Health Care Matters: Supply Chains In and Of the Health Sector

Providing health care involves a complex enterprise, and the trade‐off between quality and cost has been particularly stark compared to other industries. However, a recent focus on health sector supply networks is now producing significant innovations and improvements. This Special Topic Forum illustrates for the academic and practitioner community how health care supply chain research can benefit from our evolving understanding of supply chains and help push that understanding even further. We classify health care supply chain research into two broad categories—supply chain in health care and supply chain of health care—to set an agenda for future research.     

Risk tolerance,gender, and entrepreneurship: The Palestinian case

This paper analyzes the inter‐relationships between entrepreneurial propensity, fear of failure (FoF), and gender in Palestine, using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) adult population survey (APS) data for 2009, 2010, and 2012, and it is the first that addresses Gender, fear of failure, and entrepreneurship for Palestine. The paper extends the analysis of the endogeneity issue of FoF by using the conditional mixed process (CMP), which improves the efficiency of the estimates. The results show that the fear of failure negatively affects entrepreneurial status, while skill perception does the opposite. It is also found that fear of failure is higher among women, although this result is not stable over time. Using the CMP specification, we find that gender and fear of failure both reduce the predicted probability of entrepreneurship consistently over time. The only variable that consistently predicts fear of failure and is significant is skill perception, which has a negative impact. Policy implications of this research point to the importance of reducing the gender gap in entrepreneurship. In particular, there is a need to improve their skill perception in order to encourage more females to be entrepreneurs. Networking, vocational education and media coverage of success stories are among the tools that could potentially achieve this result.     

Tapping Deep Pockets: The Role of Resources and Social Capital on Financial Capital Acquisition by Biotechnology Firms in Biotech–Pharma Alliances

Strategic alliances with pharmaceutical firms allow small biotechnology firms to acquire needed financial capital in exchange for sharing new, cutting‐edge technologies. This study draws from aspects of resource‐based view and social capital theory to examine the factors that influence the extent of financial capital biotech firms acquire when forming an alliance with pharmaceutical firms. Using a sample of 184 alliances from the period 1995–2000, we found that alliances where the pharmaceutical firm has greater management control are associated with greater acquisition of financial capital by the biotech firm. We also found that the credibility of the pharmaceutical firm is positively associated with the extent of financial capital acquired by the biotechnology firm and that the number of patents that the biotech firm has is negatively associated to the financial capital the biotech firm receives. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, research, and management practice.     

The Emergence of Consolidated Service Centers in Health Care

Hospital supply chains can be conceptualized as complex systems with a large number of players and a high degree of interrelatedness among them, creating an environment that is difficult to optimize and manage. In recent years, a consolidated service center (CSC) strategy (sometimes also referred to as “self‐distribution” strategy), has emerged in some healthcare systems, showing a strong potential for reducing the complexity in a hospital's supply chain to achieve high levels of performance and innovation. We examine three CSCs using a qualitative case method to understand the unique characteristics of this supply chain strategy, and how CSCs move hospital supply chains toward a less complex state. We find that CSCs demonstrate characteristics that distinguish them from other supply chain strategies. These characteristics enable the CSC to orchestrate supply base rationalization and disintermediation initiatives in the hospital's supply chain to effectively reduce the number of components and interrelatedness in this complex system.     

Culture, Economic Development, and Quality of Life: A Speculative Comment on the Case of Kerala, India

Abstract . Kerala State, India, had a per capita income of abott $290 for 1985, about the same as other Indian states. But Kerala has a Physical Quality of Life Index of 79 (compared to 43 for India). Saudi Arabia has a per capita income of $8,850 for 1985 but a PQLI of 28. How come? Of course, per capita income does not measure income distribution and India is a plural democracy while Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian monarchy. But the critical factor may well be culture.     

Correction to: The impact of a U.S.–U.K. free trade agreement on workers: a CGE model with worker displacement

Business Economics -     

Testing the effects of self-regulation on industrial accidents

Our study, the first to test the impact of self-regulation on industrial accidents, examines Responsible Care (RC) in the US chemical manufacturing sector. RC requires members to adhere to codes of conduct on production safety and pollution prevention. Using our author-constructed database of 1,867 firms that own 2,963 plants between 1988 and 2001, we instrument for firms’ self-selection into RC using pollution-related regulatory pressure on firms that influences their probability of joining RC, but not plant-level accidents. We find that participation in RC reduces the likelihood of accidents by 2.99 accidents per 100 plants in a given year, or by 69.3%. Participation in RC also reduces the likelihood of process safety accidents and accidents related to violations of RC codes by 5.75 accidents per 100 plants in a given year, or by 85.9%. Alternatively, estimates using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methods indicate that participation in RC reduces the likelihood of accidents by 0.66 accidents per 100 plants in a given year. The reduction in the likelihood of accidents, due to participation in RC, contributes to economically significant averted losses, with savings, even based on the smaller PSM estimates, totaling $180 million per year.