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The few management accounting pricing methods in the management accounting literature are ineffective in helping small firms use their idle capacity during lingering economic recessions, and some of these methods may even worsen this problem.

Extending the traditional break-even-cost-volume-profit model, we derive a more effective pricing method, the break-even-full-capacity-utilization (BEFCU) model, to handle this problem. Seeking full capacity utilization, the BEFCU model has two characteristics: (a) highlighting the importance of the exigent fixed cost category for utilizing idle capacity and (b) using a functional cost structure that focuses on a hierarchy of value drivers in the firm's value creation process. Accordingly, under the BEFCU model, management has an instrumental pricing continuum extending from the minimum acceptable BEFCU sale price to the regular sale price.

To demonstrate its practicality, the authors apply the BEFCU model to an actual job shop. This model integrates certain strategies based on built-in flexibility in commitments with suppliers and customers and maintaining a mode of conservatism in accounting for plant assets. The model can also help small tooling companies currently seeking entrance into China; it may take a while for these companies to gain a foothold in this new market because copyrights and other legalities are rarely enforced (Bunkley, 2004).

Services are by nature perishable. As such, managing a service firm’s capacity to match supply and demand has been touted as one of the key problems of services marketing and management practice. This paper advances an alternative perspective of unused service capacity. Based on a review of current literature and an exploratory study, this paper employs a theory‐in‐use methodology to map out a set of capacity strategy propositions. These propositions show a divergence between what literature suggests and what service firms actually practise with regard to reducing the occurrence of unused service capacity. The paper also demonstrates that capacity can be employed as a resource to achieve a series of strategic objectives that serve to improve the performance of the firm. Service firms should therefore approach capacity management not only from the standpoint of operations management, but also from that of marketing.

The expansion of the Panama Canal that is completed in 2016 provides container carriers with new opportunities to redeploy global oceangoing trunk routes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the cargo sources and geographical locations of three trunk routes, the departure points of which are all in East Asia.

The operating conditions of various shipping practices were used to simulate trunk route deployment after canal expansion. Subsequently, a clean-line strategy featuring liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a replacement for heavy oil is proposed to explore the effects that container carriers have on energy savings and emission reductions.

The results showed that the unit emissions of ships traveling trunk routes in East Coast North America and East Coast South America did not differ significantly regardless of whether the container carrier employed a conventional method or the new deployment plan following the expansion of the Panama Canal. By contrast, the adoption of a new method for sailing through the canal yields significant emission reductions for Far East/Europe routes. In addition, the slow-steam strategy adopted by carriers and the more costly clean-line strategy of LNG-fueled ships are both effective when applied to trunk routes.

The results of this study provide a reference to container carriers deploying route structures and the International Maritime Organization when promoting emission-reduction policies.

Reviews the literature on capacity planning at strategic, tactical and operational levels but points out that, in practice, many enterprise resource planning systems make unrealistic assumptions for production planning; and the advanced production software packages which can deal with uncertainty are both complex and expensive. Uses a theoretical company to demonstrate how a normal Excel spreadsheet can be used in conjunction with a common add‐on package (@RISK) to improve analysis and run Monte Carlo simulations as a basis for decision making. Compares the results produced with standard spreadsheet analysis and discusses the additional financial and operational insights they provide into the implications of different capacity levels under conditions of uncertainty. Warns that the validity of the simulation depends on the quality of the data and model; and that human judgement is still required to actually make a decision.

Although exporting can offer many benefits to smaller manufacturers, a large number of these firms refrain from export operations as a result of insufficient stimulation. This paper seeks to critically analyse and creatively synthesise the reasons that may stimulate a smaller firm to export, based on a review of 32 empirical studies conducted in various parts of the world during the period 1974‐2005.

A total of 40 export stimuli were systematically identified from the extant empirical literature, which, for analytical purposes, were divided into internal and external, as well as proactive and reactive. Within each study, stimuli were ranked in terms of their importance, frequency, or intensity, and the aggregate impact of each stimulus in all studies under review was evaluated.

The review revealed that export stimulation stems from a variety of factors, and may vary according to time, spatial, and industry contexts. Irrespective of contextual factors, there are certain motives that systematically play a key role in encouraging smaller firms to export, such as the desire to achieve extra sales, profits, and growth, utilise better idle production capacity, exploit a unique/patented product, avoid the threats of a saturated domestic market, reduce home market dependence, and respond to unsolicited orders from abroad. Some of these motives may lead to an opportunistic approach to exporting, while others denote deliberate export adoption. It was also shown that, although there are numerous other stimulating factors, with a lower impact on exporting, these should not be underestimated because their role may increase under certain conditions or become complementary to export stimuli with a stronger impact.

The findings of the study have serious implications for both public and company policy makers. Policy makers may use this insightful analysis of export stimulation as a guide to developing proper export promotion programmes and sound export marketing strategies.

The paper offers a comprehensive review and synthesis of all factors with a possible stimulating effect on exporting; evaluates the aggregate effect of each factor, as collectively derived from all empirical studies conducted on the subject; and provides an in‐depth analysis of the nature and the stimulating mechanism of each factor.

This paper aims to show the potential of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) to value and integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) and quality management (QM) processes in the assembly industry. It provides valuable insights about operational processes, sub-process and activities within assembly companies by using TDABC’s time equations with more accurate costs for the decision-making process.

The current paper proposes a new methodology framework with four QM and CSR implementation levels and several costing scenarios through the TDABC system. The valuation was built based on the activities of essential referents in each subject, such as ISO, Ethos Institute and electrostatic discharge control programs. To this end, a case study in the assembly industry processes was conducted with data from a TV assembler.

The results highlight that TDABC can be extended to perform a cost analysis with QM and CSR processes. The environmental management and occupational safety and health administration processes were considered part of CSR to do so. Consequently, managers can simulate the cost and impact of incorporating CSR and QM in assembly processes and thus decide the implementation degree and its corresponding planning according to the needs and available resources. In this particular case, the company increases a maximum of 12% of its resources to be socially responsible and manage its products’ quality.

Although theoretical models on CSR have been developed, the current study provides a practical framework based on TDABC scenarios that enterprises can easily implement to support and evaluate QM and CSR processes.

The purpose of this study is to identify the optimal meetings, incentive travel, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) capacity for Las Vegas and analyze the over‐ and under‐capacity situation in Las Vegas from 2010 through 2014. The study provides recommendations for Las Vegas's future MICE development based on the capacity analysis.

A single‐period inventory model, which involves cost of over‐capacity, cost of under‐capacity, and forecasted future MICE demand, was used to identify the optimal capacity in terms of MICE square foot days for each year from 2010 through 2014. The model, which identified optimal capacity, was compared to the planned available capacity for each year to determine the magnitude of over‐ or under‐capacity.

The cost of over‐capacity was found much greater than the cost of under‐capacity. The model that identified optimal capacity indicates that Las Vegas will experience severe over‐capacity from 2010 to 2014.

The findings of this study should help researchers and practitioners evaluate the current status of the Las Vegas MICE industry in terms of capacity efficiency. The results suggest that the MICE development in Las Vegas is heading for over‐capacity and the industry must downscale its development plan in the near future to avoid severe over‐capacity.

For the first time in MICE research, this study develops an inventory model for determining the optimal MICE capacity. The model enables researchers and practitioners to identify and quantify over‐ and under‐capacity in the MICE industry in a scientific way.

Reports on a study of a vehicle routeing problem as a pilot project. Outlines the motivation to embark on such an experimental study, the data collection process, the software, and the problems detected. Summarizes the gains derived from the research and explains resistance.

Although research attention has been given to the modelling process for simultaneous demand‐output management in manufacturing systems, little interest has been demonstrated in service organisations despite the fact that such organisations face unique conditions that further complicate the demand‐output management issue. In response to this lack of emphasis, we review the relevant research from both marketing and operations management and present a cost‐effectiveness model for balancing demand and service output.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of supply chain risks (SCRs) and demand management strategies (DMSs) on the company performance in order to study the use of DMSs in delivering improved results even in the presence of SCRs. The SCRs considered under the study are as follows: demand variability, constrained capacity and quality of services delivery, and competitive performance, customer satisfaction and financial performance are the measures considered for company performance.

This study is based on a survey of 439 businesses in India representing 10 groups of services industries (information technology/IT enabled services, business process outsourcing, IT infrastructure, logistics/transportation, healthcare, hospitality, personal services, consulting, education and training, consumer products and retail), using structural equation modeling (SEM) methods.

The findings reveal that presence of demand variability risk has significant influence upon the use of demand planning and forecasting, controlling customer arrival during peaks and shifting demand to future. Mismatch of capacity against demand (unused capacity) leads to the use of techniques to influence business during lean periods, thereby resulting in enhanced supply chain (SC) and financial performance. Controlling customer arrival during peaks to shift the demand to lean periods leads to enhanced financial performance. Presence of delivery quality risk does not significantly influence the use of DMS. Also, short-term use of customer and business handling techniques does not exert significant influence on company performance.

The study has limitations as follows: (1) respondents are primarily from India while representing global organizations, (2) process/service redesign to relieve capacity as a DMS is not considered and (3) discussion on capacity management strategies (CMSs) is also excluded.

SC managers can be resourceful in shifting the peak demand to future with the application of techniques to control customer arrival during peaks. The managers can also help enhance business by influencing business through offers, incentives and promotions during lean periods to use available capacity and improve company performance.

This study is one of the first empirical works to explore how presence of SCRs influences the use of DMS and impacts the three types of company performance. The study expands current research on demand management options (DMOs) by linking three dimensions of company performance based on the data collected from ten different groups of service industry.