A contingency-configurational view of purchasing operations: The mediating role between supplier relationship and firm performance

The literature has considered purchasing and supply management activities from a strategic perspective, but the tactical role of purchasing operations has yet to be explored. Purchasing operations represent the internal modus operandi for transactions with suppliers, comprising three main activities – purchasing transactions, purchasing document management, and purchasing assessment – and supportive activities like purchasing knowledge management. Following the contingency theory, we hypothesize that these internal activities mediate between external supplier relationship management and firm performance (financial, customer and delivery performance). Complementarily, we adopt the configurational theory to hypothesize that this link between external and internal activities can be combined to increase firm performance. To test this contingency-configurational view of purchasing operations, we conducted a quantitative survey with 234 companies. The regression results of the contingency analysis show that purchasing operations activities have a full mediation role in most relationships between supplier relationship management and firm performance, while knowledge management positively moderates the association between purchasing assessment and customer performance. Moreover, the cluster analysis for the configurational analysis shows that supplier relationship management and purchasing operations follow maturity levels of joint implementation of internal and external activities. Our findings shed light on the purchasing operations by defining the activities representing this concept and showing their role in supply management. We also contribute to practice by proposing an integrative system that helps managers organize the firm's purchasing and supply management activities.     

基于组合视角的跨国子公司创业导向与绩效的实证研究

本文从创业导向入手,基于组合视角,以环境动态性和网络能力为调节变量,以在华的198个跨国子公司为样本,来考察企业创业导向对绩效的影响,实证结果发现仅仅依赖于主效应、权变效应来解释跨国子公司创业导向与绩效的关系不够全面和深入,而结合子公司的创业导向、环境与网络能力的组合方法对创业导向与绩效关系的解释更有说服力。     

Enterprise risk management and firm performance: A contingency perspective

In recent years, a paradigm shift has occurred regarding the way organizations view risk management. Instead of looking at risk management from a silo-based perspective, the trend is to take a holistic view of risk management. This holistic approach toward managing an organization’s risk is commonly referred to as enterprise risk management (ERM). Indeed, there is growing support for the general argument that organizations will improve their performance by employing the ERM concept. The basic argument presented in this paper is that the relation between ERM and firm performance is contingent upon the appropriate match between ERM and the following five factors affecting a firm: environmental uncertainty, industry competition, firm size, firm complexity, and board of directors’ monitoring. Based on a sample of 112 US firms that disclose the implementation of their ERM activities within their 10Ks and 10Qs filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, empirical evidence confirms the above basic argument. The implication of these findings is that firms should consider the implementation of an ERM system in conjunction with contextual variables surrounding the firm.     

Contingency variables for customer share of visits to full-service restaurant

This study sought to reveal the direct effect and/or moderating effects of contingency variables in relation to customer share of visits. The hypotheses of this study were tested based on responses from 277 general U.S. full-service restaurant customers, using a series of (moderated hierarchical) regression analyses. The direct effects of social switching costs, lost benefits costs, procedural costs, and intrinsic inertia were positive whereas that of intrinsic variety-seeking was negative on customer share of visits. Consumer involvement and perceived brand heterogeneity were found to enhance the effect of brand preference on customer share of visits.     

Water management accounting and the wine supply chain: Empirical evidence from Australia

Sustainable water management in the supply chain is critical to the long term viability of wine producing organisations. Yet despite its potential importance as a link to convert good intentions of managers into sustainable water use, thus far knowledge concerning how environmental management accounting can assist is largely non-existent. Drawing on contingency theory and new institutional sociology a telephone survey was used to investigate the current use of water-related environmental management accounting information (here termed water management accounting) for assessing the long term implications associated with water management in Australian wine supply chains. Organisational size, regulatory pressure and corporate environmental strategy were found to be consistent drivers of water management accounting use. However, other drivers of supply chain-oriented water management accounting differ depending on whether the information considered is monetary or physical. Existence of a certified environmental management system and involvement of managers with industry associations are points of difference. These findings indicate a two-step incentive process for implementation is likely to be the most effective for promoting the collection and use of physical and monetary information for environmental management in the wine industry.     

Hotel property performance: The role of strategic management accounting

In the current study, we contend that to enhance their competitiveness and performance, hotel properties need to develop and implement internal policies and procedures such as strategic management accounting that are consistent with their business strategies and account for changing competitive demands. We employ a sample composed of 80 hotel properties to investigate the key precursor of hotel property strategic management accounting use and its impact on hotel property customer and financial performance. The results highlight that market orientation business strategy is a key determinant of hotel property strategic management accounting use and illuminate the mediating influence of hotel property strategic management accounting use and hotel property customer performance on the relationship between hotel property market orientation business strategy use and hotel property financial performance. Recommendations are provided for both researchers and hotel managers concerning their future study of, or use of, strategic management accounting.     

Home-owned versus foreign-owned firms in the UK automotive industry: Exploring the microfoundations of ambidextrous production and supply chain positioning

The UK automotive industry is home to a large number of foreign firms, demonstrating the open nature of competition. However, the industry necessitates both exploitative and explorative capabilities. Contingency theory suggests that firms align their internal structure with contextual factors. As such, the aims of this study were to investigate whether it was possible to distinguish home-owned (UK) and foreign-owned firms based upon: a) the microfoundations of ambidextrous production, which are conceptualised as lean and agile routines; and b) the tier at which these firms operate in the automotive supply chain. Survey data were collected from 85 home-owned and 55 foreign-owned firms within the UK Midlands automotive industry. Logistic regression results revealed that home-owned firms were significantly more likely to be implementing explorative (agile) production methods, whereas foreign-owned firms were significantly more likely to be implementing exploitative (lean) production. Home-owned and foreign-owned firms were found to be significantly more likely to be operating upstream and downstream in the automotive supply chain respectively. Thus, the findings support a contingency theory explanation, suggesting that firms align their performance priorities with contextual factors, but we argue that home-owned and foreign-owned firms have evolved to compete based on their different innovative capabilities, which are located at different tiers of the automotive supply chain. On this basis, although neither home-owned nor foreign-owned firms were found to be endogenously ambidextrous, we argue that foreign-owned firms internationalise into the UK automotive sector to exploit the explorative capabilities acquired by home-owned firms operating upstream in automotive supply chains, thus enabling ambidextrous capabilities at an exogenous, industrial level.     

Managing Complaints to Improve Customer Profitability

In this study, the authors aim to understand whether, to what extent, and under what circumstances, organizational responses to customer complaints improve customer profitability. To do so, they build upon the congruence approach and propose a contingency framework in which the effectiveness of three organizational responses to customer complaints (timeliness, compensation and communications) in improving customer profitability is contingent upon the strength of the relationship and the type of failure. The framework is tested empirically in the financial services industry applying latent class techniques to longitudinal data for a sample of complaining customers. The results reveal that: (1) different complaint-handling initiatives affect customer profitability differently for each of the four segments of complaining customers that are obtained; (2) these heterogeneous responses to complaint handling are explained by differences in the orientation of the relationship and in the failure context; and (3) complaint-handling initiatives are more (less) effective at improving customer profitability when the benefits they offer strongly (poorly) match the benefits sought by customers in each segment to recover from the failure. These results contribute to a better theoretical understanding of customers’ heterogeneous responses to complaint handling and offer managerial recommendations to allocate marketing resources across alternative complaint-handling strategies to improve profitability.     

Contingency relationships of firm size,TQM duration,unionization, and industry context on TQM implementation—A focus on total effects

Past TQM literature has been inconclusive in resolving the validity of the universalistic approach versus the contingency approach of TQM implementation. In this paper we contribute to the resolution of this debate by using a total effects approach within the contingency perspective. We propose a culture-quality system design-outcomes framework for TQM implementation. We then use this framework to study the differences in total effects relationships among TQM constructs across four contingencies, firm size, TQM duration, unionization, and industry type. Data from a sample of 394 plants (SIC codes 20 through 39) are used to test the validity of our contingency model. Our results revealed that firm size, TQM duration, and industry type moderate the influence of total effects of culture (top management commitment, customer focus, and trust) on final outcomes (process quality, product quality, and customer satisfaction). These contingencies also moderate the influence of total effects of quality system design (design management, training, empowerment, quality information usage, supplier quality management, and process quality management) on final outcomes. The strongest contributor to variation in total effects across groups was industry type, followed by size and then TQM duration. To a lesser extent, unionization was a moderator in total effects relationships. These findings uniquely contribute to the emerging contingency theory of TQM implementation.     

How economic growth becomes a cost: The scarcity multiplier

Competent macro-allocation of natural capital would allow micro-allocation by economics to be fully useful and may help prevent the latter being confused with the former. This macro-allocation requires social choice, so to see whether it is likely to be competent the effectiveness of democratic politics is investigated. Dysfunction is predicted because democratic institutions produce elements of irresponsibility and ignorance. These permit inflation of want by supply (IWS), a positive feedback in which wants are increased by their supply, provoking more supply, hence more want. Four IWS systems combine under common conditions to indefinitely escalate the scarcity of natural capital, a crucial failure of macro-allocation. This ‘scarcity multiplier' causes apparently rational attempts to satisfy a few wants to exacerbate many, increasing dissatisfaction. Institutions for deliberative public participation may enable democracies to recognize and control IWS. Unless this is done the scarcity multiplier may make cost-benefit analysis misleading: it may make the costs of development projects exceed their benefits in proportion to their financial success.