Supply chain relationships: Exploring the linkage between inter-organisational adaptation and learning

This paper aims to advance the process dimension of inter-organisational adaptation that takes places in supply chain relationships, building upon learning literature. Therefore, it summarizes and disentangles the different debates on inter-organisational adaptation and learning in the literature and establishes the theoretical linkage between both concepts. Two dyadic case studies show that the learning processes that underlie inter-organisational adaptations may be comprehensively classified based upon the direction of learning, resulting in “learning from” versus “learning with”, and based upon the span of learning, resulting in “incidental learning” versus “incremental learning”. The experiential nature of learning provides an explanation for the reinforcing character of inter-organisational adaptation, which is an alternative to the explanations presented in literature on supply chain relationships.     

Unwilling Subjects of Financialization

This article seeks to advance debates about the financialization of housing by focusing on the emergence of rental housing as a frontier for financialization, a dynamic that is increasingly relevant since the global financial crisis. Situated in New York City, the research focuses on an aggressive wave of investment in affordable rent‐stabilized properties by private equity firms, their efforts to release value from these properties, and the implications of the 2008 financial crisis for their investment strategies and thus for tenants’ experience of home. Through detailed empirical analysis tracing the connections between how rental housing has been constituted as a new site for private equity investment globally, the local conditions facilitating this process in New York and how it reshaped everyday life for tenants, the article theorizes tenants as unwilling subjects of financialization. Yet unwillingness does not necessarily translate into being overtaken; it also connotes reluctance and indeed struggle. This novel conceptualization highlights the ways in which financialization meets with dissent, and its necessarily contingent and incomplete nature. The article therefore develops the wider intellectual project of understanding financialization not as a monolithic and inevitable process, but as one characterized by resistance from without and contradiction from within.     

Use of tobacco retailer inspections to reduce tobacco sales to youth: do inspections increase retailer compliance?

Public health efforts to prevent tobacco use among young people have typically attempted to change individual behaviour. More recently, it has become evident that macro‐level behaviour change strategies which impact on the wider social environment are more effective in changing behaviour. In most states, retailer compliance laws restrict the sale and distribution of tobacco products to minor consumers. Indiana's Tobacco Retailer Inspection Program (TRIP), a state government programme, was established to put environmental controls in place by restricting youth access to tobacco products. TRIP involved conducting random, unannounced tobacco retailer outlet inspections, with violators being fined, and compliant retailers rewarded. This study examines the associations among retailer inspections, retailer compliance and access to tobacco by youthful consumers. Inspection data from 2001 to 2003 were analysed using chi‐square statistics and analysis of variance. Findings indicate that randomly selected retail outlet inspections are associated with increased sales restrictions to youth. The researchers conclude that strong tobacco sales regulations and enforcement will reduce illegal sales of tobacco products to minors.     

Formal models of the political resource curse

By surveying formal models, I demonstrate that the political resource curse is the misallocation of revenues from natural resources and other windfall gains by political agents. I show that the curse always exists if political agents are rent-seeking, since mechanisms of government accountability, e.g. electoral competition, the presence of political challengers, and even the threat of violent conflict, are inherently imperfect. However, the scope for rent-seeking becomes more limited as the competition over political power that threatens the incumbent government becomes more intense.     

Inflation and Output Growth Dynamics in South Africa: Evidence from the Markov Switching Vector Autoregressive Model

This paper introduces the possibility of asymmetry in the reaction of output growth to inflation shocks in South Africa by making use of the Markov-switching vector autoregressive model. Using quarterly data from 1969Q1 to 2013Q4, the empirical finding suggests that the reaction of output growth to inflation shocks is not only regime dependent but is also contingent on how the monetary authority reacts to such shocks. Two important regimes are identified; the high and low inflation volatility regimes. Consistent with the signal extraction theory, the output effect of inflation shocks is found to be significantly lower in the high inflation volatility regime compared to the low inflation regime.     

Firm responses to social movement pressures: A competitive dynamics perspective

Why do firms respond to social movement pressures differently? This study investigates how the strategic motivation of firms, as captured by competitor activity and market dependence, influences the likelihood of their response to social movement demands. We examine this through a longitudinal analysis of wind power adoption by electric utilities in U.S. deregulated markets. We find that when either competitor actions aligned with movement demands or firm dependence on targeted markets increase, the positive effect of movement activism on firm response diminishes. In contrast, as strategic motivation declines, increases in movement activism become more influential at eliciting firm responses. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building manufacturing flexibility with strategic suppliers and contingent effect of product dynamism on customer satisfaction

A critical capability sought by an increasing number of firms is manufacturing flexibility, because it allows to effectively respond to dynamic markets. Grounded upon a supply chain perspective, this paper aims to assess antecedents of manufacturing flexibility that stem from the upstream relationships with strategic suppliers. Additionally, it is one of the first to analyze the contingent effect of product dynamism on the impact of manufacturing flexibility on downstream customer satisfaction. We apply structural equation modeling to a sample of 155 companies in order to analyze our hypotheses. Results strongly indicate that buyer-supplier collaboration facilitates inter-organizational learning that in turn allows organizations to develop manufacturing flexibility and increase customer satisfaction. Approaching manufacturing flexibility from a broader supply chain view thus pays off. Moreover, we apply multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to explore the contingent effect of product dynamism on the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and customer satisfaction. Results suggest a stronger impact of manufacturing flexibility on performance in the context of higher product dynamism in companies’ customer markets, confirming the importance of a contingency view to flexibility.     

A triangulation analysis of value congruency in corporate Spain: American dream or Spanish reality?

The construct of value congruency has become the centre of scholarly as well as practitioner attention in the past two decades. Theoretical reasoning, however, has mainly originated in an Anglo Saxon context accompanied by scarce and contradictory empirical results. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore further the construct and determine its presence in the relatively unexplored cultural context of Spanish organizations. A novel triangulation measure is proposed and values are assessed by three independent data sources, representing three different constituencies in the company: non-management employees, HR directors, and a blend of senior management and communication directors inferred by the corporate websites of the firms studied. The latter is a relatively new medium for companies to shape and instil values, and is assessed by means of content analysis. Results show that value congruency is rather rare for the organizations of the sample studied and discussion revolves around issues of culture, possible clashes between values and the respective impact on the hypothesized sequence: values–satisfaction–performance. It is proposed that it may be more relevant in subsequent research to focus on incongruencies or ambiguities.