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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.

A typical product design project involves a number of activities, and each activity requires human resources support. These activities and resources must be properly planned and scheduled in order to achieve optimum project time and cost. This paper proposes a process planning and scheduling (PPAS) system which is based on the concept of process planning typically used for the planning of production activities. Object technology (OT) is chosen as the platform for the development of the PPAS model for its specific characteristics such as inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism etc. Presents the concept of the PPAS system, discusses its relationship with reference to product design, and proposes the use of object technology as a platform for building the PPAS.

The challenge of global product design and manufacturing in the networked enterprise is to have an information hub supported by an information infrastructure that is difficult to imitate by competitors. The global company can use this global network to share information among its members and provide fast response to customers. The purpose of this paper is use to the dispersed production network to show where knowledge management can be deployed in operations for gaining competitive advantage.

The case study method was selected as the research method. The case of Hasbro Far East Ltd is presented to depict the components of the information hub and why knowledge management can be effectively deployed in the management of the collaborative product development process.

The findings of the case study support the argument that the streamlined collaborative process can be institutionalised in the form of information hub to facilitate the use of a new business model for global product design and outsourced manufacturing. The new business model guides an incremental approach in transforming the operations of a global enterprise which serves a show case in business process management for benchmarking.

This paper offers a business model of knowledge management in networked enterprise for global product design and manufacturing. The success of using the model depends on the sponsor in the creation of the knowledge‐based system and the ability in resolving conflicts through information sharing among members of networked enterprise. Future research should concentrate on developing enterprise performance tools to facilitate the alignment of views from different participants of the network so that they can become sponsors earlier in committing to the development of an information hub for knowledge management and achieve the new dispersed production network business model.

Findings may pose interesting implications for global entrepreneurs, policymaker, suppliers and supporting institutions, for the way they work together to gain the most benefits and competitive advantage from the new business model.

A case study conducted in a British company (Company A) on reengineering business processes is presented. It gives an example on how a case study ought to be written in order to go beyond the standard for writing an industrial report to one that is acceptable by academic peers. A good case study ought to contain information that readers can use in replicating the experiences gained and lessons learnt in future endeavours under similar settings. When a collection of good case studies is available to a practitioner or researcher he could formulate his plan for the future and avoid “re‐inventing the wheel”. This is most important to research in operations management because it lends a hand in the building up of a theory in POM to make an impact in its natural settings.

This research, based on the idea of contingency fit, attempts to construct a strategic selection system to select the best fit competency of channel strategic selection by using neuro‐fuzzy technique.

Neuro‐fuzzy technique is used.

In addition to, providing a concrete bilateral solution to select the right and better fit competency of channel strategy and giving an alternative way to explain fit, this strategic selection system can also be used as a competency diagnosis system for channel members in the supply chain organization, providing clues for further channel performance promotion and channel modernization.

Through the literature and construction of strategy channel satisfaction model (SCSM) concepts and ideas, an empirical study of the Asian Commerce Community meet distribution channel relationships will pose an Asian developed channel modernization perspective of SCSM to discuss the critical marketing strategy selection for the traditional orient “commercial channel”.

This paper seeks to present an in‐depth case study on the adoption of IT by a fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company. The objective is to describe an approach to benchmark the performance with and without IT use in its business process.

The unique approach ties together the concepts of generic business model, business process re‐engineering and gap analysis with IT as an enabler to improve order and delivery processes, overall cost‐effectiveness and efficiency.

The use of this approach is very important nowadays because more firms are working together as partners in strategic outsourcing using China as “factory of the world”. Without the necessary IT skills to operate the inter‐organizational information systems and to support running the business, it would be difficult to compete and survive in the global marketplace.

The generic business model embodied in the approach serves as a map to guide practitioners and academicians to build similar enterprise systems in response to change requests from customers.

The benefit from the use of this change initiative is not limited to small and medium enterprises in this industry but applicable to other firms in related industries as well.

The paper fulfills an identified information/resources need and offers an example of the application of a theoretical model in business process renewal for executives starting out on a POM career.

Research on the issues of management succession in Chinese family business should have a significant impact to the survival of small‐ to medium‐sized manufacturing enterprise (SME) in Hong Kong. One overlooked area in the study of SME is the continuity issue of management succession from one generation to the next generation in family‐owned businesses. The major emphasis is to delineate the difficulties, which the second‐generation owners encounter, in managing family businesses and propose a tripartite model for the second‐generation owners of SME to adopt in enhancing their abilities and re‐invent their family businesses to compete in the information age.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation into the relationships between the selected organizational variables, business process improvement (BPI) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) success.

It is based on a sample of 96 firms operating in an Asian (Hong Kong) setting. Non‐parametric statistical tests are conducted on the sample.

It has found that the extent of BPI is positively related to ERP success, and senior management support of BPI (MSB), and senior management support of IT (MSI) and CEO‐IT distance are negatively related. However, it has also found that there exist no statistically significant relationships between approaches to business process changes and BPI, between MSI and ERP success, and between CEO‐IT distance and MSB. It has also yielded divergent findings for the impacts of CEO‐IT distance on the levels of senior MSI and MSB for the sub‐samples of firms of Western and Asian origin.

This research has produced empirical evidence in an Asian setting for some of the hypothesized relationships and pointed out that the impacts of certain organizational variables may differ across firms of different geographic (cultural) background. However, it is primarily empirical in nature and is weak in its theoretic underpinning to explain why these organizational variables are adopted in the study.

The findings of this study in an Asian setting add to those conducted in the West, and thus help fill the lacuna of research involving the variables relevant to ERP adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated model of decision support system (DSS), artificial neural network, information and communication technologies and statistical process control (SPC) to facilitate agreement by different stakeholders with special interests to commit to the decision that will be taken to stop the production line when something goes wrong somewhere in a supplier network environment.

A DSS is proposed to capture exceptional signals from source on deterioration of product quality to alert preventive actions needed before the problems are getting out of hand. The supervisors are given a set of guidelines to support making the decision. Real‐time SPC and rule‐based decision support procedures are used to trigger pre‐defined exceptional signals for forwarding to the most appropriate person (the knowledge holder in the problem domain) to make a decision to stop the line. All servers in all remote sites are internet‐connected and provide real‐time quality data to the regional supply chain manager. A case study is described to show how this is implemented in a lens manufacturing company.

A significant improvement in quality level can be achieved by holding the knowledge worker accountable for making the decision to stop the production line rather than made by default as is with most traditional operations.

To provide a concept to structure activities for decision support so that the persons responsible for making the decision to stop the production line is held accountable by all stakeholders.

Practitioners can replicate the approach used in this paper to their own situations involving decisions to be made to address un‐structured problems and unclear responsibilities.