The impact of an aircraft's service environment on perceptions of in-flight food quality

Airlines are currently striving to improve the quality and quantity of in-flight food, because research has shown that catering is a key attribute for a customer's satisfaction with airline service quality. But the role of an airline's service environment in forming customer perceptions about food quality has not yet been properly investigated. Using electronic word-of-mouth data from N = 3996 airline passengers, this study deploys a linear regression model at multiple levels to relate perceived in-flight food quality with both the overall service environment and its formative components. The results clearly unveil the importance of an aircraft's service environment on perceived in-flight catering quality; perceptions of food quality are primarily influenced by the quality of cabin staff service, followed by entertainment and seat quality. Instead of continuing with the current practice of signing up top chefs to improve menus, airlines may instead consider putting their management focus on service improvements.     

The role of e-marketplaces in supply chain management

Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) have a profound influence on the way in which organizations manage their supply chains. Proponents of the e-marketplace concept suggest that web-based trading systems, such as World Wide Retail Exchange (WWRE) and GlobalNetXchange (GNX), would enable companies to more efficiently buy, sell, and manage their supply chain processes on a global scale. This study investigates the extent to which e-business tools of the e-marketplace are used by channel members in the retail sector for business-to-business supply chain management (SCM). The study is based on a survey involving food service companies, retailers, and wholesalers in the UK. It is shown that the e-marketplace supply chain applications enable the majority of companies to automate transaction-based activities and procurement-related processes rather than strategic supply chain activities. The results also indicate that full participation in e-marketplaces requires companies to integrate their internal and external supply chain activities and share strategic information.     

Evidence of the impacts of public e-procurement: The Portuguese experience

This paper analyses public e-procurement implementation and emphasizes its main difficulties and impacts in relation to the type of public organizations. The primary impacts and changes in the Portuguese public sector are analyzed within the new legal framework, which adopts mandatory e-procurement for any open, restricted or negotiated procedure. In this sense, two surveys carried out in consecutive years were conducted to assess the implementation difficulties and impact of e-procurement in the Portuguese public sector.The major value of this research is that it presents and discusses, for the first time, evidences about difficulties and impacts on the mandatory adoption of public e-procurement, based on the case of Portugal. The results show that the entities’ administrative level influences the e-procurement implementation, which is influenced by the innovation adoption process.     

“Third World” Multinationals Revisited

Abstract

The notion of “Third World Multinationals” has always been, at least, slightly misleading, and has now also become obsolete, taking into account the dismantlement of most of the ideological divides between different political and economic blocks since the early 1990s, and the new rules of the games imposed by globalization. Furthermore, new multinationals emerging from China, and also from the former Soviet republics, are demanding a new and more flexible taxonomy. The present paper re-defines “Multinationals from Developing Countries” (MEDCs) and it reviews first, the current literature on multinationals, looking at the key factors which may explain the internationalization process of enterprises coming from outside the traditional, developed, and industrialised world, and also whether they may enjoy specific sources of comparative advantages, different from those ascribed to the old, established multinationals. A statistical appendix provides a brief but comprehensive survey of the current status of MEDCs, pointing out that, at the end of the day, there are roughly only four such enterprises in the usual rankings of the first one hundred multinational corporations, worldwide, and that the prospects of a forthcoming, and enhanced upgrading in the global corporate structure are heavily geared towards Asia. The data would also seem to support the argument that sheer “scale”, as such, of the enterprises does not explain a greater or lower degree of “transnationalization,” a conclusion which, added to that of the greater flexibility provided by the new information technologies, could be goods news for small-and medium-sized enterprises coming from the developing world.     

我国农村金融供求缺口分析——基于制度因素的考察

我国农村金融存在巨大的结构性缺口,主要形成原因是金融制度的供给偏差,政府对满足小规模经济需求的民间金融制度供给不足。为了加快社会主义新农村建设,必须增加农村民间金融制度的有效供给,营造农村金融制度的市场供给机制,进一步加强非正规金融的风险防控,通过提高制度的效率来改善农村金融供求关系。     

4PL模式下基于时间资源调度的供应成本优化研究

订单时间是影响供应成本的主要因素,合理的进行时间资源调度更是供应成本优化的关键所在。现有的第四方物流(Fourth Party Logistics,4PL)路径优化研究只关注物流环节的时间和成本因素,没有与物流上一环节的整合。本文提出将4PL服务拓展到客户的生产环节,在供应商的生产时间窗约束下,构建模型得到生产时间与物流时间的最优组合方案使供应商供应成本最低。最后基于一个实例的分析,验证了该模型能有效帮助4PL为客户提供最优供应方案。     

深圳建设国际物流中心城市的关键因素分析

深圳拥有独特的地理位置和天然的港口资源,因此,深圳建设国际物流中心城市的优势显而易见,深圳的物流业发展非常迅速,但同时也面临制约因素。本文首先分析了深圳建设国际物流中心城市的优势,在此基础上,提出了深圳建设国际物流中心城市过程中需要考虑的关键因素。     

某市北雀路DN1400给水管道工程B标工程造价控制与分析

本文结合××市北雀路DN1400给水管道工程B标工程实际情况,对工程造价控制的要点进行分析,并提出合理控制造价的有效建议。     

连锁经营管理专业“四段一体”式人才培养方案的探讨

我国连锁经营近几年发展非常迅速,对连锁经营管理的人才需求量日益剧增,高校为此开设了连锁经营管理专业,但是该专业对人才的培养还是处于摸索阶段。本文通过对连锁经营管理专业现状的分析,提出基于工学交替的四段一体式人才培养方案;从基础理论学习、职业技能训练、理论提升与拓展、毕业顶岗实习为阶段,对以市场需求为导向,采用专业基础课与专业课融于一体、理论与实践融于一体,实践强于理论,滚动式前进、螺旋式提高的分段渐进式教学体系进行分析,并提出了相关的建议。