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Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

It's late one night and you're shopping at the E‐Biz Mall (open 24/7). You come across the “Ebiz Transformation Kit” and take it off the virtual shelf. The side panel says the kit includes one magic wand, sound business models, key challenges, and strategic issues. On the front it says: “Gets your e‐business up and running in Internet time. Build new strategies in 12 easy steps!” Should you open it, or is this Pandora's box?

Research on international retailing has generally emanated from Europe and North America. Nonetheless, retailers from emerging countries can also be important players in regional markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore how retailers from emerging markets can become strong enough to compete internationally.

The study examines a longitudinal case study of the internationalisation process of Falabella, a Chilean retailer that has recently become an important player in the Latin America retail industry. Drawing on 32 interviews with company managers, as well as industry data and corporate reports, this paper provides insights into the successful internationalisation process of a retailer from an emerging country.

The paper offers insights into emerging market internationalisation. In particular, these findings suggest that specific capabilities and resources, such as local and regional partnerships, organisational learning, innovation orientation, adaptation to the local markets, and an experienced management team, are required for emerging market retailers to internationalise and improve their likelihood of success in foreign markets.

This paper explores an underdeveloped topic through the analysis of a longitudinal case study. Thus, it is necessary to further expand this line of research and investigate other emerging market retailers.

This study raises a number of important issues for emerging market retail managers that are reluctant to expand abroad and compete with large multinationals from developed markets, or that are struggling with their actual internationalisation process.

To date, the retail internationalisation literature has focused on the international experiences of firms from developed nations. However, there is a gap in the literature as to how retailers from emerging countries can become strong enough to compete internationally.

Superior firms are those which create shareholder wealth. The most direct way to measure shareholder wealth is by examining the worth of dividends plus share‐price appreciation. The authors contend that the companies chosen as excellent by Peters and Waterman, in their book, In Search of Excellence, fail to show superior shareholder wealth creation.

This paper seeks to critically analyse the list of principles on the extractive phase of the electronics supply chains, proposed for consumer electronic companies, by the non‐governmental campaign MakeITfair. The purpose is to understand whether conformance with these principles could positively influence the socio‐environmental conditions at the mining level.

The paper reviews the literature on incorporation of corporate social responsibility in supply chain management. It then examines how metals are mined, traded and used in electronics, as well as how the mining industry has been managing its own socio‐environmental problems. This information underpins the qualitative discussion of the principles.

MakeITfair's principles were found to be constructive insofar as they draw the attention of electronic companies to their shared responsibility for the problems of distant‐tier suppliers. Nevertheless, some principles may lead to potentially undesired outcomes such as biased prioritization of mining companies or regions, adoption of contentious “standards”, and conflicts concerning the sovereign rights of nations over their natural resources. Overall, the principles stress traceability mechanisms as means of influencing the mining phase of supply chains without considering the costs and benefits of overcoming the complexities involved in the metal trade and other barriers. The paper concludes by highlighting the need to consider additional ways of positively influencing metals supply.

The paper points out specific research priorities in the value chains of metals.

The paper provides a critical analysis of intricate responsibility issues in the supply chain of the world's top electronic companies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a pattern of interlocking directorates is emerging following reforms in Mexican corporations, and who, if any, are the powerful actors in this network. Drawing on the Bourdieusian notion of social capital, the paper also analyses theoretically the interlocking directorates, networks and powerful actors, and their influences on and potential implications for corporate governance mechanisms.

The data used in the study consisted of 1,442 internal and external board members of the population of 126 Mexican corporations trading on the Mexican Stock Market as of January 2011. Use of social network analysis (SNA) demonstrates individuals’ links with corporations and allows the production of spatial maps to visualise the network structure of interlocking boards.

Using the measures of SNA developed by Freeman (1979 and Bonacich (1972), the authors identify the most powerful and influential directors in the network structure of board members in Mexico. Board members with the greatest number of connections occupy central positions in the network. The authors also find a catalogue of corporate governance scandals. The inclusion of independent directors seems to have had no influence in ensuring better corporate governance.

Mapping out the directors’ links might offer excellent opportunities for policy makers to see how many companies a single director represents, how they share boards, and the implications for minority shareholders of sharing boards, and to understand the workloads of directors in carrying out the monitoring tasks expected of them.

This paper makes an important contribution by employing SNA to illustrate interlocking directorates and the positions of powerful and influential actors. Examining networks of directors from a “social capital” point of view also provides an understanding of why the role of independent directors remains toothless in family-dominated corporations.

The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding of teen consumers’ adoption of virtual fashion. Specifically, the study assessed the effects of individual variables, including fashion innovativeness and peer pressure, on needs gratification, attitudes and adoption of virtual fashion worlds (VFWs) among teen girl consumers.

An online survey was designed and administered to a convenience sample of female teens. Empirical analyses were performed on 177 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was used to test all hypotheses.

The results revealed that adoption of VFWs in the sample was affected significantly by teen female consumers’ needs gratification, attitudes about VFWs and fashion innovativeness. However, peer pressure had no effects.

The emergence of different types of virtual worlds has influenced the way in which business is conducted, and VFWs are a popular trend. However, no studies have examined consumers’ adoption of VFWs that promote fashion using avatars and offer similar styles for teens in the real world. The study adds to existing literature related to consumers’ adoption of innovations by integrating communication, sociological and innovation adoption theories.

This paper aims to explore how firms from a Latin American market internationalise using the resource-based view of the firm as a theoretical foundation. Specifically, it examines the internationalisation process of three Chilean companies that have become relevant international players.

Drawing on interviews with company managers, as well as industry data and corporate reports, this paper provides insights into the successful internationalisation process of emerging market firms.

The findings of this study suggest that specific capabilities and resources, such as belonging to a family conglomerate, domestic and foreign partnerships and networks, innovation and market orientation, and an experienced management team, are required for emerging market firms to internationalise and improve their performance in foreign markets.

This study is one of the few to address the internationalisation process of Chilean companies.

The purpose of this study is to understand the psychological mechanism that affects consumer trust by focusing on the formation and influence process of psychological contracts, and taking this opportunity, explore the influence paths of food quality, food safety and service quality on consumer trust in the online food market, and provide theoretical suggestions for building trust in food businesses' consumers.

This study is based on an empirical investigation and uses partial least square structural equation modeling for analysis. Survey data were collected online from 359 APP users of online food transaction platforms in China.

Food quality, food safety and service quality influence consumer trust through the mediating effects of relational and transactional psychological contracts. However, the differences between these influencing paths are obvious and shift with changes in the marketing channels.

This study contributes to the body of consumer trust research by exploring online food transactions as an emerging trend in China. Some optimization strategies for food quality, food safety and service quality are provided for enterprises involved in online food transactions.

This is a pioneering study revealing psychological contracts as a missing but significant mediator between consumer trust and its antecedents.

When a supply chain initiative is taken up by a firm a number of issues come up during implementation. The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the major issues related to such implementation and draw out practices from literature to serve as remedies for these issues.

The paper starts by suggesting a broad framework for implementing supply chain management (SCM) in a firm. This consists of strategy formulation, identification of areas for improving material flow, identifying issues in these areas, and finally performance evaluation in order to determine how well the supply chain initiative has been implemented. Subsequently, the paper follows this framework step by step and in the process identifies the issues likely to arise in the process of SCM implementation. By reviewing current literature it suggests how these issues can be handled effectively.

The major issues related to SCM implementation are in the areas of logistics, outsourcing/partnerships, and environment. Apart from these issues the prerequisite for implementation is formulation of strategy while the final step in the exercise is performance evaluation. These two activities need to be handled carefully also.

The paper has important implications for the industry since it tries to bring out practices which would help in successful implementation of SCM in a firm. This is more so for the process industry which has lagged behind its counterparts in other industries with respect to implementation of SCM.

The value of this paper which is based on extensive literature review lies in: suggesting a framework to implement SCM, identifying likely issues, and suggesting ways to handle them. The summary diagrams would definitely facilitate understanding. This can be of interest to SCM personnel in the industry. Major contributions by researchers relevant to handling the issues have been tabulated at the end which can be useful for academicians.