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Several white goods companies are grappling with issues such as short product life-cycle and high item obsolescence rates. This case analyzes several strategies to overcome item obsolescence, standardize put-away and picking operations and overcome challenges with low picker efficiency at white-goods warehouses.

Increasing quantities of waste may result in legislation to enforce the recycling of electrical and electronic products. Gives an introduction to such legislation and highlights its effects on industry today. Introduces the principle of the 3Rs, and discusses the way being done at Manchester Metropolitan University on ways to assess products in terms of their ease of disassembly and ability to be recycled. Also contains a case study of two vacuum cleaners which have been examined recently.

Various aspects of managerial and professional employees in Australia are examined in an attempt to establish if the Australian experience is similar to that reported in other countries where “management” appears to have emerged as a third force between the employers and organised labour. It is argued that the new style manager is a younger, more highly educated “professional” but that the managerial function is also changing. A survey, conducted in Australia during 1985 of senior executives and 14 large scale organisations from both the public and private sector, provides the basis for this report of the changing characteristics of managerial and professional employees in Australia. Areas explored include the proportion of managers and professionals as a percentage of the labour force; particular characteristics which are emerging; education levels and qualifications; the process governing the movement of managers within the labour market; the effect of recent legislation on remuneration systems; and the degree of union membership among managers.

The paper aims to give a quantitative assessment of the benefits obtainable by using information and communication technologies to integrate the order‐to‐payment process involving manufacturers and specialized retailers in the home appliances industry.

Standard business processes were defined and activity base costing was applied to develop the cost model with the support, i.e. validation and data provision of most of the companies operating in the Italian home appliances market.

The bottom line is €96 per order‐to‐payment cycle in the conventional, paper‐based scenario, compared to €23 in the integrated scenario involving the exchange of structured electronic documents. The potential savings amount to about 80 per cent of the costs, almost equally shared between the retailer and the manufacturer. A significant part of the benefits comes from the reduction in the management costs of non‐conformity issues.

The assessment considers only tangible benefits and does not include more intangible advantages, such as cycle time reduction, compliance with regulation and easier and faster accessibility to documents.

The paper measures the benefits of using trade process integration technologies and presents a methodology that can be applied to other industries and to particular supply chains. The difficulties in assessing the benefits have been claimed to be one of the main barriers to adoption.

The paper provides a model to assess the order‐to‐payment cycle costs, considering both the costs of the “perfect cycle” (where no errors occur) and the cost of managing non‐conformities. At present, there is no benchmark available in the literature for the order‐to‐payment cycle costs in conventional and integrated conditions that could help companies to assess the expected benefits of integration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supplier concentration influences a buyer firm's R&D intensity. This study proposes a mediation and moderation model to test this relationship in the Chinese household appliance industry. Specifically, this study tests the mediation effect of operational slack on the relationship between supplier concentration and R&D intensity and the moderation effect of financial constraints on this relationship.

Drawing upon real options theory and resource dependence theory, the proposed relationships are tested with the Chinese household appliance market using financial data from listed companies over a ten-year span from 2012 to 2021. Fixed effects (within-group) panel regression models are used to test the hypotheses. In addition, the authors use the bias-corrected bootstrap method to test the mediation effect.

The authors find that supplier concentration negatively affects a buyer firm's R&D intensity and that internal operational slack mediates this relationship. Interestingly, financial constraints from the external financing organization weaken the negative relationship between the buyer firm's supplier concentration and R&D intensity.

Based on the argument of real options theory and resource dependence theory, this study provides novel insights into the issue of how concentration on several major suppliers may reduce buyer firms' R&D intensity. First, this study introduces operational slack as a form of internal uncertainty that mediates the supplier concentration–R&D intensity relationship. Second, this study suggests that the effect of supplier concentration on R&D intensity is contingent upon firms' financial constraints from external financial organizations, disclosing a synergetic interactive effect of supplier concentration and financial constraints on firms' R&D activities. Third, this study is conducted in the unique institutional context of China, providing meaningful insights into the relationship between supplier concentration and R&D intensity.

This paper aims to present the case study of Arçelik, which has become Turkey's leading manufacturer and exporter of home appliances, as a means of offering insight into why, how and with what results companies from developing countries expand internationally.

Primary data have been drawn from in‐depth interviews conducted with senior executives and industry experts, and this has been based on a statistical analysis of the export and international strategies of Turkish home appliance and television set industry.

The evidence indicates that international expansion may buffer a firm against fluctuations of demand in its home market and provide opportunities for growth. Difficulties faced by a later arrival from a developing country are greater than established rivals, and a developing country firm will have to rely on different resources and different operational strategies in developed vs developing markets.

Even though one case cannot yield general conclusions, it may indicate fruitful theoretical directions. This study raises issues worthy of further investigation. On the outset, it would be useful to apply the four propositions to more Turkish MNEs in order to test the robustness of the conclusions.

The study has important implications for companies from developing countries. First, international expansion appears to be a viable means of offsetting home‐market volatility for emerging‐country firms. Second, international expansion is still predicated on significant investments in firm‐specific advantages and their development may shorten the internationalization process.

The report contributes to knowledge in the area of international expansion of companies from developing countries by providing evidence on how one company has achieved a world position in a highly competitive market through selective use of quality, innovation, and branding based on the competitive position that is available in each of its chosen markets. In particular, it contributes to the limited evidence on the international expansion of Turkish companies at the present time.

What conceivable connection can there be between religion and retailing? In this original article Stephen Brown shows that the relationship — at least in Northern Ireland — is significant. It goes beyond the obvious subject of Sunday trading; ethnic factors are very apparent. For example, one can find two branches of the same symbol group in one village, each owned by shopkeepers of different religious affiliations. And green coloured garments do not sell particularly well in Protestant districts. There is also a strong “Boycott Eire Goods” campaign in Ulster, with some retailers in Protestant districts being “asked” to remove renegade Irish goods from their shelves.

Explores some of the issues associated with the adoption of supply chain management techniques and their implications for location decisions in the single market. Discusses the single market, European property, foreign direct investment, the location decision, and industrial property location. Concludes that property requirements will reflect both the firm′s primary activity and its specific SCM policies.

Among the top management issues covered in this section are: leadership to promote change; issues of corporate culture; effective international strategy; environmental leadership; investment in Eastern Europe; and developing “world‐class” manufacturing strategy.

This paper aims to present a case for the practical management of corporate reputation, in relation to two groups of concepts: communication, identity, and trust; and communication, identity, and image.

A review of the current knowledge of corporate reputation, personality, identity, and image leads to development of a strategy framework to enhance/protect corporate reputation. A case study involving a corporate logo introduced into a developed market by an emerging multinational corporation (EMNC) is presented.

The paper identifies that credibility and trust are significant elements which must be managed and communicated to maintain the firm's corporate image and reputation.

A conceptual model is presented illustrating a series of internal and external factors affecting communication and trust, which influence the customer and assist in shaping corporate reputation. The case of the EMNC Chinese corporation Haier to introduce its brand into a developed market may enlighten others pursuing this path.