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1 – 10 of 77Bridget Penhale, Alison Brammer, Pete Morgan, Paul Kingston and Michael Preston-Shoot
Jade F. Preston, Bruce A. Cox, Paul P. Rebeiz and Timothy W. Breitbach
Supply chains need to balance competing objectives; in addition to efficiency, supply chains need to be resilient to adversarial and environmental interference and robust to…
Abstract
Purpose
Supply chains need to balance competing objectives; in addition to efficiency, supply chains need to be resilient to adversarial and environmental interference and robust to uncertainties in long-term demand. Significant research has been conducted designing efficient supply chains and recent research has focused on resilient supply chain design. However, the integration of resilient and robust supply chain design is less well studied. The purpose of the paper is to include resilience and robustness into supply chain design.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a method to include resilience and robustness into supply chain design. Using the region of West Africa, which is plagued with persisting logistical issues, the authors develop a regional risk assessment framework and then apply categorical risk to the countries of West Africa using publicly available data. A scenario reduction technique is used to focus on the highest risk scenarios for the model to be tractable. Next, the authors develop a mathematical model leveraging this framework to design a resilient supply network that minimizes cost while ensuring the network functions following a disruption. Finally, the authors examine the network's robustness to demand uncertainty via several plausible emergency scenarios.
Findings
The authors provide optimal sets of transshipment hubs with varying counts from 5 through 15 hubs. The authors determine there is no feasible solution that uses only five transshipment hubs. The authors' findings reinforce those seven transshipment hubs – the solution currently employed in West Africa – is the cheapest architecture to achieve resilience and robustness. Additionally, for each set of feasibility transshipment hubs, the authors provide connections between hubs and demand spokes.
Originality/value
While, at the time of this research, three other manuscripts incorporated both resilience and robustness of the authors' research unique solved the problem as a network flow instead of as a set covering problem. Additionally, the authors establish a novel risk framework to guide the required amount of redundancy, and finally the out research proposes a scenario reduction heuristic to allow tractable exploration of 512 possible demand scenarios.
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Louca-Mai Brady, Lorna Templeton, Paul Toner, Judith Watson, David Evans, Barry Percy-Smith and Alex Copello
Young people’s involvement should lead to research, and ultimately services, that better reflect young people’s priorities and concerns. Young people with a history of treatment…
Abstract
Purpose
Young people’s involvement should lead to research, and ultimately services, that better reflect young people’s priorities and concerns. Young people with a history of treatment for alcohol and/or drug problems were actively involved in the youth social behaviour and network therapy study. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of that involvement on the study and what was learnt about involving young people in drug and alcohol research.
Design/methodology/approach
The initial plan was to form a young people’s advisory group (YPAG), but when this proved problematic the study explored alternative approaches in collaboration with researchers and young people. Input from 17 young people informed all key elements of the study.
Findings
Involvement of young people needs to be dynamic and flexible, with sensitivity to their personal experiences. Engagement with services was crucial both in recruiting young people and supporting their ongoing engagement. This research identified a need to critically reflect on the extent to which rhetorics of participation and involvement give rise to effective and meaningful involvement for young service users. It also highlights the need for researchers to be more flexible in response to young people’s personal circumstances, particularly when those young people are “less frequently heard”.
Research limitations/implications
This research highlights the need for researchers to be more flexible in response to young people’s personal circumstances, particularly when those young people are “less frequently heard”. It highlights the danger of young people in drug and alcohol research being unintentionally disaffected from involvement through conventional approaches and instead suggests ways in which young people could be involved in influencing if and how they participate in research.
Practical implications
There is an apparent contradiction between dominant discourses and cultures of health services research (including patient and public involvement) that often do not sit easily with ideas of co-production and young people-centred involvement. This paper provides an alternative approach to involvement of young people that can help to enable more meaningful and effective involvement.
Originality/value
The flexible and young people-centred model for involvement which emerged from this work provides a template for a different approach. This may be particularly useful for those who find current practice, such as YPAG, inaccessible.
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Abstract
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Aki Jääskeläinen, Katrina Lintukangas and Frederik G.S. Vos
This study uses social capital theory to analyze how social capital and supplier development support achieving supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status. The resulting…
Abstract
Purpose
This study uses social capital theory to analyze how social capital and supplier development support achieving supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status. The resulting model is compared between manufacturing and service suppliers.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey receiving 482 supplier responses from manufacturing and service suppliers was utilized and analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling and multi-group comparison tests.
Findings
The paper adds new explanations for preferred customer status through empirical evidence of relationships between supplier development, social capital, supplier satisfaction, and preferred customer status. Cognitive and relational capital directly support achieving preferred customer status. The role of supplier satisfaction in achieving preferred customer status is lower for manufacturing suppliers.
Research limitations/implications
Both service and manufacturing suppliers could also be studied in their specific industry settings. A more in-depth investigation of other business relationship dynamics, such as power, is needed in a future study.
Practical implications
Service and manufacturing suppliers need different strategies to obtain the benefits from supplier development and social capital building. For service suppliers, more intangible factors are relevant in comparison to manufacturing suppliers.
Originality/value
This study advances the literature in two main ways. First, it elaborates the role of supplier development and social capital in the path toward supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status as perceived by suppliers. Second, this study answers the calls for a better understanding of the contextual characteristics underlying potential differences in how preferred customer status is formed.
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