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The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of how different sourcing policies and resource usage affect the operational performance dynamics of warehouse processes.

The system dynamics (SD) methodology is used to model warehouse operations at the distribution centre of a leading fast‐fashion vertical retailer. This case study includes a detailed analysis of the relationships between the flow of items through the warehouse, the assignment of staff, the inventory management policy, and the order processing tasks.

Case scenario simulations are provided to define warehouse policies enabling increased efficiency, cost savings, reduced inventory, and shorter lead‐times.

The case study reaffirms that a flexible usage of human resources, outsourcing of selected warehouse operations, and sourcing from reliable manufacturers may result in important performance improvements for centralised warehousing.

It is proved that SD is a valuable tool in the field of operations management, not only to support strategic evaluations but also to execute a detailed analysis of logistical processes and make scenario‐based dynamic decisions at the operational level.

There has been little research that includes reliable deductions about the positive influence of learning capability on business performance. For this reason, the main objective of the present study is to empirically explore the link between learning capability in organizations and business performance evaluated in both financial and non‐financial terms.

Using data from 111 Spanish companies, research was conducted through a structural equation modelling. In doing so, a measurement model was conducted for the main constructs – learning capability, financial performance and non‐financial performance‐ and examine the paths between them.

The analysis shows the positive link existing between: learning capability and non‐financial performance; and non‐financial performance and financial performance.

This is a detailed empirical examination of learning capability as a source of performance in organizations. It should be of value to all those who think about the role of learning processes and knowledge in organizations, and who care about their effects on competitiveness.

Banks, financial statement users, and accounting standard setters have long disagreed on the informativeness of banks’ statements of cash flows (SCFs) and there is a lack of relevant evidence in the literature. This paper examines the informativeness of the SCFs of U.S. commercial banks in two settings where SCFs are purported to be useful. The first analysis tests the incremental value relevance of banks’ SCFs beyond income statements and balance sheets and compares bank's SCFs with those of industrial firms. We find that banks’ SCFs have limited incremental value relevance, and are much less value relevant than industrial firms’ SCFs. The second analysis examines and finds no distress-predictive power of banks’ SCFs, especially in the presence of standard distress predictors. Overall, our results are consistent with the view that banks’ SCFs have limited informativeness.

To develop a systems strategy for supply chain management in aerospace maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO).

A standard systems development methodology has been followed to produce a process model (i.e. the AMSCR model); an information model (i.e. business rules) and a computerised information management capability (i.e. automated optimisation).

The proof of concept for this web‐based MRO supply chain system has been established through collaboration with a sample of the different types of supply chain members. The proven benefits comprise new potential to minimise the stock holding costs of the whole supply chain whilst also minimising non‐flying time of the aircraft that the supply chain supports.

The scale of change needed to successfully model and automate the supply chain is vast. This research is a limited‐scale experiment intended to show the power of process analysis and automation, coupled with strategic use of management science techniques, to derive tangible business benefit.

This type of system is now vital in an industry that has continuously decreasing profit margins; which in turn means pressure to reduce servicing times and increase the mean time between them.

Original work has been conducted at several levels: process, information and automation. The proof‐of‐concept system has been applied to an aircraft MRO supply chain. This is an area of research that has been neglected, and as a result is not well served by current systems solutions.

This paper provides insight into the importance of interim reports of UK listed companies to investment analysts. The primary objective of financial reporting is assumed to be the provision of information to help investors make rational investment decisions. In this study, a survey of financial analysts and fund managers was undertaken to determine their perception of the importance of 113 items disclosed in interim reports. The main findings demonstrate that both financial analysts and fund managers perceive disclosure items in the profit and loss account and cash flow statement sections as the most important. Additionally, the results show that there are similarities between financial analysts and fund managers with regard to the relative usefulness of items in the profit and loss account, balance sheet, cash flow statements and accounting policies and notes. However, significant differences exist between the two groups with respect to management commentary information. Overall, the conclusion that can be drawn from these results is that increased disclosure in interim reports is useful to investment analysts. These findings are important for policy‐makers and companies as the views of investment analysts (as users of financial reports) are essential in the attempt to improve disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incremental information content of estimates of cash flow components in predicting future cash flows.

The authors examine whether the models incorporating components of operating cash flow from income statements and balance sheets using the direct method are associated with smaller prediction errors than the models incorporating core and non-core cash flow.

Using data from US and UK firms and multiple regression analysis, the authors find that around 60 per cent of a current year’s cash flow will persist into the next period’s cash flows, and that income statement and balance sheet variables persist similarly. The explanatory power and predictive ability of disaggregated cash flow models are superior to that of an aggregated model, and further disaggregating previously applied core and non-core cash flows provides incremental information about income statement and balance sheet items that enhances prediction of future cash flows. Disaggregated models and their components produce lower out-of-sample prediction errors than an aggregated model.

This study improves our appreciation of the behaviour of cash flow components and confirms the need for detailed cash flow information in accordance with the articulation of financial statements.

The findings are relevant to investors and analysts in predicting future cash flows and to regulators with respect to disclosure requirements and recommendations.

The findings are also relevant to financial statement users interested in better predicting a firm’s future cash flows and thereby, its firm’s value.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by further disaggregating cash flow items into their underlying items from income statements and balance sheets.

Research on organizational communication has shown significant associations with many important outcomes. Although these researches are appealing, there have been criticisms and suggestions for improvement of the organizational communication scales, developed in Western organization settings, to make them applicable to collectivist culture‐based organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to access the organizational communication construct through the development and validation of an organizational communication measure for Malaysian organizations.

Item analysis for Malaysian organizational communication scale involves survey of 250 university employees, followed by construct and criterion‐related validation using 346 employees, representing three organizations in Malaysia, resulting in a Malaysian organizational communication scale.

Through the validation of a Malaysian organizational communication measure, support was found for the proposition that Malaysian organizations are composed of information flow, communication climate, message characteristics, and communication structure, as well as new dimensions, namely, the group bond and respect.

One of the weaknesses of the study was the size of sample used for the focus group. Another weakness was the organizations involved in the validation segment of the study, which were service‐related organizations. Finally, current investigations limit themselves to job satisfaction. These results have to be handled carefully.

The paper shows that group bond and mutual respect are salient work relationships in Malaysian organizations.

The emergence of group bond and respect dimensions in the Malaysian organizational communication construct is consistent with the examination of organizational behavior.

This study aims to address the management of reverse flows in the context of service supply chains. The study builds on the characteristics of services production reported in literature to: identify diverse types of reverse flows in services supply chains, discuss key issues associated to the management of reverse service flows and suggest directions for research for developing the knowledge for management of reverse flows in service contexts.

This study first provides an overview of the theoretical background which supports the identification and the characterization of the flows, and the reverse flows, involved in service production. A short summary of each paper accepted in this special issue is also provided to give readers an overview of the various issues around reverse exchanges in service supply chains that authors have attempted to address.

In this study, the authors identify distinct types of reverse flows in services production building on the analysis of the characteristics of service production and delivery reported in the literature. Our discussion highlights the fact that service supply chains can be quite diverse in the type of exchanges of inputs and outputs that take place between customers and providers, showing that often there can be substantial flows of items to return. In particular, and differently from manufacturing contexts, the authors highlight that in service supply chains, providers might need to handle bi-directional reverse flows.

The lack of research on reverse service supply chains is, to a great extent, a consequence of dominant paradigms which often identify the absence of physical product flows as a key distinguishing feature of service supply chains, and therefore lead to the misbelief that in services there is nothing to return. This special issue therefore aims to clarify this misunderstanding through the limited selection of eight papers that address various issues around reverse exchanges in service supply chains.

While theoretical and empirical research in supply chain is abundant, management of reverse exchanges in service supply chain is sparse. In this special issue we aim to provide the first contribution to understand how the characteristics of service production raise new issues for the management of reverse flows in service supply chains, and to foster the development of adequate management strategies.

Grounded in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) (Venkatesh et al., 2012), the purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents and consequence associated with esports gameplay by proposing the Esports Consumption (ESC) model, including six determinants of esports gameplay intention (hedonic motivation, habit, price value, perceived effort expectancy, social influence and flow) and behavioral consequence (media consumption intention of esports events) that were linked to esports gameplay.

The proposed model was tested using the data (n=348) that were collected from esports consumers at two points in time. Per the technology adoption theories (i.e. TAM, UTAUT2), the authors incorporated a temporal separation when measuring the relationship between playing intention and playing behavior. For the purpose of data analysis, CFA and SEM were used to examine the hypothesized model.

As a result, four determinants (i.e. hedonic motivation, price value, effort expectancy and flow) were identified as the critical factors influencing esports consumers’ esports gameplay intention. Furthermore, the bootstrap method procedure verified that a sequential relationship among esports gameplay intention, esports gameplay and media consumption of esports events.

Theoretically, it has developed a research model that explains various triggers resulting from esports gameplay intention, which is causally linked to esports gameplay and media consumption behavior. Practically, the primary implication has to do with providing information regarding esports consumers’ playing behavior with esports game publishers, which organize esports events and leagues.

The authors aim at investigating different forms of classification shifting (CS). CS is a novel form of earnings management under which managers misclassify income statement line items and cash flow statement line items with an intent to report favorable operating performance of firms. In particular, the authors check the existence of revenue misclassification, expense misclassification and cash flows misclassification among Indian firms by taking the uniform sample of firms over a single period.

Operating revenue model (Malikov et al., 2018), core earnings expectation model (McVay, 2006) and operating cash flows model (Roychowdhury, 2006) are employed for measuring revenue misclassification, expense misclassification and cash flows misclassification, respectively. The panel data regression models are used to analyze the data for this study.

Based on the sample of 12,870 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed firm-years observations between 2010 and 2018, we find that, on average, Indian firms are engaged in revenue misclassification rather than expense misclassification to report inflated core earnings. Firms are found to be engaged in cash flows misclassification too. Besides, we find that magnitude of shifting is greater among larger firms. Results also establish that adoption of Ind AS increases the scope of shifting practices. These results are based on several robustness checks.

The results suggest that investors conduct a comprehensive review of the items of financial statements before using them in their portfolio valuation. It suggests auditors check the basis of revenue classification and standard-setting authorities, like ICAI in India, to make more mandatory disclosure requirements for classification of revenues and cash flows. It suggests lenders not to make lending decisions by looking at the operating performance metrics, as CS is the most preferred tool to positively influence the perception of lenders toward operating performance.

It is the first study that investigates different forms of classification shifting jointly for a sample of firms. Most of the earlier studies have examined one kind of classification shifting at a time. This study adds to the existing literature on earnings management by documenting that some firm-specific factors pressurize firms to prefer one form of shifting over another to report inflated core earnings.