Editorial

Citation

Moutinho, L. and Huang Huarng, K. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Modelling in Management, Vol. 2 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jm2.2007.29702baa.001

Editorial

Welcome to the second issue of volume two of JM2. The content of this issue is somewhat challenging, since the papers included in it range from a modelling approach based on resource-based theory and performance, a nonlinear multiobjective approach for supplier selection and both grey and rough set theory.

The resource-based view of the firm (RBV) has gained much attention in recent years as a means to understand how an SBU obtains a sustainable competitive advantage. In this framework, several research studies have explored the relationships between resources/capabilities and firm performance. DeSarbo, Di Benedetto and Song extend this line of research in the first paper of this issue by explicitly modeling the heterogeneity of such relations across firms in various different industries in exploring the interrelationships between capabilities and performance. A unique latent structure regression model is developed to provide a discrete representation of this heterogeneity in terms of different clusters or groups of firms who employ different paths to achieve firm performance vis-a-vis alternative capabilities. The authors provide an application of the proposed methodology to a sample of 216 US firms, and show how the derived four group latent structure regression solution statistically dominates the one aggregate sample regression function; providing substantive interpretation for the findings.

These next three papers have a particular focus on the area of supply chain management.

Li and Nagai propose a multiple attribute decision-making approach to resolve the uncertain problem in the selection of supply chain management system. The approach combines grey theory and rough set theory and is suitable to decision making under uncertain environment. As a result, the ideal supplier can be decided by grey relational analysis based on grey number.

The study of horizons has been popular and applied to various problems, such as production planning, facility location and relocation, etc. In the multi-period optimisation problem, the decisions obtained from a finite horizon model are implemented in a system that will operate indefinitely. That is the so-called finite-horizon model. Lin reviews the development of the horizon theories and rearranges the works of these theories, then addresses the principle of planning horizon results for dynamic lot size model with or without backlogging. In addition, the concept of regeneration is introduced.

The impact of transportation on the supplier selection has received very scant attention in the literature. This is a great limitation because splitting orders across multiple suppliers will lead to smaller transportation quantities, which will likely imply a larger transportation cost. Moreover, transportation and inventory elements are highly interrelated and contribute most to the total logistics costs. In their paper, Aguezzoul and Ladet present a nonlinear multiobjective programming approach of selecting suppliers and allocating the order quantity among them; taking into account transportation. The model considers the total product cost and the lead-time as the criteria to minimize simultaneously. The total cost is the sum of transportation, inventory and ordering costs. The constraints related to suppliers and buyers are also considered in the model. The model is solved several times, evaluating various scenarios. Each scenario depends on the shipment type used between the suppliers and the buyer.

Finally, Morgan and Trivedi focused on service intermediaries by developing a theoretical modelling framework with an application to travel agents. The purpose of their research was to study the motivations of an agent in a service industry to honestly represent the quality of a service provider. Their main findings point to the fact that the agent's propensity to overstate the service provider's true quality level increases as the relative price of the service increases.

Hopefully, the academic content of Vol. 1 and these new studies of Vol. 2 will stimulate further other scholars to submit their research work to JM2.

Thank you for your continued readership.

Luiz Moutinho and Kun Huang Huarng