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Tom McKillop, CEO of AstraZeneca, faced the classic quandary of large pharmaceutical firms. The firm's patent for Prilosec (active ingredient omeprazole) was expiring. Severe cost-based competition from generic drug manufacturers was inevitable. Patent expirations were nothing new for the US$15.8 billion in revenues drug firm, but Prilosec was the firm's most successful drug franchise, with global sales of US$6.2 billion. How could the company innovate its way around the generic cost-based competition and avoid the drop in revenues associated with generic drug market entry? AstraZeneca had other follow-on drugs in the pipeline—namely Nexium, an improvement on the original Prilosec molecule. Additionally, the company had the opportunity to introduce its own version of generic omeprazole, hence becoming the first mover in the generic segment, and/or introduce an OTC version of omeprazole that might tap into other markets. Ideally, AstraZeneca would like to move brand-loyal Prilosec customers to Nexium. In this market, direct-to-consumer advertising has remarkable efficacy. Classical marketing challenges of pricing and promotion need to be resolved for the Nexium launch as well as possible product and place challenges for the generic or OTC opportunity. Which combination of marketing options will allow the firm to best sustain the value of the original omeprazole innovation?

The central objective of the case is to teach students how marketing variables can be used by first movers with diverse product portfolios to fend off severe price competition. These variables include pricing, promotion, product, and place (distribution) options as considered in the context of branded, generic, and OTC pharmaceutical market segments.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the sources for grants funding available to libraries

The author provides a narrative article.

A number of funding sources – both government and private – exist for academic, special, and public libraries.

Practical suggestions on where to look for possible grants funding. Additional reading on grants preparation is also provided.

When disasters occur, the Chinese national or local government and their relevant departments (hereinafter referred to as the government) probably need to acquire emergency supplies from suppliers. Before concluding a transaction, the public officials usually negotiate the quality and price of the emergency supplies with the suppliers. They expect to achieve the best relief effect while the suppliers want to maximize their own interests. Therefore, in order to help the government acquire inexpensive emergency supplies with high quality in a short time, the purpose of this paper is to examine the negotiation process and proposes a negotiation principle for the staff.

This paper first elaborates the characteristics and impact factors of emergency supplies requisition negotiation. Then it establishes a model describing the negotiation on price and quality of emergency supplies between the public officials and suppliers. Afterwards, it proposes an algorithm which can estimate the success rate of the negotiation. Finally, the paper employs the conclusion of the model and algorithm to analyze the emergency supplies requisition negotiation process during the China Lushan earthquake.

This paper proposes a “WRAD” principle of emergency supplies requisition negotiation of public officials in disasters. First, they should ensure the requisition price is not too low. Second, they would widen the difference between the high price and low price. Third, it is best for them to follow the principle of “ascending negotiation and descending choice” while selecting multiple suppliers to negotiate.

This paper establishes a model to study the emergency supplies requisition negotiation process between the public officials and suppliers based on evolutionary game theory. The model assumes that both the public officials and suppliers are not fully rational individuals, and they need time to consult with each other to find out the optimal solution. This paper proposes an innovative action principle of the public officials during the negotiation process which can help it to acquire inexpensive, high-quality, emergency supplies within a short period from the suppliers.

Keeping in view the robust growth of Islamic banking around the globe, this study aims to comparatively analyze the association between liquidity creation and liquidity risk for Islamic banks (IBANs) and conventional banks (CBANs) in Pakistan and Malaysia over a period of 2004–2021. The moderating role of bank loan concentration on the aforementioned relationship is also studied.

Regression estimation methods such as fixed effect, random effect and generalized least square are deployed for obtaining results. Liquidity creation Burger Bouwman measure (cat fat and noncat fat) and Basel-III liquidity risk measure (liquidity coverage ratio) are also used.

The results give us insight that liquidity creation is positively and significantly related to liquidity risk in both IBANs and CBANs of Pakistan and Malaysia. This relationship has been moderated negatively (reversed) and significantly by credit concentration showing the importance of risk management and loan portfolio concentration.

It is analyzed that during the process of liquidity creation, IBANs in Pakistan faced more liquidity risk for both on and off-balance sheet transactions in the presence of moderation of loan concentration than IBANs in Malaysia necessitating strategic policy-making for important aspects of liquidity risk management and loan concentration while creating liquidity.

Such studies comparing IBANs and CBANs comparison keeping in view liquidity creation, liquidity risk and loan concentration are either limited or nonexistent.

The study aims to analyze the synergy of artificial intelligence (AI), with scientometrics, webometrics and bibliometrics to unlock and to emphasize the potential of the applications and benefits of AI algorithms in these fields.

By conducting a systematic literature review, our aim is to explore the potential of AI in revolutionizing the methods used to measure and analyze scholarly communication, identify emerging research trends and evaluate the impact of scientific publications. To achieve this, we implemented a comprehensive search strategy across reputable databases such as ProQuest, IEEE Explore, EBSCO, Web of Science and Scopus. Our search encompassed articles published from January 1, 2000, to September 2022, resulting in a thorough review of 61 relevant articles.

(1) Regarding scientometrics, the application of AI yields various distinct advantages, such as conducting analyses of publications, citations, research impact prediction, collaboration, research trend analysis and knowledge mapping, in a more objective and reliable framework. (2) In terms of webometrics, AI algorithms are able to enhance web crawling and data collection, web link analysis, web content analysis, social media analysis, web impact analysis and recommender systems. (3) Moreover, automation of data collection, analysis of citations, disambiguation of authors, analysis of co-authorship networks, assessment of research impact, text mining and recommender systems are considered as the potential of AI integration in the field of bibliometrics.

This study covers the particularly new benefits and potential of AI-enhanced scientometrics, webometrics and bibliometrics to highlight the significant prospects of the synergy of this integration through AI.

This study aims to examine the effect of liquidity risk on deposit money banks’ (DMBs) performance in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study also tests the interaction effect of liquidity risk and nonperforming loans on the performance of DMBs’ in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This study uses a two-step system generalized method of moment to test the influence of liquidity risk on DMBs’ performance in Sub-Saharan Africa. A sample of 50 listed banks across six Sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania, were used. The bank performance proxy used are return on asset and return on equity, while net interest margin is used for robustness check.

The study’s findings reveal a significant and negative association between liquidity risk and bank performance. Moreover, the relationship between the nonperforming loan and bank performance is negative and significant. Furthermore, the interaction effect of liquidity risk and nonperforming loans on bank performance is found to be significantly negative for the two proxies of bank performance. The result is robust for the alternative bank performance measurements and econometric model, which adequately addresses endogeneity tendency.

To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is one of the earliest empirical studies that examine the effect of liquidity risk on DMBs’ performance across Sub-Saharan African countries. This study further differs from previous studies with the interaction term of liquidity risk and nonperforming loan included in the model.

Breakfast skipping by children, with its varying global prevalence and associated factors, is well documented to adversely affect their health, cognitive ability, academic performance and anthropometric status. Libya, a country with a young population base, has limited information on breakfast skipping prevalence among its young citizens as well as its compounding factors unique to the country. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the breakfast skipping pattern among Benghazi primary school children.

The paper's approach is to use a cross sectional study among 386 primary school children (196 males and 190 females) using an interviewer‐administered structured questionnaire. The enrolment exclusion criteria were a pre‐existing chronic disease or a food allergy or food intolerance or any acute illness.

Breakfast skipping during weekdays (38.6 per cent, n=149), reduced drastically on weekends (1.0 per cent, n=4); 10.7 per cent subjects skipped breakfast daily (mean 2.5 + 1.3 days). Absence of hunger and lack of time to eat or prepare breakfast were cited as main barriers in its regular consumption. Bread and milk were the most commonly consumed breakfast foods. Certain groups of regular breakfast eating subjects consumed higher (p < 0.05) dietary thiamine and iron than their breakfast skipping counterparts and also better fulfilled their daily requirements for these nutrients. Parental breakfast eating habits influenced their children's breakfast eating pattern.

Efforts, including better time management, are required to inculcate a positive breakfast eating attitude among Benghazi primary school children. Their parents need to act as better role models by adopting healthy breakfast eating practices themselves.

The paper shows that breakfast skipping among Benghazi primary school children is a nutritional problem of grave concern, warranting a public health intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a mathematical model of a make-to-order manufacturing company simultaneously negotiating multiple contingent orders that possess conflicting issues in order to achieve order acceptance decisions (OADs).

The paper developed a mathematical model by incorporating probabilistic theory and some theories of negotiation in the OAD problem. The model helps to harness the relationship between the manufacturer and customers of contingent orders on conflicting issues. A numerical example is enumerated to illustrate the working mechanism and sensitivity of the model developed.

In the negotiation-based OAD system, if more than one customer is willing to negotiate on the offer of manufacturer, rather than engaging in one-to-one negotiation, the manufacturer has to negotiate with all the customers simultaneously to maximize the expected contribution and acceptance probability from all the orders. Also, the numerical example illustrates that, sometimes, rejecting an order/orders from the order set gives better results in terms of the expected contribution than continuing negotiations on them.

Through continuing research efforts in this domain, certain models and strategies have been developed for negotiation on a one-to-one basis (i.e. negotiation by the manufacture with only one customer at a time). One-to-one negotiation will neither help companies to streamline their production systems nor will it maximize the expected contribution. To the best of the author’s knowledge, so far, this is the first instance of research work in the domain of a joint OAD and negotiation framework that attempts to develop a simultaneous negotiation method for arriving at OADs.

Multinational companies are considered “driving forces” of globalization and “prime movers” of global sociation. Yet the problems, conflicts, and contradictions in the implementation of global strategies at the micro level – as well as the real possibility that such implementation will fail – are virtually ignored in macro‐sociological studies. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to address this neglect by focusing on a micro level examination of the contribution of expatriates in their interactive role as facilitators and managers, and, their informal social networks.

The interpretation of how global structures are concretely organized and sustained is based on case studies and interviews with German expatriates in Russia. The article examines two particular aspects: the contribution of expatriates in their interactive roles, on the one hand, and their informal social circles, on the other. The analytical framework draws on the concept of “global microstructures”.

Expatriates must maneuver between the conflicts and contradictions that surface from the three‐way relationship between head office, branch office, and the market, and their respective local institutionalized pressures. It is argued that such conflicts and contradictions cannot be resolved within the formal structure of organizations and that, as a result, they are shifted to the level of interpersonal interaction or to informal networks. Global reach as well as microsocial foundations therefore characterize the expatriate's action system.

Since the study is restricted to German expatriates in Russia, further comparative research is needed to sustain the findings for other institutional and cultural settings.

The findings raise awareness both of the contradictory demands expatriates are confronted with in their everyday work as well as their unique resources. They could contribute to better management training and preparation for expatriates prior to their move abroad.

The paper presents a micro‐sociological view on how systemic integration is actually achieved through a globally stretched as well as locally specified network of interaction. It could be valuable for international strategy definition as well as for personnel managers, and future expatriates themselves.