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Procurement is an increasingly important activity within most firms, and severe financial and operational consequences can result from the failure to optimize the procurement function. The multiple criteria, including the financial significance, involved in the selection of a sole‐source vendor are addressed here. Two multicriteria approaches to decision support for vendor selection are presented and are demonstrated through an example. One approach, the simple multiattribute rating technique, is relatively widely used in selection problems. The other approach, data envelopment analysis, is rarely used in such problems but serves as a very acceptable alternative for supporting the vendor selection decision. The results from these two approaches are compared to those based upon a pure aggregation and averaging procedure. For the example being considered, both multicriteria approaches provide similar results, which differ considerably from those for pure aggregation. In addition, the short‐term financial implications are examined so as to underscore the commitment needed by management if non‐cost criteria are to be incorporated into vendor selection.

The learning outcomes are as follows: successful students will demonstrate an understanding of challenges in producing and delivering a product in emerging economies; they will be able to analyze the tradeoffs in operational decisions of a social enterprise; and students will apply supply chain principles to solve social and environmental challenges.

Carbon Roots International is a social enterprise in Haiti producing and selling charcoal from sugar cane waste. Their operational challenge is designing a supply chain, which enables them to accomplish their social goals while building a profitable enterprise.

This case can be used in graduate operations management and supply chain management courses. The company in the case is a social enterprise.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Discusses how resources are allocated in capitalist and socialist economies comparing the concept of interest (e.g. for present value calculations) with the use of capital charges (e.g. for calculating opportunity cost). Contrasts the Islamic economic system, which rejects interest but considers moral factors and the will of Allah when measuring welfare. Explains how these ideas can be expressed in the accounting price of capital (for objective factors) and by Islamic welfare criteria; and how they differ from the Pareto Criterion and capitalist concepts of utility. Lists four principles and 12 welfare criteria for an Islamic allocation of resources; and some hints on their practical application before summarizing the conclusions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the comparative effects of mainstream celebrities and social media influencers on consumer advocacy and relationship intentions. The study also examines the direct and serial mediation effects on those relationships.

The survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 718 respondents throughout Malaysia, with convenience and snowball sampling techniques employed. The data were analyzed based on the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach through the AMOS version 24. The PROCESS MACRO v-4.20 was applied to evaluate mediating effects in the model.

The results reveal that celebrity endorsers' involvement in social media significantly influences the uses of social media, which also impacts the attitudes and, subsequently, consumer relationship and advocacy intentions. The study found that mainstream celebrities and social media influencers effectively promote brands, and it discovered insignificant differences in their effects on the analyzed relationships.

This study has been conducted on consumers in Malaysia; it may have different effects on consumers in other countries.

Brand managers and policymakers may benefit from following the study's guidelines for making consumer relationship and advocacy intentions by celebrity endorsers and uses of social media.

The brand community can benefit from tightening their social bondage by sharing and managing crucial information from celebrities and using social media.

The study explores the effects of mainstream celebrities on consumer relationship and advocacy intentions using social media networks and managing consumer attitudes.

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

Small-scale farmers in developing countries are undersupplied with capital. Although microfinance institutions (MFIs) have become well established in developing countries, they have not significantly extended their services to farmers. It is generally believed that this is partly due to the riskiness of lending to farmers. The purpose of this paper is to combine original data from a Madagascan MFI with weather data to estimate the effect of rainfall on the repayment performance of loans granted to farmers.

The basis of the empirical analysis is a unique data set of a commercial MFI in Madagascar and weather data provided by the German Meteorological Service. The repayment performance of loans granted to small-scale farmers is estimated using a two-step estimation approach based on linear probability models (LPMs) and a sequential logit model (SLM).

The results reveal that an excessive amount of rain in the harvest period of rice increases the credit risk of loans granted to small-scale farmers in Madagascar. Furthermore, the results confirm that credit features affect the repayment performance of loans.

Since the returns from weather index-based insurance (at least as a future contract) are perfectly correlated with weather events, the authors can set the effect of weather events on the repayment performance of loans equal to the effect of the returns of weather index-based insurance on the repayment performance of loans. Thus, the results imply that weather index-based insurance might have the potential to mitigate a certain part of the risk in agricultural lending.

The focus and results of the present study are very relevant for MFIs, potential providers of weather index-based insurances as well as for farmers. The results confirm that weather events are a primary reason for the risk perception of lenders in developing countries toward small-scale farmers. Future research should, hence, concentrate on the development of index-based insurances in agricultural lending and consider interventions on different levels, e.g., insurance on the farm and the bank level.

To the knowledge, this is the first study that combines original loan repayment data from a Madagascan MFI with weather data in order to estimate the effect of weather events on the repayment performance of loans granted to farmers. Furthermore, to the knowledge, this is the first study that uses a two-step estimation approach based on LPMs and a SLM to investigate the repayment performance in agricultural lending.

Contrasts the stability of Hong Kong’s currency with the fall of other Asian currencies during the 1997‐1998 crisis and asks whether a Hong Kong‐style currency board could help other Asian countries. Discusses the underlying causes of the crisis and compares it with the currency crises of the European Monetary System (1992‐1993) and Mexico (1994‐1995). Considers the advantages and disadvantages of a currency board but concludes that most Asian countries have insufficient foreign reserves, wage/price flexibility or prosperity to benefit from having one.

This study aims to investigate the impact of environmentally sustainable innovation practices on consumer resistance to innovation in eco-hotel enterprises and the moderating influence of value co-creation based on the service-dominant logic and innovation resistance theory.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the study’s hypotheses on a sample of 382 eco-hotel enterprise consumers surveyed online.

Results reveal that adopting environmentally sustainable innovation practices and consumers’ participation in value co-creation can negatively influence consumer resistance to innovation. In addition, value co-creation partially moderates the influence of environmentally sustainable innovation practices on consumer resistance to innovation, implying that other variables can influence this relationship. Finally, the results showed that value co-creation is a multidimensional construct with dimensions of meaningfulness, collaboration, contribution, recognition and affective response.

This study contributes significantly to knowledge of value co-creation and innovation resistance in service ecosystems through the lens of sustainability. Incorporating value co-creation as a moderator demonstrates how to address sustainable activities to decrease consumers’ resistance to eco-hotel enterprises’ environmentally sustainable innovation practices. By empirically analyzing these relationships, this study makes various contributions and gives helpful decision-making insights.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption and implementation of computer-assisted therapy (CAT) using Breaking Free Online (BFO) in a social care and health charity working with people affected by drugs and alcohol dependence, Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with service managers, practitioners, peer mentors and service users. Data were thematically analysed and themes conceptualised using Roger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory (Rogers, 1995, 2002, 2004).

A number of perceived barriers to adoption of BFO throughout CRI were identified within the social system, including a lack of IT resources and skills. However, there were numerous perceived benefits of adoption of BFO throughout CRI, including broadening access to effective interventions to support recovery from substance dependence, and promoting digital inclusion. Along with the solutions that were found to the identified barriers to implementation, intentions around longer-term continuation of adoption of the programme were reported, with this process being supported through changes to both the social system and the individuals within it.

The introduction of innovations such as BFO within large organisations like CRI can be perceived as being disruptive, even when individuals within the organisation recognise its benefits. For successful adoption and implementation of such innovations, changes in the social system are required, at organisational and individual levels.

The learning points from this study may be relevant to the substance misuse sector, and more widely to criminal justice, health and social care organisations.

This study is the first of its kind to use a qualitative approach to examine processes of implementation of CAT for substance misuse within a large treatment and recovery organisation.