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This article analyzes the difference between the budgetary expense and the opportunity cost of defense inputs. If inputs are obtained by the government from a market economy with undistorted prices, the price paid for the last unit of each input acquired equals the opportunity cost. However, taxes create a distortion between opportunity cost and unit price. An additional complication, discussed using the case of military personnel, is that premarginal units may have an opportunity cost lower than the unit price determined at the margin. Principles used to determine the social discount rate are also discussed in the analysis.

Recent legislation resulted in an elevation of operating and support (O&S) costs’ relative importance for decision-making in Department of Defense programs. However, a lack of research in O&S hinders a cost analyst’s abilities to provide accurate sustainment estimates. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate when Air Force aircraft O&S costs stabilize and to what degree. Next, a parametric O&S model is developed to predict median O&S costs for use as a new tool for cost analyst practitioners.

Utilizing the Air Force total ownership cost database, 44 programs consisting of 765 observations from 1996 to 2016 are analyzed. First, stability is examined in three areas: total O&S costs, the six O&S cost element structures and by aircraft type. Next, stepwise regression is used to predict median O&S costs per total active inventory (CPTAI) and identify influential variables.

Stability results vary by category but generally are found to occur approximately five years from initial operating capability. The regression model explains 89.01 per cent of the variance in the data set when predicting median O&S CPTAI. Aircraft type, location of lead logistics center and unit cost are the three largest contributing factors.

Results from this research provide insight to cost analysts on when to start using actual O&S costs as a baseline for estimates in lieu of analogous cost program data and also derives a new parametric O&S estimating tool designed as a cross-check to current estimating methodologies.

Perceptions of employment histories are important insofar as they influence future job prospects. Critically, in light of the current pandemic, wherein many individuals are likely to have unanticipated employment gaps and/or temporary work experiences, this exploratory study aims to seek a better understanding of the signal associated with temporary employment histories, which is particularly germane to individuals' employment trajectories and a successful labour market recovery.

Drawing primarily on signalling theory and using a simulated hiring decision experiment, the authors examined the perceptions of temporary employment histories, as well as the period effect of COVID-19, a major exogenous event, on the attitudes of fictitious jobseekers with standard, temporary and unemployment histories.

The authors find that prior to COVID-19 unemployed and temporary-work candidates were perceived less favourably as compared to applicants employed in a permanent job. During the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of jobseekers with temporary employment histories were less critical and the previously negative signal associated with job-hopping reversed. This study’s third wave of data, which were collected post-COVID, showed that such perceptions largely dissipated, with the exception for those with a history of temporary work with different employers.

The paper serves as a reminder to check, insofar as possible, preconceived biases of temporary employment histories to avoid potential attribution errors and miss otherwise capable candidates.

This paper makes a unique and timely contribution by focussing and examining the differential effect of economic climate, pivoted by the COVID-19 pandemic, on perceptions of temporary employment histories.

This paper aims to explore the influence of information technology (IT) capability (i.e. IT exploration and exploitation) on service innovation and ultimately financial performance in manufacturing firms. Moreover, this paper examines the contingent role of cross-functional integration (CFI) on the IT capability–service innovation relationship.

This study employs seemingly unrelated regression to test the theoretical model based on survey data from 121 manufacturers in China.

IT exploration is positively related to radical and incremental service innovations, whereas IT exploitation is only positively related to radical service innovation. CFI positively moderates the relationship between IT exploitation and service innovation. Radical and incremental service innovations are positively related to manufacturers' financial performance.

This study contributes to existing information systems and servitization literature by uncovering the varying effects of IT exploration and exploitation on radical and incremental service innovations and by revealing the different contingent roles of CFI in moderating the above effects in the manufacturing context.

Store layouts are important determinants of behaviour. A review of the academic and commercial literature suggests that the methodological and theoretical approaches have provided methods and approaches that are difficult for practitioners to adopt. This paper offers a robust theoretical approach (the behavioural perspective model) and new innovative methodology that significantly advances the way retailers can plan and measure store layouts, with a view to optimising store performance. Using computer‐aided observation, customers may be tracked and their behaviour analysed in the context of consumer situations and contingencies. Implications for retail management, theory and practice are discussed within the context of fashion shopper situations.

Over the past two decades, institutions of higher education worldwide have come under pressure to demonstrate effective performance. Their response has been to borrow the quality concept from industry and place it at the centre of institutional performance assessment in higher education. This article describes a Hong Kong study which developed valid and reliable organisational effectiveness self rating scales for higher educational institutions. In the course of developing these scales, the relevance of quality to institutional performance assessment was examined. In failing to produce a valid and reliable effectiveness scale for a quality dimension, the study highlighted the shortcomings of the quality concept particularly as a basis for the comparative assessment of institutional performance. The study also indicated a methodology for identifying concepts which may provide a firmer base than quality for such comparisons.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of culture on religiosity, cosmopolitanism, and ethnocentrism on attitudes towards foreign products, among two religious classes in India.

Quantitative data analysis was employed to attain the above objective. In order to explore the existence of difference between clothing preferences between two religious classes analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed. It was employed to analyse the difference between group means. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the hypothesized paths. SEM was used separately for both the religious classes to explore the possibility of difference between both of them. Before testing the measurement model confirmatory factor analysis was run to test the cleanliness of the measurement items. Data were analysed in two parts A and B. In part A SEM was employed to test the hypotheses developed and in part B ANOVA was used to test the difference between group means.

It was found that both the religious classes were significantly different from each other in their apparel preference. It was also found that the Indians were not collectivist as often labelled in a stereotypical way.

The findings of this study would provide useful in-depth knowledge on Indian religious groups for both international and national marketers. The study confirmed that ignoring the diversity of an emerging market and adopting a standardized marketing strategy could prove fatal. It provides better understanding about the cultural diversity and its impact on buying imported products. Such insight should enable marketers, policy makers, and social planners to act more effectively by designing their positioning strategies accordingly.

Some unexpected differences was found in individualism and collectivism dimensions and it was also found that the inter-cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims have changed since the original Hofstede data were collected on Hindu and Muslim dominating countries.

This paper responds to a call in the literature for methodological and empirical studies to advance research into accounting narratives, in the light of acknowledged areas of weakness and gaps in the accounting literature and with a view to investigating impression management. A general line of critique in the accounting literature points to a need to expand both the syntactic and thematic dimensions, with a particular focus on developing objective methods of analysis that allow computer‐based measurement. The paper draws on the literature of managerial business communications, supported by that of applied linguistics, in bringing to accounting research a transitivity index and the application of DICTION analysis. Both have the potential to extend computer‐based analysis of accounting narratives, subject to careful initial research design and specification. The potential for a richer empirical analysis is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical application.

This paper aims to explore the influence of dimensions of organizational culture, namely, development culture, group culture, rational culture and hierarchical culture, on healthcare supply chain resilience (HCRES). Further, the study explored the moderating role of technology orientation on organizational culture dimensions and healthcare resilience linkages.

The study adopted a multi-unit study of different hospital supply chains (SCs). Consequently, perceptual data were gathered from seven dominant entities in a typical medical/hospital SC: hospitals, hotels, chemistry and pharmaceutical, marketing/public relations/promotion, medical equipment manufacturers and surgical suppliers, food and beverage providers (i.e. restaurants) and insurance providers. The responses were gathered using online survey and were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Based on 276 completed responses, positive influences were found for development, group and rational cultures on HCRES. As expected, a negative influence of hierarchical culture was found on HCRES. Further, technological orientation was found to enhance the positive effects of development, group and rational cultures on HCRES. However, no prominent moderation was noted for hierarchical culture’s influence on HCRES. The findings suggested managers to focus more on developing competing values framework (CVF)-based dimensions of organizational culture dimensions for effective risk mitigation so as to provide healthcare services in a timely manner to patients.

The study is the first to investigate the effects of organizational culture’s dimensions on resilience. The study has empirically established the association between CVF view and dynamic capabilities. The study underlined the importance of resilience in healthcare SCs. Resilience is an important dynamic capability in healthcare SCs to provide uninterrupted treatments and services to patients. Any failure in such a service can be fatal. Further, the study developed the measures of development, group, rational and hierarchical culture for further investigation in healthcare. This study is also the first to develop a measure for resilience in the healthcare sector.

In the past two decades, manufacturing has witnessed significant transformations alongside ecological challenges. Meanwhile, industrial 4.0 digital technologies have accelerated industrialisation with potentials of innovation in the context of circular economy. However, current concepts and models are fragmented and impractical. This paper aims to develop a holistic view integrating the three bodies of knowledge – industrialisation, ecologicalisation and digitalisation (IED) – in order to achieve sustainable development.

Critical literature review is conducted across three bodies of knowledge. Key themes are summarised with the identification of research gaps. A theoretical framework is synthesised and developed aiming to achieve synergy from IED with the modules, integration architecture, mechanism and dynamic paths.

First, the authors review and develop three conceptual models of ecologicalised industrialisation (IE3), industrial system digitalisation (D1) and digital technology industrialisation (D2) separately. Second, the authors propose a theoretical framework seeking to synthesise the above three conceptual models together to form the IED. Third, the authors design a process orientated abductive approach to improve and validate the IED framework.

This study contributes to the limited literature addressing the linkage of IED by integration different perspectives to develop theory in a novel way. Practically, it provides important tools for organisations to consider resource cascading in combination with digitalisation during the industrial system design.