Towards an understanding of supply chain quality management

In this paper, we define supply chain quality management (SCQM) to operationalize and understand the effect of increased emphasis on supply chain management on the practice of quality management. We review current research in quality management and identify common themes found in the literature. Key quality management content variables identified are customer focus, quality practices, supplier relations, leadership, HR practices, business results, and safety. We use these variables to propose areas for future research in the field of supply chain quality management.     

Nea presidential address, 1991: Sixteenth-century European expansion and the economic decline of Africa (in honor of Walter Rodney)

Prior to the sixteenth century, the Indian Ocean trading network was one of the wealthiest commercial regions in the world. It included states of East Africa, the Arabian peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. By circumnavigating Africa, Portugal was the first European nation to gain access to the region. Through the exercise of naval superiority, blockading of strategic shipping lanes, imposition of duties and expulsion of Swahili and Muslim merchants, Portugal exercised a mercantile monopoly which ultimately led to the region’s rapid economic decline. Using rare historical documents from Po rtugal and Africa, this study traces the effects of Portuguese expansion on the economies of East Africa and trade in the Indian Ocean.     

Multilevel marketing: optimizing marketing effectiveness for high-involvement goods in the automotive industry

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - With a surge in communication channels increasing the complexity of today’s media landscape, companies face new challenges concerning...     

The Finest Teacher I Have Known: Norman E. Harper

Teaching Business Ethics -     

Rejoinder

The rapid growth in recent years of government expenditures for advertising and related activities suggests to the writers that it is time for the American people to consider what constraints, if any, should be placed on government advertising activities.

Aside from the massive size of the expenditures (over $100 million for paid advertising and several times that for other “information” annually), this activity raises several problems not present with advertising by commercial firms. 1) It spends taxpayers' money to achieve goals contrary to the interests of some of those taxpayers. 2) It lacks review and regulation to encourage truth and discourage fraud. 3) It need not meet any test of economic efficiency.

While some government advertising is both proper and necessary it is possible that unrestrained advertising and massive budgets are a combination which could weaken the foundation of our political system.     

The Effects of Catholic Schooling on Civic Participation

The promotion of adult civic engagement is one of the primary goals of public schools. And the putatively negative effects of private schooling on civic engagement provide one of the most fundamental motivations for publicly provided schooling. In this study, I examine the comparative effects of Catholic and public high schools on adult voter participation and volunteering in the United States. I find that students who attended Catholic high schools are actually more likely to vote, though not volunteer, as adults. These estimated effects are robust to conditioning on a rich set of individual, family and community traits. I also present two-stage least squares estimates, which provide suggestive evidence that these results are not due to selection biases.JEL Code: I21, D72, H52