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This paper addresses materials and processes for printed wiring board compatible embedded capacitors using polymer/ceramic nanocomposites and hydrothermal barium titanate. Polymers allow low temperature fabrication appropriate to the board (MCM‐L) technology. The lower dielectric constants of the commercially available polymers can be greatly compensated by incorporating higher permittivity ceramic fillers. Materials requirements for higher capacitance density (>30 nF/cm²) have been addressed through implementation of a novel low‐temperature processable hydrothermal barium titanate film on a patterned titanium foil laminated to the PWB. Application of hydrothermal grown barium titanate is currently being evaluated using a multi‐layer system‐on‐package demonstration.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive and coherent approach for managing risks in supply chains.

Building on Tummala et al.'s Risk Management Process (RMP), this paper develops a structured and ready‐to‐use approach for managers to assess and manage risks in supply chains.

Supply chain risks can be managed more effectively when applying the Supply Chain Risk Management Process (SCRMP). The structured approach can be divided into the phases of risk identification, risk measurement and risk assessment; risk evaluation, and risk mitigation and contingency plans; and risk control and monitoring via data management systems. Specific techniques for conducting this process are suggested.

While supply chain risk management is an emerging and important topic in our dynamic and interconnected world, conceptual frameworks providing a clear meaning and normative guidance are scarce (Manuj and Mentzer, 2008). This paper presents such a framework, offering structure and decision support for managers.

Examines the involvement of all levels of employees in Hong Kong and China companies for ISO 9000 registration and maintenance. For convenience, the employee levels are divided into management, supervision, staff and operator level categories. The extent and the nature of involvement among these four levels of employees are studied and an appropriate employee strategy for ISO 9000 registration and maintenance is formulated. Based on the literature review, and the analysis of case studies and personal interviews that are conducted for selected Hong Kong and China ISO 9001/2 certified companies, we have formulated an employee involvement strategy to establish, implement and maintain the ISO 9000 based quality system. Then a questionnaire survey is conducted and the survey data are analyzed to validate and revise the strategy formulated earlier.

This study aims to explore and analyzes the risk factors in container shipping and logistics services using a dual perspective. The authors gather data not only from logistics service companies but also from their most important customers.

In this research, the authors used case study methodology (interviews and surveys) to examine risk factors that are related to one another within the interaction between logistics service companies and their customers in the emerging markets of the Mediterranean region (Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya).

The findings show the most important risk factors and compare them using a dual perspective. Customers identify additional risks and estimate their consequences as wider. Interestingly, oil price change plays a dual role because a price increase could be beneficial to the region; at the same time, however, the competitiveness of shipping would decrease. In both response groups, risk likelihood and risk consequence have a positive and statistically significant correlation.

The findings of the study are limited to one shipping/logistics service company. On a global scale, the company is medium-sized; however, in terms of Northern Europe, it is an important player. Extending its service portfolio to the Mediterranean region is an important step.

In emerging markets, risks go hand in hand with profitability, and companies need to apply extensive risk analysis and mitigation strategies to survive.

The southern Mediterranean region is showing some signs of economy recovery. Efficient, robust supply chains are in demand to support sustainable growth.

Using a case study approach in supply chain risk management in shipping is rather rare; this work is ground-breaking in that it uses dual perspective in the analysis.

Researchers have long sought to understand how risks in supply chains (SCs) affect firm performance. Yet, they have not fully subjected claims of how SC risks affect firm financial performance to theoretical and empirical scrutiny. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between SC risks and firm financial performance.

The author analyzes how SC risks affect firm financial performance from the perspective of marginal financial performance (MFP) using survey and financial statement data. The author employs structural equation modeling to examine the hypotheses using 106 Taiwanese listed companies across 20 industries.

The findings regarding the importance of industry-specific risk, organizational risk, internal business process risk, and demand risk are consistent with prior studies. The author finds that demand risk has an MFP of −0.20, the highest negative effect among the risk variables. The findings also show that industry-specific risk possesses an MFP of −0.16, the second-highest negative effect, despite having no direct effect on financial performance.

This paper examines how SC risks affect MFP via combining survey and financial statement data. It does not assume the reported MFP estimates apply to all businesses in other countries. However, future research could triangulate our findings.

This study combines survey and financial data to analyze how SC risks affect firm financial performance. Specifically, it provides a methodology for estimating quantitative cause-effect relationships between SC risk and firm financial performance, an important topic that receives less research interest in the field of supply chain management.

In order to maintain competitiveness in a global market, more Hong Kong manufacturers are continuing the pursuit of quality management after being certified to ISO 9000. They strive for other quality management practices/approaches for continuous improvement such as the total quality management (TQM). Successful implementation of the TQM generates impressive performance measures such as improved product quality, increased productivity, improved cycle time, increased customer satisfaction, improved supplier performance, stronger employee relations, and increased return on investment and market share, etc. In view of this demand, organizations need to understand and study the important issues that incorporate them in successfully implementing the TQM‐based quality systems. A survey with questions associated with the seven core elements of strategic quality management identified by Tummala et al. was conducted in 2001 in order to investigate the current quality management practices towards the implementation of TQM in Hong Kong electronics and toys products manufacturing industries. The results of the survey from both industries are compared and the key findings are summarized in this paper.

The first aim of the chapter is to offer a characterization of back-reshoring as a possible step of the firm’s nonlinear internationalization process. The second aim is to review the empirical literature on back-reshoring and to complement it with the findings of an extensive data collection.

In this chapter we adopted an explorative approach building on both theoretical and empirical literature from the fields of international business and international operations Management. We also collected secondary data on back-reshoring decisions in order to define the magnitude of the investigated phenomenon and to offer a primary characterization.

Our findings confirm that, though it cannot be considered a generalized trend, back-reshoring is a very topical issue for international business scholars. It represents an autonomous phenomenon consistent with the idea of nonlinear internationalization process.

The chapter is based on cross-sectional data. Longitudinal research is required in order to address the proposed research questions and help understanding “how much” and what kind of manufacturing will be housed in western countries in the near future.

This is the first attempt to conceptualize back-reshoring as a possible step of the firms’ internationalization process. It is also the first chapter that summarizes and discusses the literature and empirical evidence on back-reshoring emerging from a wide range of countries.

During a press conference at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi on 13 March 2001, the Internet news site, Tehelka.com, showed secret video footage of senior politicians, bureaucrats, and army officers accepting money in a fake defense deal. Two journalists from Tehelka, Anirudha Bahal and Mathew Samuel, posed as arms dealers from a fictitious arms company called West End International to sell nonexistent handheld thermal cameras to senior officials of the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in India. Bahal and Samuel paid bribes to politicians, civil servants, and army officers to procure government contracts. The journalists used three hidden cameras to videotape the corrupt politicians and officials accepting the bribes, with the most dramatic video clip showing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Bangaru Laxman, accepting a wad of currency notes from them. Laxman later claimed that he was not guilty of wrongdoing for accepting Rs. 100,000 (US$2,170) as a donation for the BJP. Describing the episode as “concocted,” he added that he had given the donation to the BJP's treasurer (BBC News, 2001a).

Today’s growing concern in environment awareness forces manufacturers to strive for implementing competitive strategies in environmental management. With the introduction of ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) standard in 1996, many manufacturing companies are facing a decision problem of whether or not to implement the ISO 14001 based EMS. The authors have studied the critical success factors to be considered by the Hong Kong manufacturers in this regard. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology is used in the study to formulate an appropriate model to evaluate success factors and develop strategies to implement ISO 14001 based EMS in Hong Kong manufacturing companies. The model is also used to evaluate the benefits/costs ratios of implementing ISO based EMS and to decide whether or not to implement it. As the results of the model indicated, the ISO 14001 based EMS should be implemented in Hong Kong by manufacturing companies to improve their environmental performance and sustain the competitive position in the global market place, regardless of the considerable costs incurred from its implementation. This is supported by a relatively larger benefits/costs ratio with respect to implementing ISO 14001 based EMS than that of the contrary. This paper reports the findings of the study.

Despite an abundance of studies on hybridization and hybrid forms of organizing, scholarly work has failed to distinguish consistently between specific types of hybridity. As a consequence, the analytical category has become blurred and lacks conceptual clarity. Our paper discusses hybridity as the simultaneous appearance of institutional logics in organizational contexts, and differentiates the parallel co-existence of logics from transitional combinations (eventually leading to the replacement of a logic) and more robust combinations in the form of layering and blending. While blending refers to hybridity as an “amalgamate” with original components that are no longer discernible, the notion of layering conceptualizes hybridity in a way that the various elements, or clusters thereof, are added on top of, or alongside, each other, similar to sediment layers in geology. We illustrate and substantiate such conceptual differentiation with an empirical study of the dynamics of public sector reform. In more detail, we examine the parliamentary discourse around two major reforms of the Austrian Federal Budget Law in 1986 and in 2007/2009 in order to trace administrative (reform) paradigms. Each of the three identified paradigms manifests a specific field-level logic with implications for the state and its administration: bureaucracy in Weberian-style Public Administration, market-capitalism in New Public Management, and democracy in New Public Governance. We find no indication of a parallel co-existence or transitional combination of logics, but hybridity in the form of robust combinations. We explore how new ideas fundamentally build on – and are made resonant with – the central bureaucratic logic in a way that suggests layering rather than blending. The conceptual findings presented in our paper have implications for the literature on institutional analysis and institutional hybridity.