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The purpose of this paper is to present a generic framework to assess and simulate outsourcing risks in the supply chain.

This combination approach involves a qualitative risk analysis methodology termed as the supply chain risk‐failure mode and effect analysis (SCR‐FMEA) which integrates risk identification, analysis and mitigation actions together to evaluate supply chain outsourcing risk. The qualitative risk assessment will allow risk manager to provide a visual presentation of imminent risks using the risk map. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) on the imminent risks of delivery outsourcing using the Milk‐Run system is adopted.

With basic statistical concepts, key performance variables and the risk of delivery outsourcing are analyzed. It is found that a newly implemented delivery outsourcing arrangement on the Milk‐Run system reduces the average customer lead‐time and total cost. However, a certain extent of risk or uncertainty can still be detected due to the presence of variation.

This paper reveals that company can manage the risk by adopting a systematic method for identifying the potential risks before outsourcing and MCS can be applied for examining the quantifiable risks such as lead time and cost.

The paper provides a generic guideline for practitioners to assess logistics outsourcing, especially for logistics management consultants and professionals for evaluating the risk and impact of outsourcing. It is believed that the proposed risk assessment framework can help to analyze the operational cost uncertainty and ensure the stability of the supply chain. However, the limitation of this research is that the full spectrum of outsourcing risk, especially the non‐quantifiable risk may not be analyzed by MCS.

This paper proposed an integrated framework which combines qualitative and quantitative method together for managing outsourcing risk. This research provides a standardized metric to quantify risk in the supply chain so as to determine the effectiveness of outsourcing.

Recently, inland Chinese regions have become the major manufacturing base for most manufacturing firms. Accordingly, with this change, many shipping companies attempted to provide proper logistics service activities to maintain their business. Hence, this study aims to empirically examine the logistics service preference segments for Chinese landlocked regions from a manufacturer's perspective. By understanding these attributes, not only shipping companies but also logistics companies can provide proper service to their customers.

The preliminary logistics service attributes are determined using an interview and in-depth questionnaire with logistics experts from the local private and government sectors in southwest China and few international logistics coordinators. This study conducted importance-performance analysis (IPA) and used a customer dissatisfaction attitude index to evaluate the priorities for improving logistics service attributes. Cluster analysis is subsequently performed to group respondents on the basis of their factor scores.

Five crucial logistics service dimensions were identified by the factor analysis, namely, packing and storage, logistics supporting, logistics information, transportation planning and information inquiry. The results also revised the IPA model. The top five service attributes that needed to be improved were carrier selection, ship scheduling inquiry, route planning and inquiry, cargo receiving station and freight forwarding. By applying the factor analysis, this study reduced the 27 logistics attributes derived from the literature review to five underlying critical factors.

This study contributes to the inland logistics by investigating the preferences of manufacturers in Chinese landlocked regions. Moreover, in land logistics in China is lacking in the literature; hence, several important implications can be derived from this study's results.

In the early industrial age which with high intensity of machine and labor, using financial measurement index was good enough to tie in company’s mechanization and philosophy of management and been in efficiency. But being comply with “New Economic age,” a new economic environment is full of knowledge and information, the enterprise competition had changed from tangible assets, plants to intangible innovation ability of knowledge. As recognizing the new tendency by enterprise, they value gradually the growth and influence from learning. Practice of organization learning not only needs firm structure and be in coordination with both hardware and software, but also needs an affect measurement model to offer enterprise to estimate learning performance. It’s a good instrument of financial performance measure mold in the past years, But it’s for measuring the past, couldn’t formulate enterprise trend to future, hard to estimate investment for future, such as development of products, organization learning, knowledge management etc, as which intangible assets and knowledge ability just the key factors of being win around competition environment in the future. In 1992, Kaplan and Norton brought up Balance Scorecard (BSC) on Harvard Business Review, as an instrument helping enterprise to measure performance, which is being considered to be a most influence management instrument. It added non‐financial index such as customer, internal process and learning growth besides traditional financial index, as offering enterprise an index to measure and manage intangible assets and intellectual property. As being aware of organization learning is hard to be ignored in the new economic age, this research is based on learning and growth of BSC, and citing one national material company try to let the most difficult measurement performance of organization learning, to be estimate through BSC, analyze of factor and individual case, to discuss the company how to make the related strategy and vision of organization learning to develop learning and growth of the structure of BSC, subject the matter of out put factors to be discussed, and measure the outcomes as a result of research. The research affect offers (1) the base implement procedure of carrying out BSC; (2) the reference of formulating measurement index while enterprise using BSC to estimate performance of organization learning; (3) the possibility bottleneck maybe forcing while carrying out BSC, to be an improvement or preventive for enterprise.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the abnormal stock return of Hong Kong real estate firms following news of land acquisition and identify determinants to the abnormal stock return.

The paper employs the event‐study methodology and multivariate regression to test factors that are hypothesized to have effects on the abnormal return.

The paper indicates that on land acquisition announcement there is a significant positive price reaction. Also the market capitalization and debt‐to‐equity ratio of a firm is associated negatively with the level of abnormal price reaction.

This study has identified significant positive abnormal stock return following the news of land acquisitions by developers in the context of Hong Kong. It has also documented negative correlation between abnormal stock return and two specific factors of a firm, namely, market capitalization and debt‐to‐equity ratio.

This paper identifies significant positive abnormal stock return pursuant to land acquisitions by firms.

The fund selection process of investors in a mutual fund needs to be understood for designing better marketing strategies. Knowledge and perception about the mutual funds can affect investor’s behaviour towards information search and selection criteria during the decision process. Therefore, this study aims to examine Indian mutual fund investors under the framework of Theory of Planned Behaviour and consumer’s behaviour model.

The data have been collected from mutual fund investors in the National Capital Region–Delhi, India, through structured questionnaire. The collected data were examined with relevant statistical tools.

Knowledge and perception affect information search behaviour of the investor. Investors having better knowledge of mutual funds access impersonal sources of information and performance of fund affects their choice, whereas investors having lesser knowledge of mutual fund take advice of experts and select funds based on fund characteristics. Investors with better return perception for mutual funds ignore performance as selection criteria, whereas investors having poor risk perception tend to reduce their bias by accessing personal sources of information. Education and income of investor affect knowledge and perception of mutual funds.

The financial advisor-driven investors ignore performance as selection criteria and could lead to dissatisfaction later. Therefore, to make the industry investor driven, mutual funds need to focus on improving the knowledge of investors.

This paper shows the unique effect of knowledge and perception on information search behaviour of investors towards mutual funds. The knowledgeable investor selects mutual funds by understanding all risks and benefits.

This study aims to examine the attitudinal inconsistency among Taiwanese consumers toward organic agriculture/food, and its relationship to their willingness to pay a premium and purchase for organic product.

A telephone survey consisting of 913 households was made to reach an estimated 3.3 percent sampling error with 95 percent confidence level.

It was found that those who were female, who had higher occupation prestige, who had college education levels, who were aged in their 40s, and who possessed an optimistic opinion toward the necessity of organic farming tend to pay a premium for and buy organic food. The majority of Taiwanese respondents showed a high level of concern about pesticides but a low trust in organic food, which revealed an attitudinal inconsistency toward organic agriculture/food. A multiple discriminant analysis with a moderating variable shows that consumers' trust in organic food and their pesticide concern jointly explain the respondents' willingness to pay a premium and purchasing behavior. The influence of consumers' pesticide concern on their willingness to pay a premium and purchase actually depends on their levels of trust.

As a whole, lack of trust and confusing organic product certification levels is the main barrier to Taiwan's organic agriculture development. Further communication and policy modification is needed to reinforce consumers' confidence in organic agriculture/food.

This research provides a new perspective in explaining cardholders' willingness to use debit cards instead of cash by applying the transaction costs economic theory. This study also expands the adaptation of transaction cost economics theory in explaining consumer behaviour by investigating the moderating effects of income and education level on the relationship between perceived transaction costs and willingness to use debit cards.

The conceptual framework was developed primarily from the transaction cost economics theory. An in-depth interview method was employed to further support hypothesis development and the development of measurement scales. A structural equation model linking asset specificity, behavioural uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, frequency of payment, perceived monitoring costs, perceived adaptation costs and willingness to use debit cards was tested using data from a sample of 384 Vietnamese debit card holders.

This study's results support the transaction cost economics theory that asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency of payment all positively contribute to the perceived transaction costs associated with debit card usage. However, only environmental uncertainty and perceived adaptation costs have significant negative impact on willingness to use debit cards, with the relationship between environmental uncertainty and willingness to use debit cards being totally mediated by perceived adaptation costs. Moreover, the relationship between perceived adaptation costs and willingness to use debit cards becomes less negative among richer and better-educated cardholders.

The research provides insights into the hidden obstacles for developing cashless economies, thereby supporting policy makers in designing more effective and comprehensive strategies to make debit cards more widely used as a true substitute for cash.

This study provides a new lens in explaining customer willingness to use debit cards, while expanding the transaction costs economics theory by incorporating demographic factors as moderators in the relationship between transaction costs and the card-or-cash choice.

This study models cost-efficiency against revenue for hotels in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) – in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau – by considering regional differences and weight restrictions on revenue output.

The authors modified and applied a context-dependent assurance region data envelopment analysis (CAR-DEA) model in assessing the performance of 41 hotels in the PRD. The model considers the relationships among output variables and sets the revenue composition of the hotels as weight restrictions in accounting for the relative importance of different revenue sources.

When assessing the 41 hotels all together, those in Guangzhou outperformed the hotels in other two cities by showing better pure technical efficiency (PTE), while those in Macau had the best scale efficiency (SE). When the assurance region (AR) restriction was imposed, the hotels in Macau outperformed those in the other two cities by showing better SE. When considering regional differences, the Macau hotels ranked first in terms of both the average efficiency score and the overall ranking. All the sample hotels in Guangzhou and half of the sample hotels in Hong Kong and Macau exhibited increasing, constant and decreasing returns to scale.

The research results are limited by data quality and the variables included in the models.

The study helps hotel practitioners in the PRD better assess their cost-efficiency performance by considering regional differences and operational parameters so as to strategically improve their performance.

This study improves upon previous hotel efficiency studies by considering the influence of different operational parameters across different localities. It can be extended to examine the performance of different calibers of hotels, restaurants or tourism entities located in various localities and possessing different operational characteristics.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.