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Through its impact on both demand and supply, the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has profoundly disrupted supply chains throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying drivers of the supply chain vulnerability exposed by COVID-19 and considers potential future directions for global supply.

This paper adopts a case study approach, reviewing the automotive manufacturing sector in Australia to illustrate how neoliberal globalisation policy settings have shifted large tracts of manufacturing from the global north to the global south.

The authors demonstrate the way that neoliberal globalisation policies, facilitated by certain accounting rhetorics and technologies, have consolidated manufacturing in China and Southeast Asia in ways that embed vulnerabilities in global supply chains. The authors present three scenarios for post-COVID-19 supply chains and the accounting techniques likely to garner stronger attention as a result of the pandemic.

The paper illustrates how certain accounting rhetorics and technologies facilitate neoliberal globalisation, embedding supply chain vulnerability that has been exposed by COVID-19. It also suggests how supply chain accounting may develop more robust supply chains in a post-COVID-19 world and sets out an agenda for future research in this area.

A number of practical supply chain accounting and planning technologies are suggested to facilitate more robust supply chains.

This paper draws attention to the neoliberal globalisation policies that have shaped global supply chains as well as how COVID-19, in concert with other geopolitical trajectories, may represent a watershed moment for global supply chains.

Purpose – To describe the competencies necessary for managers to effectively engage in cross‐cultural knowledge absorption. Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive literature review of knowledge management and cross‐cultural competency research which identifies seven thematic competencies for knowledge absorption. Findings – The study identifies and provides examples of seven cross‐cultural knowledge absorption abilities: valuing different cultures, building relationships, listening and observing, coping with ambiguity, managing others, translating complex ideas, and taking action. Research limitations/implications – The research relies on a single theory of learning and integrates research into a single set of assumptions. The research has not been tested empirically. Practical implications – The paper provides a model to guide managers and others in organizations through successful knowledge transfer and absorption efforts including training, development, selection and project planning. Originality/value – The paper integrates diverse and extensive literature on knowledge absorption into a single framework based on how managers learn from experience and suggests competencies for managing absorption efforts.

To the Western businessman, negotiating with the Japanese seems fraught with difficulties. So a computer simulation was designed to capture some of the main dimensions of the negotiation process, and used to explore the reactions of Western managers to a typical Anglo‐Japanese negotiation situation. The imaginary scenario is described, and then the simulation itself in some detail. At the end, the “communication competence” of each participant is assessed.

To identify factors that impede the absorption of management knowledge imported into transition countries, using Belarus as a case, in order to increase efficiency of knowledge transfer.

The findings are based on three sources: the extensive analysis of the academic literature; the results of a detailed survey and interviews; and personal observations and impressions gained by the authors during almost ten years of participation in technical assistance programmes for Belarus universities financed by the British Council.

The study reveals a combination of factors rooted in linguistics, culture, training and ambience that prevent knowledge transfer from fully achieving its objectives as a modernization tool insofar as knowledge gets distorted or missing during the transfer process.

The proposed solution is to intensify the knowledge transfer even further through increasing its interactive component by providing channels for direct interaction between educators in the newly independent states and the West.

This paper introduces new original data, provides an analysis of an important practical issue and offers a feasible solution to this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sales and marketing interface and to identify some of the elements that may influence collaboration between sales and marketing and provide a framework demonstrating how these elements may interrelate.

This paper explores the sales and marketing relationship through qualitative research using one‐to‐one, tripartite interviews with senior executives and sales and marketing managers of three, UK‐based business‐to‐business organizations.

The paper indicates that there are two types of factor that affect collaboration between sales and marketing. Those that are out of the control of sales and marketing staff – management attitudes to coordination, interdepartmental culture and structure and orientation, and four that are internal to the interface – inter‐functional conflict, communications, market intelligence and learning. The paper also identifies that senior managers play a critical role in influencing this interface.

Improving collaboration in the sales and marketing interface should be a focus for senior managers. The paper is limited by the number of cases.

The factors identified may be used by organizations to improve collaboration between sales and marketing.

The identification of factors that may improve collaboration between sales and marketing, and provide a conceptual framework for further study. The paper increases the understanding of the sales and marketing interface by identifying two additional factors that may influence the interface – learning and market intelligence, and demonstrates how the various factors may interrelate to create improved collaboration.

In a full blaze of comings and goings, it is unnecessary to remind ourselves that the holiday season is upon us; mass travel to faraway places. The media have for months, all through the winter, been extolling a surfeit of romantic areas of the world, exspecially on television; of colourful scenes, exotic beauties, brilliant sunshine everywhere; travel mostly by air as so‐called package tours — holidays for the masses! The most popular areas are countries of the Mediterranean littoral, from Israel to Spain, North Africa, the Adriatic, but of recent years, much farhter afield, India, South‐east Asia and increasingly to the USA.

White paper on Japanese sci‐tech. Compared to 50% in France, 46% in the US and 37% in the UK, did you know that the Japanese government funds only 19% of the R&D expenditures in Japan? Are you aware that the US spent 107.7 billion yen on Japanese technology in the 1991 fiscal year, but Japan spent 102.2b yen more — a total of 209.5b yen — on US technology imports?

Given the ways in which the research pressures on university staff are becoming seemingly ever greater, an issue of the European Journal of Marketing that is given over to a survey of the kinds of research initiatives which are currently being carried out is timely. The study which provides the basis for this was conducted between December 1994 and February 1995, with questionnaires being sent to staff in universities throughout Europe. At the time the final selection was made, a total of 150 responses had been received from 18 countries.