Discount development in france: The introduction of the format and the competitive response

This article aims to set forth and clarify the factors that caused the rapid development of the hard discount business in France over the past 2 years and to highlight their key impacts. The hard discount business is supposed to have triggered an “intratype” competitive reaction by many French companies which diversified their businesses into this segment, as well as an “intertype” set of reactions by both supermarkets and hypermarkets which implemented the new strategies described in this article based on either cost‐cutting policies and/or trade names differentiation. Conclusions may be drawn following an analysis of the features of this formula as well as the consumers' and competitors' responses. One conclusion may be that the discounters are also bound to increase their market share further once the economic crisis is over. In fact, this business meets the on‐going purchasing and shopping needs by most of the consumers.     

The supplier's side of outsourcing: Taking over activities and blurring organizational boundaries

Since most of the literature on outsourcing focuses only to the buying (outsourcing) company, this paper aims to highlight the supplier's side from a relational perspective. The paper stresses the importance of business relationships between suppliers of outsourced activities and their customers. The paper's purpose is specified in two research questions: (1) how is value created within outsourcing and (2) how does the supplier interact with the outsourcing company? Our method relies on an in-depth qualitative case study of Logoplaste, a Portuguese packaging company which supplies large consumer goods manufacturers through complex outsourcing activities. Our analysis identifies three key dimensions of outsourcing relationships: (1) value co-creation via inter-firm coordination (as opposed to unilateral externalization of activities); (2) mutual dependence between supplier and customer due to the supplier's taking over activities; and (3) the blurring of organizational boundaries because of mutual dependence. These dimensions manifest themselves, even though in different degrees, after the initiation of any outsourcing relationship: these variables are new to the literature on outsourcing, which focuses on the ex ante dimensions that influence the customer's pre-relational choices such as “make or buy” and relationship type.     

The day after: newly-elected politicians and the use of accounting information

Most democracies expect accounting information to be used by public managers and elected politicians to support decision-making and accountability to both the public and higher levels of government. This paper shows that Italian local government politicians also use accounting information to influence public opinion and to win political benefit after elections when there has been a change in the ruling party.     

The Survival of Family Firms: The Importance of Control and Family Ties

The aim of this article is to analyze the survival patterns of a group of family firms which have already spent at least 25 years in the market. To this end, we use the Kaplan–Meier product limit estimator supplemented with qualitative information gathered by direct observation and discussions with entrepreneurs. The main findings are that small family firms which have reached their 30th year in the market face a very high risk of sudden exit, increasing with firm age. Further control carried out by means of interviews with entrepreneurs identifies problems connected with succession as one of the main causes of the decision to close down.