries where relativism is low (e.g., Australia, Canada) but less closely regulated in countries where the residents are more ethically relativistic (e.g., Hong Kong, Spain).     

Stock market development and economic growth: Evidence from seven sub-Sahara African countries

The paper examines the long run and causal relationship between stock market development and economic growth for seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test, the study finds that the stock market development is cointegrated with economic growth in Egypt and South Africa. Moreover, this test suggests that stock market development has a significant positive long run impact on economic growth. Granger causality test based on vector error correction model (VECM) further shows that stock market development Granger causes economic growth in Egypt and South Africa. However, Granger causality in the context of VAR shows evidence of bidirectional relationship between stock market development and economic growth for Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco and Zimbabwe. In Nigeria, there is a weak evidence of growth-led finance using market size as indicator of stock market development. Based on these results, the paper argues that stock markets could help promote growth in Africa. However, to achieve this goal, African stock markets need to be further developed through appropriate regulatory and macroeconomic policies.     

The federal role in international business education

Rapid global change, driven especially by the telecommunications, computing, and biotechnology industries, are rapidly transforming the international economic, social, and cultural landscape. Affected are both urban and rural businesses that face intense competition at home and abroad. If the United States is to continue to main‐tain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace, educational institutions must prepare the next generation of leaders for a pluralistic world in which multi‐culturalism dominates and international business education is multidimensional. This article addresses the role that the U.S. federal government has played in prepar‐ing international business graduates. It examines the contributions of two federal grant programs: the Business and International Education program and the Centers for International Business program, both authorized under the Higher Education Act of 1965 as amended. ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Secondary upwelling instabilities developed in high Rayleigh number convection: Possible applications to hot spots

We have conducted numerical experiments for mantle convection in an axisymmetrical spherical-shell geometry from Rayleigh numbers ranging from three million to 10 billion for a purely basal heating configuration. We focus on the development of secondary instabilities developed from plumes and compare them with laboratory experiments by Skilbeck and Whitehead (1978) and Whitehead, (1982). For Rayleigh numbers between around thirty million to one billion, a string of these secondary instabilities can develop from a single plume. Analysis of the spectrum of wavelength associated with the fold instabilities shows that there is a window in the Rayleigh number between around ten million and one bilion where these secondary folding instabilities would develop. These results, when applied to the upper mantle, may explain the formation of hot-spots in a turbulently convecting upper-mantle with a Rayleigh number greater than ten million.     

Non-existence of equilibrium in Vickrey, second-price, and English auctions

A simple example shows that equilibria can fail to exist in second price (Vickrey) and English auctions when there are both common and private components to bidders’ valuations and private information is held on both dimensions. The example shows that equilibrium only exists in the extremes of pure private and pure common values, and that existence in standard models is not robust to a slight perturbation.     

Does prenatal WIC participation improve birth outcomes? New evidence from Florida

We study the effects of prenatal receipt of nutritional and educational services provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on birth outcomes. Our identification strategy consists of two elements: (1) identifying families in a very tight income range surrounding the WIC eligibility threshold; and (2) exploiting a policy change that differentially influenced the WIC takeup rates of the families on each side of the eligibility threshold. We conduct this analysis by merging three large statewide administrative datasets from Florida concerning all births during the period 1997–2001. We match the birth records of infants and the school records of their older siblings in order to relatively precisely identify “marginally eligible” and “marginally ineligible” families that are very similar in their observable characteristics. We find that WIC participation has no effect on mean birth weight and gestational age, but substantially reduces the likelihood of adverse birth outcomes, e.g. birth weights below 2500 g.     

Corporate Social Performance and Attractiveness as an Employer to Different Job Seeking Populations

This study investigates the hypothesis that the advantage corporate social performance (CSP) yields in attracting human resources depends on the degree of job choice possessed by the job seeking population. Results indicate that organizational CSP is positively related to employer attractiveness for job seekers with high levels of job choice but not related for populations with low levels suggesting advantages to firms with high levels of CSP in the ability to attract the most qualified employees.