Search results

A family business founded by Chinese immigrants grew into a $133 million toy and costume maker by exploiting seasonal niche segments in the highly competitive, global toy industry. Sales of traditional toys stagnated when replaced by game consoles and electronic toys. Unable to compete in high tech toys, MegaToys moved instead toward seasonal products. In 2007, brothers Peter and Charlie Woo were about to pitch what they hoped would be $63 million in Easter basket sales to Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart took the full order, it would come to represent over half of MegaToys' revenue.

The company was faced with the dilemma of how to grow, and at what pace. Charlie Woo knew that MegaToys could continue to grow as long as it was able to satisfy Wal-Mart's demands. Peter Woo wondered if this was the smartest way to grow the business. “Growth is a good thing as long as you don't sell your shirt to get it,” he noted. Should MegaToys continue to increase its sales to Wal-Mart, or would dependence on Wal-Mart eventually threaten the firm's success? Were there other, untapped opportunities for MegaToys that were well aligned with its strengths, resources, and capabilities?

Describes the manufacturing strategy implications of a two‐industry study of manufacturing practices. A research team administered questionnaires to managers in the machine tools and textiles industries in China, Japan, Korea, the USA and Western Europe. Highlights of the results include the superior Japanese delivery speed and the extensive use of information systems in the USA. An overview of the relative industrial strengths of each country provides a setting to discuss manufacturing strategy. Each national industry is then classified according to the Hayes and Wheelwright stages of manufacturing competitiveness.

The purpose of the present study, which is part of a larger cross‐cultural study, is to examine two potential antecedents of entrepreneurial intent (EI): proactive personality (PP) and entrepreneurial self‐efficacy (ESE). Specifically, the study is interested in empirically testing the mechanism (mediation/moderation) by which ESE affected the relationship between PP/EI.

For testing the mediation and moderation hypotheses the study used structural equation modeling and moderated regression analyses respectively.

The authors found that PP has a robust relationship with the three different manifestations of EI – general, high growth, and lifestyle. Furthermore, ESE not only mediated the relationship between PP and all the three forms of EI but also moderated the relationship between PP and high growth EI as well as PP and lifestyle EI.

The authors studied intent, not behavior, with the understanding that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Future research can replicate this study using entrepreneurial behavior instead of intent. Implications for education and future research are discussed.

The results of the study can be used and applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship.

The present study not only provides evidence for the robust relationship between EI and PP but provides insight into the mechanism by which ESE affects EI/PP relationship.

Accumulators are cutting‐edge stock derivative investments that have been the subject of much controversy in Hong Kong over the past year. Accumulators are exotic options composed of a full year of daily long up‐and‐out call options and short up‐and‐out put options. Because accumulators are so new, the understanding of accumulators is currently very limited. This paper attempts to characterize and understand the properties of this fairly unknown and new stock derivative investment.

The study analyzed and characterized accumulators based on observations from past history of 11 stocks of the Hang Seng Index. Using historical stock data covering from January 3, 2006, and onward, the profit and loss for each accumulator contract was calculated.

Through the research it is understood that the profit and loss of accumulator contracts depends primarily on the following factors: knockout percentage, discount percentage, variability of the underlying stock, and the overall market trends, among other factors.

This pioneer simulation is an empirical exploratory post factum study that gives researchers and practitioners further insight how to formulate a risk neutral pricing model for accumulators in the future.

The semiconductor market exceeded US$250 billion worldwide in 2010 and has had a double‐digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the last 20 years. As it is located far upstream of the electronic product market, the semiconductor industry has suffered severely from the “bullwhip” effect. Therefore, effective e‐based supply chain management (e‐SCM) has become imperative for the efficient operation of semiconductor manufacturing (SM) companies. The purpose of this research is to define and analyze the key success factors (KSF) for e‐SCM system implementation in the semiconductor industry.

A hierarchy of KSFs is defined first by a combination of a literature review and a focus group discussion with experts who successfully implemented an inter‐organizational e‐SCM project. Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) is then employed to rank the importance of these identified KSFs. To confirm the research result and further explore the managerial implications, a second in‐depth interview with the e‐SCM project executives is conducted.

The KSF hierarchy is constructed with two levels: a top‐level consisting of four dimensions and a detailed‐level consisting of 15 individual factors. The research shows that, in the top‐level, strategy is the most critically successful dimension followed by process, organization, and technical; whereas in the detailed‐level, the top management commitment, clear project goal and business requirements, and business process re‐engineering are the top three critical successful factors.

Research surveys and interviews were conducted with two leading companies: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and ASE; they are the largest front‐end and back‐end SM companies in the world, respectively. Although the data collected was primarily based on the experience of one successful e‐SCM project, the significant roles of these two companies and compelling contribution made by the e‐SCM project leading to the research resulted in valuable guidelines for the companies in the semiconductor industry and a useful reference for companies in other manufacturing industries.

e‐SCM system has a high failure rate and there is little literature discussing the KSF of e‐SCM implementation from a holistic view for certain industries. This paper not only provides a structured and comprehensive list of KSFs but also illustrates the application of the most critical factors by examples. In addition to the contributions made to industries, the research results can also serve as a foundation for related academic research when comparing the KSFs of implementing e‐SCM by different industries.

A major paradigm shift focusing on the dark side of leadership has generated lots of concern for organizations as leadership has cascading effects on employees’ behaviour. This study aims to understand negative behaviours in the organization as a system of interrelated interaction initiated from the top which trickles down to employees.

Drawing on the theories of social exchange and norms of reciprocity, social learning and displaced aggression, this study models how and when abusive supervision relates to employees’ task performance. The model is empirically tested and extended to cover mediation and moderation processes. Drawing data from 218 bank supervisors and employees, this study uses the structural equation modelling to analyse a trickle-down model of abusive supervision.

Results from multi-waved, multi-sourced data indicated a mediating effect on the abusive supervision–performance relationships and provided support for employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance as moderators. Overall, the results provided support for a moderated mediation relationship in the trickle-down model.

This study provides new knowledge into the potential boundary conditions of employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance in affecting the relationship between abusive supervision, counterproductive work behaviour and task performance.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review and analysis of existing research articles on new product development (NPD) published in the 12-year period starting from 1998 to 2009.

To explore the articles related to NPD, four key words namely new product, product design, product development and product innovation were used in combination of title or abstract or keyword of the articles through several knowledge databases. The abstracts of journal papers were read and a decision as to whether article belongs to any NPD research issue or not was made. In total, 1,127 research articles were categorized systematically and then analyzed on various principal NPD information groups.

Analysis of selected articles led to a certain level of dispersion in the publication of NPD research in different journals. It is found that more attention needs to be on knowledge and creativity management, communication and information transfer in any NPD process.

By observing extended literature from authors reviewing articles from various journals, growth in research, and variety of topics covered in NPD, a broad systematic multi journal review of NPD literature is clearly overdue. The authors have developed a comprehensive listing of publications on NPD where they have classified the surveyed papers according to various principal NPD information groups like: published year, NPD research stream, type of organization studied (industrial/consumer/service), level of innovation (high/moderate/low), NPD focus on frameworks, performance perspective (success, failure or both), NPD research design (conceptual/empirical and qualitative/quantitative) and NPD relevant best practice element. Based on the classification scheme, the issues were analyzed from the system's perspective and their implications to NPD research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of work-life-balance (WLB) challenges for Nigerian female medical doctors. This study focusses on Nigeria, which its peculiar socio-cultural, institutional and professional realities constitute WLB as well as social sustainability (SS) challenge for female medical doctors.

Relying on qualitative, interpretivist approach and informed by institutional theory, this study explores how Nigeria’s institutional environment and workplace realities engender WLB challenges, which consequently impact SS for female doctors. In total, 43 semi-structured interviews and focus group session involving eight participants were utilised for empirical analysis.

The study reveals that factors such as work pressure, cultural expectations, unsupportive relationships, challenging work environment, gender role challenges, lack of voice/participation, and high stress level moderate the ability of female medical doctors to manage WLB and SS. It also identifies that socio-cultural and institutional demands on women show that these challenges, while common to female physicians in other countries, are different and more intense in Nigeria because of their unique professional, socio-cultural and institutional frameworks.

The implications of the WLB and SS requires scholarship to deepen as well as extend knowledge on contextual disparities in understanding these concepts from developing countries perspective, which is understudied.

This study offers fresh insights into the WLB and SS concepts from the non-western context, such as Nigeria, highlighting the previously understudied challenges of WLB and SS and their implications for female doctors.