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In a supply-constrained region like Asia, promoting exports has always been a challenge particularly at a time when Asia’s trade has been severely affected by lack of external demand. This paper argues that price barriers have taken a new shape during the global financial crisis period which may generate differential impacts on trade flows as we proceed toward recovery. The size and shape of price barriers would be higher if NTBs, applied by the countries during the crisis period, were counted. One of the conclusions of this paper is that ‘price’ barrier is still more important than ‘non-price’ barrier in enhancing Asia’s trade and integration. The higher the price barrier between countries in a pair, the less they trade. In other words, a 10 percent increase in the ad-valorem price (transport and tariff) lowered trade by 6 percent. Tariff and transport costs, each considered separately, also influence the trade flow in the same direction, to more or less the same extent. There are indications of huge domestic infrastructure bottlenecks in countries in Asia. Based on direct and indirect evidence related to trade barriers, this paper concludes that complementary trade policies focusing on price and non-price barriers have immense importance in enhancing international trade and integration in the post-crisis period.

This paper presents the concerns in manufacturing supply chain. Further this study investigates the role of information technology (IT) and information sharing (IS) in manufacturing supply chain and determines its impact towards supply chain integration (SCI), supply chain performance (SCP), and manufacturing firm performance (FP) in Malaysia. The theoretical framework was proposed for the study on the basis of existing literature. The study administered a survey questionnaire to collect data from manufacturing firms in Malaysia with 112 respondents. A multiple regression analysis is conducted to establish the relationship between IT, IS, SCI, and FP. The study finds that IT and sharing has significant positive effect towards and performance. Firms that use IT and practice IS across partners in the supply chain are more likely to integrate their internal and external value chain for better performance both within and across the manufacturing firms in the supply chain. This study can be of interest to the manufacturing industry as well as other industry practitioners interested in improving the performance of the organization and supply chain in total. For supply chain practitioners, this results indicate that the firms should adopt IT and IS practices to strategically improve SCI. This in turn will also improve the supply chain network and firm’s performance. This study employs a newly developed framework which depicts the causal relationship between IT, IS, SCI, Supply Chain Performance, and FP in Malaysia. Furthermore, it closes a gap in existing literature by examining the effect IT and communication (ICT) practices toward manufacturing firms’ performance and SCP in a single setting. In addition, the current study attempted to construct a model which would estimate and interpret SCP and FP simultaneously, and to evaluate this model in an empirical fashion.

This article aims to provide a theoretical unifying framework for flexible organizational forms, such as so-called adhocracies and network organizations.

In this article, organization practices that are typical of the software industry are analyzed and re-interpreted by means of foundational concepts of organization science. It is shown that one and the same logic is at work in all flexible organizations.

Coordination modes can be fruitfully employed to characterize flexible organizations. In particular, standardization is key in order to obtain flexibility, provided that a novel sort of coordination by standardization is added to those that have been conceptualized hitherto.

This article highlights one necessary condition for organizations to be flexible. Further aspects, only cursorily mentioned in this paper, need to be addressed in order to obtain a complete picture.

A theory of organizational flexibility constitutes a guide for organizational design. This article suggests the non-obvious prescription that the boundary conditions of individual behavior must be standardized in order to achieve operational flexibility.

This theoretical framework can be profitably employed in management classes.

Currently, flexible organizations are only understood in terms of lists of instances. This article shows that apparently heterogeneous case-studies share common features in fact.

Evidence-based rehabilitative treatment is constrained due to limited knowledge about disability and its related factors among individuals with schizophrenia across West Africa. This study aims to investigate the pattern of disability, and the associated factors among individuals with schizophrenia. One hundred consecutively recruited consenting participants were subjected to designed questionnaire to inquire about their demographic and illness-related variables. This was followed by the administration of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale to confirm the diagnosis of schizophrenia and rate severity of symptoms respectively in them. In addition, the World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Scale II (WHODAS-II) was used to assess for disability in all participants. Different degrees of disability based on WHODAS-II mean score of 27.02±3.49 were noted among individuals with schizophrenia, and affectation of domains of disability like self care, getting along with others, life activities and participation in the society among others were observed. In addition, high level of disability was significantly associated with younger adults in the age group 18-44 years (P=0.007), unemployment status (P=0.003), remittance source of income (P=0.034) and ethnicity (P=0.017); conversely, less number of children (P=0.033), less amount spent on treatment (P<0.001) and lower BPRS score (P<0.001) correlated negatively with high level of disability. In spite of clinical stability following treatment, individuals with schizophrenia were disabled to varied degrees, and socioeconomic as well as illness-related factors constituted important correlates. Integration of rehabilitation along with social intervention into treatment design to reduce disability is implied, and further research is also warranted.

The study compares how work-integrated learning (WIL) placement positioning, duration, assessment strategies and environment at three Southern African universities influence engineering students' academic and employability outcomes.

The study used a qualitative case study approach that drew on the principles of collaborative autoethnography (CAE). The researchers reflected on WIL placement practices, structure, assessment, environment and outcomes at their universities and then analysed the reflections using comparative descriptive techniques.

The study reports no uniformity among the universities in positioning WIL placement in the curriculum. It is done during end-of-year vacations, between the penultimate and final year or in the last year. The study found WIL placement positioning does not influence academic outcomes; however, the influence on employability outcomes needs further investigation. Components of WIL placement assessment are similar, presentations, logbooks and reports. However, there are differences in the weightings of the various assessment components and the contribution of the industry supervisor. There is a growing trend towards placing students within universities to mitigate the challenges of limited opportunities of placements available in the industry. The impact of this also needs to be further investigated. Lastly, there are policy-related challenges in placing international students. Work restrictions on student visas limit international students’ access to WIL placement. Southern African universities need to lobby the waivers to student visa restrictions that limit their participation in WIL programs if there are to succeed in their internationalisation efforts.

The study highlights the gaps in understanding Southern African universities' WIL placement practices, particularly relating to the positioning of WIL placement in the curriculum, the assessment methods used and the theory to work integration and employability outcomes.