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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether focused attention on a firm by an external organization, group, or influential analyst generates greater investor awareness that can affect a firm's value and cost of capital. This study is motivated by contemporary research that provides support for the hypothesis that investors have limited attention. Prior studies have focused on how investors' limited attention has influenced their analysis of firm‐specific financial data. The studies have shown that investors may have limited attention and hence pay more attention to the more salient financial statement items. This paper extends this stream of research by empirically testing to determine if external sources attract investors' limited attention to a firm.

The paper examines the published monthly Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA) research reports from 1998 through 2004 that identify firms experiencing operational problems and/or using unusual or aggressive accounting practices. To provide evidence that information appearing in CFRA research reports has not already been impounded into a firm's stock price prior to the publication of the CFRA research report, the paper tests for abnormal returns around the publication of the CFRA research reports. Second, to provide evidence that the firms' cost of capital decreases after the publication date of the CFRA research reports, the paper tests for a decrease in the bid‐ask spreads after firms appear on the CFRA research reports.

Support was found for the hypothesis that firms experience a significant decline in their market value in the days surrounding their appearance on the CFRA research reports. For a sample of 892 firms, the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) for a two‐day window around a firm's appearance on a CFRA research report is −1.89 percent, and the CARs for a seven‐day window around a firm's appearance on a CFRA research report is −3.50 percent.

The paper's findings suggest that the information from the fundamental analysis conducted by the Center for Financial Research and Analysis has not already been impounded into a firm's stock price before its appearance on a CFRA research report. Although the paper found a decrease in the mean difference in the bid‐ask spread change, it cannot provide statistically significant support for the hypothesis that a firm's cost of capital decreases after appearing on a CFRA research report.

Introducing additive manufacturing (AM) in a multinational corporation with a global spare parts operation requires tools for a dynamic supplier selection, considering both cost and delivery performance. In the switchover to AM from conventional manufacturing, the objective of this study is to find situations and ways to improve the spare parts service to end customers.

In this explorative study, the authors develop a procedure – in collaboration with the spare parts operations managers of a case company – for dynamic operational decision-making for the selection of spare parts supply from multiple suppliers. The authors' design proposition is based on a field experiment for the procurement and delivery of 36 problematic spare parts.

The practice intervention verified the intended outcomes of increased cost and delivery performance, yielding improved customer service through a switchover to AM according to situational context. The successful operational integration of dynamic additive and static conventional supply was triggered by the generative mechanisms of highly interactive model-based supplier relationships and insignificant transaction costs.

The dynamic decision-making proposal extends the product-specific make-to-order practice to the general-purpose build-to-model that selects the mode of supply and supplier for individual spare parts at an operational level through model-based interactions with AM suppliers. The successful outcome of the experiment prompted the case company to begin the introduction of AM into the company's spare parts supply chain.

Enterprise Systems are comprehensive and complex applications that form the core business operating system for many companies worldwide and throughout most industries. The selection, implementation, use and continuous change of Enterprise Systems (ES) (e.g. mySAP.com) require a great amount of knowledge and experience. Due to the lack of in‐house ES knowledge and the high costs of engaging experienced implementation consultants, organizations realize the need to better leverage their knowledge resources. Managing this knowledge is increasingly important with the second wave of ES projects focusing E‐Business applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). These new applications embrace an open‐integration strategy that will incorporate and support other vendors’ applications as part of its Internet‐based enterprise computing platform. This paper proposes a framework for managing knowledge in Enterprise Systems. The framework draws its strength from meta‐case studies and comprehensive literature analyses, which is consolidated into a three‐dimensional framework. The preliminary results show that the importance of value‐adding activities and innovation are elemental to knowledge management in the aspect of ES.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers’ electronic integration with global customers on their capability widening, following the literature on electronic integration, firm innovativeness, product modularity and dynamic capabilities. It also examines the moderating roles of supplier innovativeness and product modularity in the proposed relationship.

This study conducts empirical examination on a sample of OEM suppliers in Taiwan. It collects 201 self-reported responses via mailed surveys of 1,069 electronics companies listed in the 5000 Largest Firms in Taiwan, and the archival data are obtained from the Taiwan Economic Journal database.

The results show that electronic integration with global customers affects capability widening negatively, whereas supplier innovativeness affects capability widening positively. In addition, product modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between electronic integration and capability widening.

This study contributes to the electronic integration literature by providing empirical evidences on how OEM suppliers’ electronic integration affects their capability widening. This study also adds to the supply chain management literature by demonstrating the relationship between OEM suppliers’ innovativeness and their move into higher value-added activities, as well as how product modularity interplays with electronic integration between customers and suppliers on suppliers’ capability widening in global supplier‒customer relationships.

For OEM suppliers with a low level of product modularity, they may widen their capabilities by exploring other value-added activities (e.g. original design manufacturing or original brand manufacturing). For OEM suppliers with a high level of product modularity, the improvement of their manufacturing capabilities is a helpful approach to create competitive advantage.

This study is one of the first to examine the interplay between electronic integration and product modularity on capability widening of OEM suppliers from an emerging market. Meanwhile, this study provides support for the relationship between supplier innovativeness and innovative activities in the global supply chain context.

The fuel retailing landscape in India is undergoing a structural shift with the reforms undertaken by the government that would help the private and foreign firms to enter this market. India is poised to become the world's largest growth market for energy by the mid-2020s. IoT has become an integral digital technology for the fuel retailers in the retail oil outlet (ROO) ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to develop an Internet of Things (IoT) business model for the Indian oil marketing companies (OMCs') ROOs.

Using literature review along with a survey among 660 respondents led to 402 valid observations, and the variables that contributed to IoT adoption at the OMCs' ROOs were identified. Using the BMC tool (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2009), the relative importance of the variables within each building block was established. The means of all the variables were measured against the average of all the variables, and significant differences were searched for in each block. The notable differences of the means along with significant high and low means were highlighted.

This paper depicts empirical research that led to a framework of an IoT business model for Indian public sector ROOs. It also represents the usefulness of the Technology-Organization-Environment framework at the OMCs ROOs and extends the literature by incorporating “data security” to the existent framework of technology, organization and environment within the IoT ecosystem.

The outcome of the research should be analysed in the Indian context as all the respondents were from India. The study was conducted for the ROOs of Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and excluded their downstream operations. The dispensers in the OMCs vary along with their marketing strategies in the retail segments. The IoT business model can be customized for a particular OMC, which is scope of further research.

The study has practical implications for those global fuel retailers embarking on the IoT adoption drive at their ROOs about the need to install “data security” measures in the connected IoT environment. The study provides insights on how the OMCs can stay ahead of competition in the Indian market vis-à-vis the private sector fuel retailers by embracing the IoT business model.

The new emerging technological business models provide competitive edge to those organizations adopting them (Barney, 1991; Clemons and Row, 1991; Feeny and Ives, 1990). The study will enable the OMCs to implement the IoT business model at their ROOs for enhancing their revenue streams and profitability and lowering of operating costs. The study provides insights on how the OMCs can stay ahead of competition in the Indian market vis-à-vis the private sector fuel retailers by embracing the IoT business model.

The contribution of the paper is that it is among the first to map the variables that contribute to IoT adoption at the OMCs' ROOs, within the building blocks of the BMC tool (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2009), according to their importance. To retain their dominance and have a first-mover competitive advantage, this study enables the OMCs to adopt the IoT business model and transform their ROOs into Internet-connected intelligent fuel outlets.

The shift from physical (brick and mortar) stores and hard copy catalog stores toward electronic stores (e‐tailing) may be seen as a continuous innovation building on past changes brought about by in‐home shopping methods such as catalog, TV and direct mail. Why are e‐tailers then having such difficulty retaining their customers? In this paper, we examine the influence of consumer characteristics on perception of shopping benefits associated with electronic and physical shopping. Based on a mail survey of upscale US households, the empirical study finds the two shopping formats to be clearly different from each other in terms of perceived shopping benefits. The data supports the influence of individual characteristics (such as age, household income and family composition) as well as past behaviors on the shopping benefits associated with the two modes of shopping.

This study aims to investigate the impacts of online review and source features upon travelers’ online hotel booking intentions.

This study developed a research model and empirically examined the model by collecting data from business travelers in the Mainland China. Factor analysis was adopted to identify features of online reviews content and source attribute. Regression analysis was used to examine impacts of these attributes upon travelers’ online booking intention.

Six features of online reviews content and one source attribute were identified, namely, usefulness, reviewer expertise, timeliness, volume, valence (negative and positive) and comprehensiveness. Regression analysis results testified positive causal relationships between usefulness, reviewer expertise, timeliness, volume and comprehensiveness and respondents’ online booking intentions. A significantly negative relation between negative online reviews and online booking intentions was identified, whereas impacts from positive online reviews upon booking intentions were not statistically significant.

The major limitation of this study is that interrelationships among features of online reviews, which were discussed in other similar studies, were not considered. Still, this study benefited researchers from scrutinizing features of online reviews, rather than several of them. As such, it offered more comprehensive suggestions for practitioners in how to better utilize online reviews as a marketing tool.

Hospitality practitioners could enhance consumer review management by applying the six underlying factors of online review in the present study to find out the ways of increasing consumers’ booking intentions in the specific hotel contexts.

A major theoretical contribution of this paper is its comprehensiveness in examining features of review content as well as its source simultaneously. This study also offered areas worthy of more research efforts from perspectives of practitioners and researchers.

There has been growing interest on how emerging country firms can improve collaborative relationships with their international supply chain partners and improve performance outcomes. This paper aims to develop and test a model which emphasizes how advanced information technology and relationship learning can help Taiwanese electronics firms to improve their working relationship with international buyers.

Data were collected from 246 Taiwanese electronics firms which nurture relationships with international buyers. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the interrelationships between key concepts in the proposed conceptual model.

The findings suggest that applied technological innovation, a key IT resource, can enhance relationship learning for suppliers in their dealings with international buyers. This in turn contributes to higher supplier innovativeness and relationship performance. Moreover, applied technological innovation can improve supplier innovativeness directly. Interestingly however, applied technological innovation does not directly contribute to relationship performance.

This paper provides empirical evidence on the contribution of applied technological innovation on enhancing relationship learning and innovation in interfirm relationships for Asia‐Pacific dragon electronic firms.

Managers should focus on building relationship learning and adopting advanced IT to support joint learning activities in international channel relationships in order to improve relationship outcomes.

The paper develops hypotheses and tests a conceptual model which explains the contribution of applied technological innovation and relationship learning on supplier innovativeness and relationship performance.

Reducing purchasing costs remains an ongoing concern for most organizations. The standard purchasing process that works well for large purchases, however, generates proportionately much higher overhead and administrative costs for small purchases leading to purchase delays, high error rate, and poor vendor participation. There is a need to develop separate purchasing processes for small and large purchases and evaluate underlying factors that affect such process transformation. This paper aims to analyze a successful purchasing process transformation conducted at a utility company for small purchases.

It uses a case study methodology to examine the transformation in detail and understand related issues such as benefits realization, resistance to change, and risk management involved in such transformation projects.

It compares original and transformed purchasing processes and identifies resultant benefits to the company, participating vendors, banks, and employees. It finds that a company receives many operational, informational, and accounting benefits in addition to purchasing cost savings.

It provides guidelines for similar restructuring for small purchases in other organizations.

The paper offers a generic business process model for small purchases and employs equity‐implementation model to explain the factors leading to the success in this purchasing process transformation and possibly other similar organizational transformations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the information sharing in an online discussion forum, over an agricultural market characterized by a large number of small-scale farmers, has an impact on the market prices.

All the comments posted by farmers and traders on four storable items (potato, onion, lemon and apple) in an online discussion forum over 2013–2017 are collected. By using text mining techniques and regression analysis, words characterizing the actions and expectations of farmers and traders on the course of the market price are identified. Then, summary indicators pointing to positive and negative views on prices are calculated. Finally, the relation between these indicators and market prices is analyzed.

The results point to economically significant impacts, as one standard deviation increase in the share of net positive comments is associated with 20, 22, 13 and 10 percent increase in the consumer prices of potato, onion, lemon and apple, respectively within three months.

Overall, this study provides an evidence for the link between information sharing of farmers on online domain and their collaboration in the physical domain. Thus, the study implies that the information synthesized from online discussion forums may actually contain valuable information for researchers and policy makers regarding the behavior of agents even on traditional domains such as agriculture.