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Undergraduate/graduate/executive education.

China has become the world's largest producer of automobiles, surpassing the USA and Japan. The Chinese auto industry differs quite significantly from those countries though. While the industry exhibits a substantial degree of concentration in the USA and Japan in early 2011, it remained highly fragmented in China. The Chinese Central Government had announced a desire for consolidation, yet it remained unclear whether a significant shakeout would occur in the near term.

Like many Chinese automakers, Chang'an partnered with well-known global auto makers to develop, produce, and distribute its products. In the coming years, Chang'an hoped to develop more independence from its foreign partners, including the production and distribution of self-branded cars. However, the company grappled with how it could strive for independence while managing its existing joint ventures. Executives worried too about how to compete with foreign automakers who had achieved global economies of scale.

The case provides a rich description of the evolution of the Chinese auto industry, and it documents how the Chinese industry differs from other global markets. Readers can analyze the extent to which they believe scale economies provide foreign firms an advantage over smaller Chinese rivals, and they can evaluate the conventional wisdom regarding the industry's minimum efficient scale. The case also provides a detailed account of Chang'an's rise to prominence. The case concludes by offering an in-depth description of the firm's key rivals, and it presents the key questions being considered by Chang'an executives in 2011.

Enables students to examine how and why an industry's structure can differ substantially across geographic markets.

Enables students to examine whether the need to achieve economies of scale may cause substantial consolidation in the Chinese auto industry.

Provides an opportunity to evaluate the pros and cons of the joint venture strategies employed in China.

Provides an opportunity to examine how a relatively small firm can position itself against large multinationals in a high-growth emerging market.

Teaching notes.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new design of an R chart to catch smaller shifts in the process dispersion as well as maintaining the simplicity so that it may be applied at shopfloor level.

Here a new R chart has been proposed which can overcome the limitations of Shewhart, CUSUM and EWMA range charts. The concept of this R chart is based on chi‐square (χ²) distribution. Although CUSUM and EWMA charts are very useful for catching the small shifts in the mean or standard deviation, they can catch the process shift only when there is a single and sustained shift in process average or standard deviation.

It was found that the proposed chart performs significantly better than the conventional (Shewhart) R chart, CUSUM range schemes proposed by Chang and Gan for most of the process shifts in standard deviation. The ARLs of the proposed R chart is higher than ARLs of CUSUM schemes for only ten cases out of 40. The performance of the proposed R chart has also been compared with the variance chart proposed by Chang and Gan for various shifts in standard deviation. The ARLs of the proposed R chart are compared with Chang's R chart for sample sizes of 3 and it can be concluded from the comparisons that the proposed R chart is much better than Chang's variance chart for all shift ratios for sample size of three. Many difficulties related to the operation and design of CUSUM and EWMA control charts are greatly reduced by providing a simple and accurate proposed R chart scheme. The performance characteristics (ARLs) of the proposed charts are very comparable to a great degree with FIR CUSUM, simple CUSUM and other variance charts. It can be concluded that, instead of considering many parameters, it is better to consider single sample size and single control limits because a control chart loses its simplicity with a greater number of parameters. Moreover, practitioners may also find difficulty in applying it in production processes. On the other hand, CUSUM control charts are not effective when there is a single and sustained shift in the process dispersion.

A lot of effort has been done to develop the new range charts for monitoring the process dispersion. Various assumptions and factors affecting the performance of the R chart have been identified and taken into account. In the proposed design, the observations have been assumed independent of one another but the observations may also be assumed to be auto‐correlated with previous observations and the performance of the proposed R chart may be studied.

The research findings could be applied to various manufacturing and service industries as it is more effective than the conventional (Shewhart) R chart and simpler than CUSUM charts.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Ben Chang, the CEO of a small credit union, Neighbourhood Credit Union (Neighbourhood), located in Atlantic Canada was evaluating a possible merger with another larger credit union, Pleasantview Credit Union (Pleasantview). Chang and Neighbourhood’s Board of Directors (Board) were interested in a merger that would enhance member benefits via improved technology, innovative delivery channels and a more robust financial planning and wealth management capability. Chang, along with a team of experts, was methodical in seeking out interested credit unions. Pleasantview emerged as a strong candidate from the expression of interest stage. The initial due diligence review was complete, the memorandum of understanding signed and a working group comprised of members from both credit unions formed. Chang, however, was becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of strategic fit between Neighbourhood and Pleasantview. In conversation with the consultant hired to assist with the merger process, Chang was considering recommending to the Board that the merger process with Pleasantview be halted. It was January 2015 and Chang was set to retire in May. Before he retired he wanted a plan in place that ensured increased member benefits, as well one that balanced growth and sustainability for Neighbourhood. Chang was scheduled to meet with the Board in four days. He needed a recommendation that would address the current merger situation, as well as provide other options for Neighbourhood.

This case is based upon primary and secondary data collection. Formal and follow-up informal interviews were conducted in 2015 with the CEO and “merger” consultant at Neighbourhood Credit Union. Organisational documents and publicly available documents were also consulted. To ensure the confidentiality terms of the merger discussions, the case is disguised with respect to the name and location of the credit unions, the names of the CEO and consultant, as well as the financials. The timeline, process followed, key decision and opinions of the CEO and merger consultant as presented in the case are real.

This case is formulated for university undergraduate students in their third or fourth years of study and graduate students. It is appropriate for strategic management and co-operative/not-for-profit management classes intended for a 60–75 min class session.

With their national economy rapidly and structurally turning away from the long-cherished stable employment regime since the national financial crisis, South Koreans’ poverty is increasingly manifested through financial entrapment ensuing from heavy personal indebtedness to banks, kin members and friends, and, the worst of all, private usurers. The world’s once most aggressively saving population turned into one of the world’s most indebted populations merely in a decade. Having lost its once-proud capacity of a developmental state, the South Korean government has instead been busy devising various public schemes for offering grassroots consumer loans in supposedly preferential terms. Consumer credit, instead of social wage, has been offered rather generously by this increasingly neoliberalized state. This is another crucial component of financialization in the contemporary world political economy. South Korea’s emergency measures for escaping the national financial crisis have paradoxically ended up transplanting the financial trouble from banks and industrial enterprises to grassroots households.

Researchers continue to seek understanding of industrialization as a state managed process. How to create and implement new industries based on advanced knowledge is on the policy agenda of many advanced nations. Measures that promote these developments include national capacity building in science and technology, the formation of technology transfer systems, and the establishment of industrial clusters. What these templates often overlook is an analysis of use. This chapter aims to increase the understanding of the processes that embed new solutions in structures from an industrial network perspective. The chapter describes an empirical study of high-technology industrialization in Taiwan that the researcher conducts to this end. The study shows that the Taiwanese industrial model is oversimplified and omits several important factors in the development of new industries. This study bases its findings on the notions that resource combination occurs in different time and space, the new always builds on existing resource structures, and the users are important as active participants in development processes.

Internet-enabled commerce activities have evidently been strong in the leisure and tourism industry. The use of the Internet reveals an ever-growing market of millions of business and leisure travelers who use the Internet for travel planning purpose. As segment-based approach is an accepted tool in strategic marketing and helps understand the needs of homogeneous travel planner subpopulations, this study suggests a framework as the guideline and procedure to improve the segmentation approach. The main aim is to increase understanding of the growing Internet travel market by accurately classifying the Internet travel planners. Following the procedures methodically shown in the framework, the study conducted multiple complementary statistical techniques to cross validate statistical results found in each step. The typology of Internet travel planners was therefore identified systematically with great accuracy and validity. The typology consists of four groups of Internet travel planners: sensate, deal, defensive, and totemic. Based on the major characteristics of each group, the study also provided discussions and suggestions for the implementation of the typology to develop successful e-commerce. The findings offer academia and practitioners a paradigm for strategic marketing.

This study aims to investigate the role of green strategic alliances (GSAs) in fostering a green shared vision (GSVis) and green shared value (GSV) and their impact on green organizational identity (GOI) and sustainability.

The authors employed structural equation modeling to analyze data collected through a 60-item questionnaire administered in Portugal and China, allowing the authors to test their theoretical model.

The findings of the authors' study indicate that green strategic alliances have a positive influence on the development of a GSVis and GSV in both countries. This, in turn, contributes to improved sustainability and the establishment of a GOI. Furthermore, the authors' results demonstrate that these alliances enhance GSV, resulting in enhanced sustainability performance and a stronger green identity, with a notable increase in awareness of environmental and social practices.

This article is innovative as it applies organizational learning and value creation theories to gain a deeper understanding of how alliances can shape the green identity of companies and contribute to their overall sustainability.

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into Asian Americans’ experiences with racism during elementary, middle and high school and how those experiences shape the ways they describe their racial identity.

This study used a qualitative research design and narrative inquiry strategy. The authors used Chang’s (1993) Asian Critical Race Theory framework to examine participant’s descriptions of experiences with racism during elementary, middle and high school and how these experiences shape how they describe their Asian American racial identity.

Participants’ narratives revealed a common theme of silencing through two major processes: acceptance of the Asian American identity as an “other” and measuring the Asian American self against the barometers of physical appearance and the model minority stereotype.

This study contributes to the literature on Asian Americans by examining how experiences as a child shape how they have come to perceive their racial identity in relation to their overall self-concept. The authors argue that Asian American experiences have been excluded from discourse on race in education as the model minority and perpetual foreigner stereotypes have allowed for this marginalization.