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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of supply chain lead‐time averages and variability on an organization's financial performance.

The “executive” list for manufacturers, consisting of 1,264 individuals of the Institute of Supply Management provided the study's sampling frame, with surveys sent to 402 firms and responses obtained from 210 firms. The empirical model is tested using LISREL.

The results show that as variance in supply chain lead‐times increases, the financial performance of the organization decreases. Of equal significance, the results show that average supply chain lead‐times have no direct impact on financial performance. The results also indicate that demand uncertainty associates with greater supply chain lead‐time variance and that production technology routineness associates with lower supply chain lead‐time variance. Product complexity and organizational size have no impact on supply chain lead‐time variance or supply chain lead‐time average.

The research is an initial effort to understand variance in supply chain systems. An ongoing challenge in this area is operationalization of measures and data collection techniques that go beyond a single firm and examine a network of organizations cooperating in a value‐added supply chain.

The results suggest that managing the variance in a supply chain system may be more important to an organization's financial performance than managing averages.

This is particularly significant since organizations often act contrary to these findings, focusing scarce resources on reducing average lead‐times rather than on reducing variability in supply chain lead‐times.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between internal process improvement investments, applied channel logistics knowledge, and financial performance for make‐to‐order (MTO) and make‐to‐stock (MTS) manufacturers. This study takes the position that knowledge, specifically tacit or applied knowledge, may serve as a key indicator of organizational performance. In this study, the tacit knowledge exhibited in intentional logistics integration activities is captured in the construct applied channel logistics knowledge.

A structural equation model, controlling for firm size and demand uncertainty, is used to examine these relationships. A sampling frame of 1,264 senior manufacturing “executives” provided 222 usable surveys representing 210 firms.

The results show that for MTO firms, higher investments in internal process improvement relate to higher applied channel logistics knowledge, whereas for MTS firms, the relationship does not hold, and this difference is significant. In addition, the results indicate a positive relationship between internal process improvement investment and financial performance for MTO firms, whereas again the relationship does not hold for MTS firms. Both MTO and MTS firms show increased financial performance when applied channel logistics knowledge increases, although the increase in financial performance is significantly greater for MTO firms.

Historically, the success of integration strategies has been postulated to be equally effective for MTO and MTS firms, a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach to improving system effectiveness. However, given the inherent differences in these manufacturing strategies, this speculation deserves further investigation and serves as the focus of this research. The use of the tacit knowledge construct applied channel logistics knowledge is also unique and of value in understanding supply chain relationships.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This study is a result of working with a first-grade teacher, Ellen Stubblefield, who plans, implements, and evaluates a modified Reggio Emilia approach. She documents students’ learning through visual means. In tandem with a kindergarten teacher, Glenda Watson, early childhood learners question and reflect about their community history and that of Harlem primarily through folk art but also in music, poetry, literature, and architecture. Students inquire about historical events in the Harlem Renaissance and connected it to Hoover, Alabama. They deconstruct art works, replicate their favorites, learn the history of the Harlem Renaissance, map Harlem, write about artists, visit the local museum’s exhibit of folk art and make comparisons to their community. Ultimately, they educated peers and parents about the diversity of the people who made Harlem such a wonderful community. As educators, we learn the most. We see young children can begin historical understanding with an active learning/research approach.

Constructivist grounded theory method (GTM) as outlined by Kathy Charmaz has its explicit roots in the American pragmatism and symbolic interactionism primarily developed at the University of Chicago during the early and mid-twentieth century. Symbolic interactionism considers people as active and interpretative agents who co-construct selves, identities, meanings, social actions, social worlds, and societies through interactions. Charmaz argues that symbolic interactionism is an open-ended theoretical perspective that fosters studying action, process, and meanings, with a focus on how people co-construct and negotiate meanings, orders, and actions in their everyday lives. In this chapter, I argue that constructivist GTM, including its theory-method package built upon symbolic interactionism and the Chicago School tradition, can be further combined with the new sociology of childhood to study children's social worlds and negotiated meanings, orders, and actions.