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The purpose of this study is to provide for the research community as well as for the practitioners measures that enable the evaluation, categorization and comparison of vendor managed inventory (VMI) systems.

In this paper, a framework is developed for characterizing the design of VMI systems based on a review of prior research and an empirical investigation of industry‐to‐industry VMI relationships in Sweden.

The proposed framework incorporates the main characteristics of VMI systems and serves as a tool for profiling VMI system designs and for facilitating the comparison and analysis of different VMI system configurations.

The Swedish industrial context in which the framework was tested should be taken into consideration when generalizing upon the findings.

VMI systems come in various shapes and setups, as a result of which the challenges related to their operation and management may differ significantly. This study addresses the issue by providing practitioners with a tool that helps them in the design and management of VMI systems.

While categorizations and measures for the VMI systems exist in prior research, this study contributes by synthesizing the existing measures and testing them in empirical setting. The study contributes particularly to the research on VMI systems but also more broadly to the supply chain management research.

Understanding how VMI benefits serve lean purposes in healthcare and why its outcomes can be difficult to achieve in healthcare settings is the main purpose of this study.

An in‐depth case study of VMI is presented in the perspective of the downstream member, a public general multi‐site hospital, operating as a small scale consolidated service centre in terms of material management, exploring such dimensions as: VMI benefits, risks, barriers and enablers.

Despite some unawareness of VMI benefits in healthcare, it can present a waste reduction solution not only in costs but in the quality of care for freeing clinical professionals to clinical tasks, among other savings. The multiple benefits are better explored, as in any relationship building, by investing in partnership creation and overcoming the idiosyncratic barriers of the healthcare sector.

Although findings of a single case study are difficult to generalize, the protocol and methodology presented allow replication in other units of analysis with the same inclusion criteria.

This paper brings the lean deployment discussion out of the organization's boundaries, showing the interconnections and pointing to the need for future work that would allow healthcare managers to build a lean supply chain.

By considering VMI an outsourcing alternative, this paper identifies the lean thinking intent behind such options and enhances the idiosyncratic difficulties in full deployment in the healthcare sector, a less studied setting.

Since 2016, organized retailers in Colombia have struggled against a new retail format: Hard-discount stores. This sales channel fulfills essential shopping basket products with consistent low prices. To be competitive and preserve their market position, organized retailers must improve their processes and their pricing decisions. Promotions and discounts have been considered as an effective alternative to compete. This study analyzes the impact of joint prices decisions over the individual and global financial key performance indicators when a collaborative strategy is adopted. Our case study comprises a supermarket chain Colombian retailer and a consumer packaged-goods manufacturer to analyze its supply chain performance. The analysis considers different product categories (food, personal care, and cosmetics) and country regions. The results highlight that benefits are unequally distributed along different echelons and supply chain performance is affected when pricing decisions are made independently.

Global supply chains are more risky than domestic supply chains due to numerous links interconnecting a wide network of firms. These links are prone to disruptions, bankruptcies, breakdowns, macroeconomic and political changes, and disasters leading to higher risks and making risk management difficult. The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of risk management and risk management strategies in global supply chains.

This paper is based on an extensive literature review and a qualitative study comprising 14 in‐depth interviews and a focus group meeting with senior supply chain executives.

The study provides insights into the applicability of six risk management strategies with respect to environmental conditions and the role of three moderators.

The model is developed in a global manufacturing supply chain context. It should be tested in other contexts and with other methods to provide generalizability. The study takes a much needed step toward building a theory of risk management in global supply chains, which opens important future research directions.

This research provides direction to managers for choosing risk management strategies based on the global supply chain environment. Moderators have practical implications for global supply chain managers.

The paper addresses an identified gap in the literature for selecting risk management strategies in global supply chains. It employs grounded theory, a methodology appropriate for theory‐building, to explore a phenomenon with an inadequate theoretical base.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the interplay between a firm’s financial situation and its inventory ownership in a single-firm and a two-firm perspective.

The analysis uses different secondary data sources to quantify the effect of both financial constraints and cost of capital on inventory holdings of public US firms. The authors first adopt a single-firm perspective and analyze whether financial constraints and cost of capital do generally affect the amount of inventory held. Next, the authors adopt a two-firm perspective and analyze the inventory ownership in customer-supplier relationships.

Inventory levels are affected by financial constraints and cost of capital. Results indicate that higher costs of capital are weakly associated with lower inventories. However, contrary to the authors’ expectations, firms that are less financially constrained hold less inventories than firms that are more financially constrained. Finally, the authors find that customers hold the larger fraction of supply chain inventory in supplier-customer dyads.

The authors’ results indicate that financial considerations generally play a role in inventory management. However, inventory holdings seem to be influenced only slightly by financing costs and inventory holdings between supplier and customer seem to be less than optimal from a financial perspective. Considering those financial aspects can lead to relevant financial advantages.

In contrast to other recent research, the authors study how the financial situation of a firm affects its inventory levels (not vice versa) and also consider inventories from a two-firm perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate vendor managed inventory (VMI) for the supply of medicines between distributors and hospitals to identify factors that may affect VMI adoption.

Two contrasting VMI initiatives involving five organizations (three hospitals, one distributor and one manufacturer/supplier) are studied. A case study method with semi-structured interviews is used with triangulation in data collection, site visits and document analysis to enhance reliability and validity. The cases are analyzed and compared with respect to hospital, supplier, product and supply chain integration characteristics.

A successful public sector VMI initiative and an unsuccessful private sector VMI initiative are identified. The public sector supplier focuses on improving service level while the private sector supplier seeks to strengthen relationships with a key customer. Hospital characteristics, including type of hospital, top management perspectives and the hospital’s willingness to share information, are critical in decisions on VMI initiation or termination. Relatively stable demand products are preferred for a VMI approach. Hospitals may perceive risks in VMI adoption for medicines as it involves relinquishing control of critical supplies and may result in “lock-in” with a particular supplier.

The cases have been conducted in one country, which may affect generalization of the findings. Wider empirical evidence from other countries in both developed and less developed regions will be beneficial.

VMI is advocated as being beneficial in many supply contexts. However, it is challenging to implement. The study identifies factors that affect the adoption of VMI for hospital pharmaceuticals and provides guidance on initiating VMI in a hospital context.

The potential for VMI in public health projects to enable greater access to critical medicines is highlighted.

The paper provides supply side and demand side perspectives on VMI adoption in an important sector. It highlights the need for greater understanding of the perceived and actual risks in VMI from the perspective of both the hospital and the supplier and for much clearer advice on which pharmaceutical products are appropriate for VMI control in a hospital context.

This paper aims to examine the determinants of capital structure of unlisted firms and how family governance-related factors impact on them.

The authors analyze the relation between a set of capital structure determinants and leverage in a unique dataset of 3,006 family and non-family Italian medium-large firms (26,210 obs.), and a control sample of 2,730 small firms (14,780 obs.), using cross-section and panel procedures during 2001-2010.

Capital structure choices of medium-large family firms are linked to balance-sheet variables not used in previous studies, i.e. net working capital and capital turnover, and are significantly affected by the need to maintain control and influence, a relevant dimension of family socioemotional wealth. Family firms are more levered than non-family firms, but the difference is economically and statistically significant only for medium-large companies. The presence of the family in active management increases leverage, as the family endowment in the firm is higher.

This research could be developed through an international comparison to check the influence of country-related regulatory issues and of national cultural aspects on family control and influence.

The results can give public authorities important insights in order to facilitate firms funding specially in the current critical economic scenario and provide managers useful suggestions to support financial decisions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the financial choices of a large dataset of medium-large private firms in a bank-based economy.

In recent years, Egypt has been developing rapidly from a socialist to a fully developed market‐based economy. One may expect that this economic transition towards a more capitalist orientation will influence the country’s cultural and socio‐economic environment, and consequently the behaviour of its corporate managers. The increasing separation of ownership and control of capital could be expected to increase agency problems associated with managerial decisions. In these circumstances, it should be interesting to identify whether ‘positive accounting’ hypotheses would apply in such an environment. Therefore, this paper examines the relevance to financial reporting in Egypt of some established positive accounting theory hypotheses in addition to a new hypothesis related to taxation. The evidence of the study is consistent with the validity of the conventional ‘bonus’ and ‘debt’ hypotheses and the new ‘taxation’ hypothesis. These conclusions are also consistent with recent empirical studies of cultural and socio‐economic change in Egypt.

What is the best place for a speculative inventory in a marketing channel? Here is a theoretical analysis.