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The focus of this paper is on purchasing and supplier involvement in the firm. Using the resource‐base view of the firm, hypotheses are developed concerning purchasing/supplier involvement, strategic purchasing and firm’s financial performance. A model of the hypothesized relationships is offered and empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The model is tested using data collected in 1999. Each factor in the model is measured by a number of scale items. Based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis, an overall fit of the model to the data is achieved. Both convergent and discriminate validity is demonstrated. The research findings reveal that the hypotheses tested in the model are supported. Purchasing/supplier involvement has a positive impact on strategic purchasing, and strategic purchasing has a positive impact on firm’s financial performance. The paper concludes with some research implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.

American management traditionally has not paid much attention to the way competitors do business despite the success of many foreign companies in U.S. markets. The Japanese have been especially successful competing in world markets, and much can be learned from both their industrial development experience and their Just‐In‐Time and Total Quality Control approach to competition. The objective of this paper is to emphasize what American management can learn from its competition with particular attention to the Japanese experience.

Surveys the importance of logistics services attributes to small and large international shipping firms (shippers/sellers). It appears that service priorities of international shippers are consistent with the findings of previous (US domestic) carrier selection. Reliability, transit time and cost rank in the same order for small and large firms. Significant differences exist with respect to small versus large firms concerning carrier considerations, forwarding services, shipper considerations and electronic data interchange. These results are discussed and implications for both small and large international shipping firms are formulated.

Reviews the literature of purchasing and transportation management to identify factors in the purchasing and transportation processes that influence a firm’s ability to reduce total cycle time. Presents a model of these factors to establish a framework for guiding research into comprehensive, systematic approaches to total cycle time reduction. In addition, the total cycle time model serves as a blueprint for practitioners in evaluating, in specific organizations, the effect of the purchasing and transportation processes on total cycle time. Although much of the research reviewed herein dates to the early 1980s its consideration as part of a comprehensive, systematic examination of the total cycle time concept is new.

Recent literature indicates there has been an absence of top management involvement in the development of customer service policies and integration of these policies into the organizational decision making process. This paper discusses the importance of integrating customer service activities into the decision making process of today’s manufacturing organizations and thus enhancing development of an organization’s competitive advantage. Just‐in‐time systems and new technologies (product, process and information) provide the mechanisms for integration of the various activities across the supply chain. Porter’s value system concept is presented as the framework for integrating a firm’s activities within the supply chain and improving their performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a manufacturer's strategy to coordinate efforts of multiple suppliers' involvement in the product development process. The paper also proposes critical factors in determining the appropriate coordination strategy.

Based on the synthesis of the literature and relevant theories, a typology of coordination strategies is developed. Propositions are developed pertaining to the performance implications of the coordination strategies and the key determinants of the effectiveness of the coordination strategies.

Four ideal types of coordination strategies are: centralized‐programming, centralized‐feedback, decentralized‐programming, and decentralized‐feedback. Prior research and recently reported industry examples indicate that a manufacturer's coordination with multiple suppliers varies in terms of the information‐processing structure and the locus of control. The effectiveness of a manufacturer's coordination strategies is influenced by the extent of component modularity, product complexity, technology uncertainty, and the technical capability of suppliers.

The four coordination strategies involve trade‐offs on certain performance dimensions. Decentralized‐programming promotes process efficiency, while centralized‐feedback facilitates problem solving. Centralized‐programming favors integrative product design, while decentralized‐feedback favors innovation from supplier's technical expertise.

While research on supplier involvement in product development has primarily focused on a single supplier's integration in the process, this paper extends understanding of multi‐organizational coordination by applying information‐processing decision‐making theories to the product development context.

This chapter outlines how Pearson, the world’s largest education company, and its CEO John Fallon are acting as trailblazers of Jugaad Innovation (https://hbr.org/2014/12/what-frugal-innovators-do) in education by embedding a focus on learner outcomes – “efficacy” – at the heart of the company. The purpose of the chapter is to highlight practical examples of how this innovation has affected business strategy and decision-making, enabling the company to be able to have a greater impact on learning with the aim of simultaneously helping the business to grow financially. Many of these examples are from products and units that are continuing to embrace and adopt efficacy; they represent live examples of best practice.

This chapter provides an overview of how the drive toward efficacy represents a new, innovative way of doing business. The approach is not new to education, but putting a focus on learner outcomes at the center of traditional business operations represents a step-change from how other companies in the sector operate. The chapter will also look at the Office of the Chief Education Advisor, a central intrapreneurial unit that continues to lead the global efficacy agenda, with the aim that efficacy becomes so embedded in the company fabric that it becomes irreversible. In addition, the chapter provides some other examples of specific frameworks, tools and units that operate with an innovative and intrapreneurial mindset.

This study presents a case study in a major private company and the way the applied approach affected the company. The content of the chapter is taken from a live case and represents a unique insight into the ongoing application of innovation and intrapreneurship in the field.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

Managers need to be able to understand whether the constructs of organizational commitment apply cross culturally. This study adds to a growing knowledge base regarding organizational commitment internationally, and uses workers in government controlled, mixed economy, and privately owned businesses in China’s interior. The study uses questionnaires of antecedents of commitment and tests Mowday et al’s (1979) OCQ and Meyer and Allen’s (1991) ACS, NCS, CCS. While we were are able to verify some antecedent conditions surrounding Mowday et al (1979) and Meyer and Allen’s (1991) commitment measures, we discovered the conditions surrounding commitment in persons who live outside the commercial zones may be more complicated than theory predicts. Artifacts that may modify antecedent‐commitment main include culture, language, firm ownership/control, and expectations of workers moving from government employment more market based jobs. We suggest that more study is required in relationship to conceptual space, theory development, measurement, validation, and analysis in former centrally planned and communistic countries. As is usually true in China, things are not as straightforward or simple as they seem. This study seems to verify that sentiment.