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The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

This paper aims to empirically analyze how adaptive collaboration in supply chain management impacts demand forecast accuracy in short life-cycle products, depending on collaboration intensity, product life-cycle stage, retailer type and product category.

The authors assembled a data set of forecasts and sales of 169 still-camera models, made by the same manufacturer and sold by three different retailers in France over five years. Collaboration intensity, coded by collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment level, was used to analyze the main effects and specific interaction effects of all variables using ANOVA and ordered feature evaluation analysis (OFEA).

The findings lend empirical support to the long-standing assumption that supply chain collaboration intensity increases demand forecast accuracy and that product maturation also increases forecast accuracy even in short life-cycle products. Furthermore, the findings show that it is particularly the lack of collaboration that causes negative effects on forecast accuracy, while positive interaction effects are only found for life cycle stage and product category.

Investment in adaptive supply chain collaboration is shown to increase demand forecast accuracy. However, the choice of collaboration intensity should account for life cycle stage, retailer type and product category.

This paper provides empirical support for the adaptive collaboration concept, exploring not only the actual benefits but also the way it is achieved in the context of innovative products with short life cycles. The authors used a real-world data set and pushed its statistical analysis to a new level of detail using OFEA.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how the process of change is determined by the product lifecycle and the product lifecycle's relation to the organization structure.

This paper is based on years of experience helping business organizations adapt to change by installing computer systems and consulting with senior management in this process.

Business organizations are highly variable in their structure, it is the environment that determines the organization structure. Where businesses are in a stable environment business organizations are capital intensive. Where the environment is highly volatile capital investment is limited and small flexible organizations prevail. In addition, there is a biological theory that totally parallels this theory.

Those who fail to understand the concepts are inclined to make massive mistakes in capital investment. This is often the reason why small startup companies are able to beat out larger established competitors in highly volatile environments.

This paper aims to empirically examine how atmospherics affect word of mouth (WOM) about the brand. The authors focus primarily on uncovering the causal mechanism in which such effect is serially mediated by both perceived positive emotions evoked by atmospherics and attitude toward the brand.

To test the research hypotheses, 314 Greek moviegoers were drafted to participate in a survey. Data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS) and the SPSS macro (PROCESS tool). The model was applied to motion pictures, as they provide a particularly good example of short life-cycle products.

Findings indicate that atmospherics are related to WOM about the brand through perceived emotions evoked by atmospherics and, in turn, attitude toward the brand.

The present study extends the relevant literature by providing both direct and indirect links between atmospherics and WOM about a brand.

The model of the present study could be applied to other short life-cycle products that share key characteristics with motion pictures. Moreover, the present study increases movie producers and exhibitors’ understanding of the effects of theatre atmospherics on WOM about the movie and leads to practical suggestions and implications.

WOM is one of the key variables that can affect the profitability of short life-cycle products. To date, there was no evidence that atmospherics can influence WOM about a short life-cycle product.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

New management techniques such as ‘just‐in‐time’, ‘lean manufacturing’ and ‘Six Sigma’ allow management accountants to shift their focus from the management and control of production processes to the management of strategic issues. This paradigm shift resulted from shorter product life cycles, due to technological advances and a more competitive business environment. Recent revisions to the International Accounting Standards which are particularly supportive of life cycle costing and project management are likely to increase the focus on strategic management accounting further. This article describes developments in management accounting and the recent convergence of financial reporting in terms of International Accounting Standards with strategic management accounting and project management techniques. Strategic management accounting (particularly life cycle costing) involves applying project management techniques and using the calculus of investment to manage the project as a whole. This contrasts with managing only costs and revenues during the manufacturing phase of a project. The article demonstrates that project management techniques and the calculus of investment provide the information needed to account for the value of a project in terms of IAS 38: Intangible Assets. This will ultimately give rise to both improved decision‐making and more relevant financial reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the configurations of short life cycle, low quality, design and price, influence customer purchase intention in fast fashion and high technology industries in China.

The traditional thinking is that products with high quality and low price will win more customers. However, the authors can notice that high quality products usually have high cost. Therefore, it is necessary to do more research on how customers can accept low quality products. The authors take fast fashion products and smart phones as empirical studies, collecting data from customer’s online survey. Based on the methodology of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, the authors analyse the relationship between the factors of short life cycle, low quality, design and price and influence customer purchase intention.

The authors find that price is the most important influencing factor. Low price is a strong competitive factor in the market. As to low quality products, low price can be achieved relatively more easily than with high quality products, resulting from relatively poorer raw material or configurations. Hence the connection between quality and price may give an idea to enterprises that customers will accept low quality products with low price. Moreover, according to the research, different generations are equally affected by the low price condition, regardless of customer gender and household income.

Because the study only focuses on fast fashion and smart phones industries, future work needs to replicate this study with individual data for different industries and with alternative methods to reinforce the confidence in the research. Meanwhile , this research studied mainly the customer perspective, it would be desirable to extend the study to the enterprise perspective and find out the difficulties that limit them in using low quality products to meet market needs. This may revel some cultural differences in purchase behavior among different countries and the discussed industries can be expanded to a larger area.

The study offers a number of managerial implications. With the rapid changes in people’s aesthetic sense and developing high-tech, it is more and more necessary for companies to think about how to win more customers and earn more profits. Low quality products have advantages as they will lower companies’ costs in many dimensions, improving the speed of supply. It helps firms to take low quality products into consideration and think whether they will influence different aspects of the company assistance firms to get a deeper understanding of customer psychology and make better decisions on their products.

The paper fills the gap in the research field by exploring how consumer behavior is affected by different conditions.

This paper presents the results of a major survey and case study of UK manufacturing plants in six major industrial sectors: electronics, process, engineering (capital), engineering (consumer), household goods and food. The paper explores the conditions under which volume flexibility is required by manufacturing plants. The major driver of volume flexibility requirements in manufacturing plants was found to be demand variability regardless of differences in sector, product and other plant characteristics. Other major drivers of volume flexibility were demand uncertainty, short product life‐cycle, short product shelf life, supply chain complexity and action of competitors. The applicability of most of these drivers is independent of the industrial sector. Drivers may be generic or may be dependent on the contextual or sectoral characteristics specific to a plant. The requirement for volume flexibility is, therefore, dictated by the specific conditions which a plant is faced with, and the degree of volume flexibility required varies widely.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how in many industries manufacturing complexity and unpredictability have increased in recent years because of increasing product variety and shortening product life cycles. Simultaneously, manufacturers in these industries appear to have more problems with maintaining high quality levels.

The research studies the effects of increasing product variety and shortening product life cycles on one control system: quality management.

In situations of shortening product life cycles, the empirical data support the increased use of interactive quality control systems, as predicted by the model. However, in situations of increasing product variety the expected increase in interactive control systems has not been found. Application of a control model in the field of quality management is found to be useful in explaining how contextual factors influence the management of quality.

This research takes a novel approach by applying a model from the field of management control to case studies at three European automotive manufacturers.