Best-value supply chains and firms’ competitive performance: empirical studies of their linkage

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 1688-1709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun Li ◽  
Qun Wu ◽  
Clyde W. Holsapple

Purpose – Best-value supply chains characterized by agility, adaptability, and alignment, have become a crucial strategic means for firms to create and sustain competitive advantage in today’s turbulent environment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate linkage between best-value supply chains and firms’ competitive performance. Design/methodology/approach – In Study 1, survey data from 76 firms is used to test the impact of the three qualities of best-value supply chains on firms’ competitive performance. In Study 2, to test if a firm’s competitive advantage can be sustained through building best-value supply chains, a long-run performance analysis is conducted, which is based on a stock portfolio of firms identified from the American Marketing Association’s annual list of “Supply Chain Top 25.” Findings – The results of Study 1 indicate that the three qualities of best-value supply chains are positively related to firms’ competitive performance. The results of Study 2 show that firms having best-value supply chains generate significant and positive abnormal returns for shareholders over time. Originality/value – This is a multiple-method research, providing two-level empirical evidence to the investigation of theoretical linkage between best-value supply chains and firms’ competitive performance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-470
Author(s):  
Na Hao ◽  
H. Holly Wang ◽  
Qingjie Zhou

PurposeThis research is to examine the impact of online channels on food stockpile behavior.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, we use bivariate probit models to empirically investigate the impact of online purchasing channels on Chinese urban consumer food hoarding behaviors with random survey samples.FindingsResults show that fresh food e-commerce channels are more likely to be associated with panic stockpile behaviors due to higher likelihood of supply shortages than offline channels with government assistance in logistic management. In contrast, community group buy, another format of e-commerce, appears superior in satisfying the consumer needs and easing the panic buying perception.Practical implicationsIt suggests that online channels may have diverse impacts on consumers' panic stockpiling behaviors during the extreme situations. Online channels need to develop efficient supply chains to be more resilient to extreme situations and the government shall recognize the increasing share of the online channels together with traditional offline channels when implementing supporting policies.Social implicationsWith ever increasing share of online channels, it is imperative in terms of policy implications to understand how would online channels affect hoarding behavior.Originality/valueWe are the first study in online shopping's impact on food stockpile during pandemics using a random sample. Although food stockpile behavior at times of emergency have been investigated in many literature, there are no empirical studies on the impact of online channels on stockpile behaviors under extreme situations. Unlike disasters that immediately impact every entity in supply chains covering producers, vendors, distribution centers and retailers, pandemics did not render supply chains affected immediately, but rather increase consumers' willingness to shop online to avoid virus. Thus, Covid-19 provides a natural experiment to investigate the online channels' impact on stockpile behavior.


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikash Ramiah ◽  
Thomas Morris ◽  
Imad Moosa ◽  
Michael Gangemi ◽  
Louise Puican

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the impact of 75 announcements of environmental policies on British equities over the period 2003 to 2012. In particular, the research has the following specific objectives: finding out whether there is wealth creation/destruction for investors as a result of the announcements of green policies and identifying changes in risk structure following the introduction of green policies. Design/methodology/approach – Using event study methodology and non-parametric tests, the authors attempt to find out whether announcements of environmental/sustainability policies are value constructive or destructive for equity investors. The CAPM is fitted with interaction variables to measure the change in systematic risk following announcements. Findings – The results show that the UK market is particularly sensitive to domestic, international and nuclear announcements. Cumulative abnormal returns in the range of 30-40 per cent were recorded in certain sectors. Consistent with the emerging literature, the authors observe that environmental policies induce changes in the systematic risk of businesses, both in the short run and the long run. Originality/value – To the best of authors’ knowledge, the literature does not provide any answer as to how the risk and return of British equity portfolios change following the announcement of green policies in the aftermath of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Furthermore, the literature does not differentiate among various categories of announcements (domestic, international and nuclear). Therefore, this paper bridges the gap in the literature on these two grounds.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prodromos Chatzoglou ◽  
Dimitrios Chatzoudes

Purpose Nowadays, innovation appears as one of the main driving forces of organisational success. Despite the above fact, its impact on the propensity of an organisation to develop and sustain a competitive advantage has not yet received sufficient empirical investigation. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the existing empirical literature by focusing on the antecedents of innovation and its impact on competitive advantage. It proposes a newly developed conceptual framework that adopts a three-step approach, highlighting areas that have rarely been simultaneously examined before. Design/methodology/approach The examination of the proposed conceptual framework was performed with the use of a newly developed structured questionnaire that was distributed to a group of Greek manufacturing companies. The questionnaire has been successfully completed by chief executive officers (CEOs) from 189 different companies. CEOs were used as key respondents due to their knowledge and experience. The reliability and the validity of the questionnaire were thoroughly examined. Empirical data were analysed using the structural equation modelling technique. The study is empirical (based on primary data), explanatory (examines cause and effect relationships), deductive (tests research hypotheses) and quantitative (includes the analysis of quantitative data collected with the use of a structured questionnaire). Findings Results indicate that knowledge management, intellectual capital, organisational capabilities and organisational culture have significant direct and indirect effects on innovation, underlining the importance of their simultaneous enhancement. Finally, the positive effect of innovation on the creation of competitive advantages is empirically validated, bridging the gap in the relevant literature and offering avenues for additional future research. Originality/value The causal relationship between innovation and competitive advantage, despite its significant theoretical support, has not been empirically validated. The present paper aspires to bridge this gap, investigating the impact of innovation on the development of competitive advantages. Moreover, the present study adopts a multidimensional approach that has never been explored in the existing innovation literature, making the examination of the proposed conceptual framework an interesting research topic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (11/12) ◽  
pp. 2071-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Vanharanta ◽  
Alan J.P. Gilchrist ◽  
Andrew D. Pressey ◽  
Peter Lenney

Purpose – This study aims to address how and why do formal key account management (KAM) programmes hinder effective KAM management, and how can the problems of formalization in KAM be overcome. Recent empirical studies have reported an unexpected negative relationship between KAM formalization and performance. Design/methodology/approach – An 18-month (340 days) ethnographic investigation was undertaken in the UK-based subsidiary of a major US sports goods manufacturer. This ethnographic evidence was triangulated with 113 in-depth interviews. Findings – This study identifies how and why managerial reflexivity allows a more effectively combining of formal and post-bureaucratic KAM practices. While formal KAM programmes provide a means to initiate, implement and control KAM, they have an unintended consequence of increasing organizational bureaucracy, which may in the long-run hinder the KAM effectiveness. Heightened reflexivity, including “wayfinding”, is identified as a means to overcome many of these challenges, allowing for reflexively combining formal with post-bureaucratic KAM practices. Research limitations/implications – The thesis of this paper starts a new line of reflexive KAM research, which draws theoretical influences from the post-bureaucratic turn in management studies. Practical implications – This study seeks to increase KAM implementation success rates and long-term effectiveness of KAM by conceptualizing the new possibilities offered by reflexive KAM. This study demonstrates how reflexive skills (conceptualized as “KAM wayfinding”) can be deployed during KAM implementation and for its continual improvement. Further, the study identifies how KAM programmes can be used to train organizational learning regarding KAM. Furthermore, this study identifies how and why post-bureaucratic KAM can offer additional benefits after an organization has learned key KAM capabilities. Originality/value – A new line of enquiry is identified: the reflexive-turn in KAM. This theoretical position allows us to identify existing weakness in the extant KAM literature, and to show a practical means to improve the effectiveness of KAM. This concerns, in particular, the importance of managerial reflexivity and KAM wayfinding as a means to balance the strengths and weaknesses of formal and post-bureaucratic KAM.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Jones

Purpose – This paper aims to to explore power and legitimacy in the entrepreneurship education classroom by using Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological and educational theories. It highlights the pedagogic authority invested in educators and how this may be influenced by their assumptions about the nature of entrepreneurship. It questions the role of educators as disinterested experts, exploring how power and gendered legitimacy “play out” in staff–student relationships and female students’ responses to this. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple-method, qualitative case study approach is taken, concentrating on a depth of focus in one UK’s higher education institution (HEI) and on the experiences, attitudes and classroom practices of staff and students in that institution. The interviews, with an educator and two students, represent a self-contained story within the more complex story of the case study. Findings – The interviewees’ conceptualization of entrepreneurship is underpinned by acceptance of gendered norms, and both students and staff misrecognize the masculinization of entrepreneurship discourses that they encounter as natural and unquestionable. This increases our understanding of symbolic violence as a theoretical construct that can have real-world consequences. Originality/value – The paper makes a number of theoretical and empirical contributions. It addresses an important gap in the literature, as educators and the impact of their attitudes and perceptions on teaching and learning are rarely subjects of inquiry. It also addresses gaps and silences in understandings of the gendered implications of HE entrepreneurship education more generally and how students respond to the institutional arbitration of wider cultural norms surrounding entrepreneurship. In doing so, it challenges assertions that Bourdieu’s theories are too abstract to have any empirical value, by bridging the gap between symbolic violence as a theory and its manifestation in teaching and learning practices.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-643
Author(s):  
Tayyaba Yousaf ◽  
Sadia Farooq ◽  
Ahmed Muneeb Mehta

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the STOXX Europe Christian price index (SECI) follows the premise of efficient market hypothesis (EMH). Design/methodology/approach The study used daily data of SECI for the period of 15 years as its launch date i.e. 31 December 2004 to 31 December 2019. Data are analyzed by taking a full-length sample and fixed-length subsample. For subsample, the data are divided into five subsamples of three years each. Subsample analysis is important for analyzing time varying efficiency of the series, as the market is said to follow EMH if it is being efficient throughout the sample. Both type of samples is examined through linear tests including autocorrelations test and variance ratio (VR) test. Findings Tests applied conclude that SECI is weak-form efficient, which means that the prices of the index include all the relevant past information and immediately react to new information. Hence, the investors cannot earn abnormal returns. Originality/value Religion-based indices grasped the attention of investors, policymakers and academic researchers because of increased concern over ethics in business. Though the impact of religion on the economy have been studied in many ways but the efficiency of religion-based indices have been less explored. The current study is primary in its nature as it analysis the efficiency of SECI. This index is important to explore because Christianity is the world’s top religion with 2.3 billion followers around the globe.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097491012110616
Author(s):  
Natalia I. Doré ◽  
Aurora A. C. Teixeira

The factors required to achieve sustainable economic growth in a country are debated for decades, and empirical research in this regard continues to grow. Given the relevance of the topic and the absence of a comprehensive, systematic literature review, we used bibliometric techniques to examine and document several aspects in the empirical literature related to growth, from 1991 to 2020. Five main results are worth highlighting: (a) the share of empirical articles on economic growth show a clear upward trend; (b) among all the groups of countries considered, the emerging economies (EEs) have received the most scientific attention; (c) the economic growth processes of the Latin American and Caribbean EEs have observed negligible scientific attention; (d) the very long-run studies comprise a residual share among the empirical literature on growth; (e) the extant empirical studies on economic growth have addressed mainly the impact of “macroeconomic conditions.” Our findings suggest there is a need to redirect the empirical growth agenda, so as to encourage more scientific attention devoted to the analysis of key determinants of economic growth in the very long run. There should also be increased scrutiny of the processes of economic growth in Latin American and Caribbean EEs


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Araceli Hernández González

PurposeThis study aims to provide evidence of market reactions to organizations' inclusion of people with disabilities. Cases from financial journals in 1989–2014 were used to analyze the impact of actions taken by organizations to include or discriminate people with disabilities in terms of the companies' stock prices.Design/methodology/approachThis research is conducted as an event study where the disclosure of information on an organization's actions toward people with disabilities is expected to impact the organization's stock price. The window of the event was set as (−1, +1) days. Stock prices were analyzed to detect abnormal returns during this period.FindingsResults support the hypotheses that investors value inclusion and reject discrimination. Furthermore, the impact of negative actions is immediate, whereas the impact of positive actions requires at least an additional day to influence the firm's stock price. Some differences among the categories were found; for instance, employment and customer events were significantly more important to a firm's stock price than philanthropic actions. It was observed that philanthropic events produce negative abnormal returns on average.Originality/valueThe event study methodology provides a different perspective to practices in organizations regarding people with disabilities. Moreover, the findings in this research advance the literature by highlighting that organizations should consider policies and practices that include people with disabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Hamdoun ◽  
Mohamed Akli Achabou ◽  
Sihem Dekhili

Purpose This paper aims to examine the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance in the context of developing countries. More specifically, the mediating role of a firm’s competitive advantage and intangible resources, namely, human capital and reputation are studied. Design/methodology/approach The study considered a sample of 100 Tunisian firms. The analysis makes use of the structural equation modelling method to explore the relationship between CSR and financial performance, by including mediator variables. Findings The results confirm that CSR has no significant direct effect on financial performance. In particular, they indicate that the social dimension of CSR has a negative impact on performance. However, CSR does have a positive impact on competitive advantage via the two intangible resources considered, human capital and company reputation. Research limitations/implications The research fills a gap that occurred in the previous literature. In effect, previous studies focussed only on the direct link between CSR and financial performance. In addition, it enriches the limited literature on CSR strategies in the context of developing countries. However, further studies should explore the opposite relationship, i.e. the impact of financial performance on CSR strategy. In addition, the authors believe that amongst other potential research avenues, it would be interesting to study the moderating role of the activity sector. Practical implications From a practical point of view, this study suggests new applications with respect to the link between CSR and financial performance. To enhance their company’s financial performance, managers need to ensure that intangible resources are managed efficiently. Originality/value The paper contributes to the literature by examining how a firm’s intangible resources mediate between CSR and competitive advantage and how competitive advantage mediates between intangible resources and financial performance. Second originality is related to the study of the link between CSR and the financial performance of business organisations in the context of a developing country.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismail Badraoui ◽  
Ivo van der Lans ◽  
Youssef Boulaksil ◽  
Jack G.A.J. van der Vorst

PurposeThis study investigates the impact of agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) characteristics on the antecedents of horizontal logistics collaboration (HLC). Specifically, the study compares the relationship between collaboration activities and outcomes for companies in and outside AFSCs.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a survey was used to collect data from different industries. Second, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to compare the measurement and structural models from different industry categories.FindingsThe results support the premise that collaboration improves trust and commitment in the relationship, which in turn enhance satisfaction. The results also show the existence of a minor influence of AFSCs characteristics on HLC antecedents, in the form of an indirect impact of dedicated investments on commitment.Practical implicationsThe factors having a significant influence on the collaboration outcomes and their respective effects are generally similar across food and nonfood supply chains, providing opportunities for interdisciplinary and collaboration experiences.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the body of knowledge on interfirm collaboration by considering the specificities of HLC. It also highlights the importance of conducting contingency research on collaborative experiences, as firms from different industry contexts operate under distinct operational conditions.


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