Search results

There is no general theory of public enterprise, and the miscellany of separate theorizations on the subject has created a conceptual quagmire. Examines the rather confusing state of the research on public enterprise performance and behaviour. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it seems that in certain circumstances (as in the case of Singapore) public enterprise can be quite efficient, as well as an effective form of national competition.

There is no general theory of public enterprise (PE), and the miscellany of separate theorizations on the subject has created a conceptual quagmire. Advances some hypotheses gleaned from the literature on the PE concerning confusion in the PE′s objective function, investment tendencies and cost of capital, “fairness” as international competitors, influence of the societal environment, and other major theoretical issues. Hypotheses are modified to accommodate the Singapore experience with PEs. Singapore represents a rare phenomenon – a case of a successful PE system.

This study statistically examines the shifting distribution channels in the American wine industry based on the growth trajectory of sales, seasonality and disruption due to consumers switching to online platforms. The purpose of this paper is to design a model that will have general applicability beyond the wine industry.

The research uses regression-based additive decomposition of time series data to predict the trajectory of the market share for the digital distribution channel. The study develops a statistical prediction model using time series data between 2007 and 2020, inclusive, sourced from US Annual Wine Reports and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms databases.

The results show an increasing trajectory of wine sales through the online distribution channel with predictable seasonality. The disruptive effects of consumer switching behavior point to a steady increase in sales due both to increasing demand and accelerating switching. Nevertheless, the model shows that bricks and mortar purchases will remain strong and continue to account for the bulk of wine sales. COVID-19 has caused a step function increase in online sales but this should moderate after the crisis subsides and can be tested further.

This study is original in developing a model for an industry where bricks and mortar sales are growing and are expected to remain strong while there is still identifiable switching to online sales. The wine industry presents a classic case of accelerating switching behavior where there is still a strong franchise for in-store purchases. The model should have general applicability to distribution channels beyond the wine industry where steady growth, marked seasonality and disruptive consumer switching are in evidence.

Inventory control models for perishable products have primarily used a FIFO issuing policy with the objective of minimizing the number of outdated units. This paper aims to develop a model to evaluate an issuing policy for a single product with a fixed shelf life in single echelon inventory system. The issuing policy considers the remaining shelf life of the in‐stock inventory and the expected time that the product will spend in inventory as the decision driver.

The model developed has an objective of maximizing expected revenue over time with a budget constraint. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to iteratively arrive at the best solution to the formulation. The heuristic is tested by employing a simulation model of the system.

The proposed heuristic is tested against both the FIFO and the random allocation approaches and found to be superior for all the in‐stock with remaining shelf life distribution means of above 40 percent. No significant performance differences were found for the three approaches for remaining shelf life distribution.

The research is focused on a single product with multiple expiration dates and further research is necessary to determine the best policies for the multi‐product multi‐expiration date environment where the items are substitutable..

Retailers stock items with multiple expiration dates. The customer, for obvious reasons, is more likely to choose the item with the longer remaining shelf life. Therefore, the supply to the retailer's shelves and issuing policies for making available the particular items to the customers affect product outdating and related costs. Revenues will be affected by the extent to which more can be charged for items with a longer remaining shelf life or by the impact of the remaining shelf life on demand. This paper provides for a practical approach to that end.

The proposed issuing policy has not been tested before and thus makes a contribution to the body of knowledge. The flexibility of using different values for acquisition costs, selling prices, salvage value and penalty functions is a particular strength of the proposed model. Moreover, its potential application to inventory control problems for a wide range of perishable products is substantial.

This paper aims to discuss a simulation study for a multi‐product, two‐echelon inventory replenishment system. The paper compares a one‐warehouse N‐retailer replenishment system to a two‐warehouse, N‐retailer system with cost per unit of distribution and delivery lead‐times as the performance measures. The purpose is to demonstrate that under specific circumstances a two warehouse N‐retailer inventory replenishment system provides better customer service without significant changes in the cost.

Mathematical modeling and simulation methodology is used to test the performance of the proposed two warehouse N‐retailer system and statistical analysis is used to compare the performance of several scenarios.

The two warehouse replenishment system indeed reduces delivery lead‐times, used as a measure of customer service, under specific conditions such as controllable freight costs.

Caution should be exercised when interpreting these findings as the historical data used was from a single source. The paper did not investigate the effects of variable shipping costs from the manufacturing plant, warehouse and retailer. Future research could also consider multiple second level warehouses.

The findings provide a persuasive argument for manufacturers struggling with performance issues and channel relationships. Moreover, in addition to contributing to efficiency of distribution, two level systems can also enhance ability to adapt to local market conditions and to unexpected demand variations.

The model examined in this paper addressed a specific case for one company. While freight costs and warehousing costs will vary across companies, the cost represented here may be used as a gauge for evaluating systems with cost structures in the vicinity of those for the company represented in this paper. Additionally, the model is amenable to substitution of other firms' cost structures.

To suggest an approach to program costing that includes the approaches and concepts developed in activity based costing.

The paper utilizes a hypothetical case study of an Executive MBA program as a means of illustrating the suggested approach to costing.

The paper illustrates both the benefits of using an activity based costing approach and the danger of allocating organizational sustaining costs to a specific program for the purpose of assessing the profitability of that program.

University and faculty administrators will understand the benefits of activity based costing and they will understand that they should not evaluate the profitability of a program (nor make decisions about the termination of a program) on the basis of allocated organizational sustaining costs.

The value of the paper is to university and faculty administrators, who will be able to utilize a new approach to costing university programs.

State‐owned enterprises (SOEs), in general, have not been successful. Their indifferent performance has been at the center of the debate about the role of the state in the economy. To economists, the performance of SOEs is evidence of what is wrong with state intervention. And in recent years privatization has increasingly been regarded as the only way of improving the performance of SOEs. Yet, while unsuccessful SOEs abound, a few high‐performing SOEs such as POSCO (South Korea), Airbus Industrie (France), EMBRAER (Brazil), and MUL (India) can also be found.

It will be recalled that the last monograph treated the significance of the collective agreement in society. If solely a function in society, (though having a legal basis), were to be attributed to the collective agreement, this would mean that no rights or obligations whatsoever would be created between the parties to it. This is not so in practice. It is of course a fact that no legally enforceable rights and obligations normally accrue, and as already indicated, those are moral ones and are only enforceable in honour, i.e. a gentleman's agreement. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the collective agreement has no juridical significance. Even agreements which are binding in honour only, as for example the kind of agreement found in Balfour v. Balfour, have a known juridical nature. Furthermore, though the collective agreement is only binding in honour, its incorporation into the individual contract of employment makes its terms legally enforceable even though recourse to the courts is seldom had. As a source of rights and obligations of considerable importance the collective agreement must therefore have some juridical significance and cannot remain entirely in the realms of society.