Victor H.Y. Lo and Alice Yeung
Operations management literature prescribes various practices in supply quality management (SQM). However, few studies have described the SQM practices being conducted in Asian…
Abstract
Purpose
Operations management literature prescribes various practices in supply quality management (SQM). However, few studies have described the SQM practices being conducted in Asian countries, especially in Hong Kong. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical SQM practices that conducted in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach
We used in‐depth industrial interviews and extensive literature review to identify some critical items for evaluating SQM practices. Accordingly, an instrument was developed. We validated this instrument with 90 leading manufacturing related companies in Hong Kong by using SPSS 9.0.
Findings
Finally, we extracted ten critical factors for describing a SQM system. These factors could be clustered into three major groups namely supplier selection, supplier development and supplier integration.
Research limitations/implications
This paper has not discussed the relationships among SQM practices, supplier quality and organisational quality. For future study, it will be worthwhile to consider these interrelations.
Originality/value
The newly developed instrument could be used to measure the practices of supply quality management in Hong Kong.
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This study aims to reveal and compare the cultural logics of university-educated Chinese mothers in Singapore and Hong Kong in their mothering practices to improvise their…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reveal and compare the cultural logics of university-educated Chinese mothers in Singapore and Hong Kong in their mothering practices to improvise their femininities in constituting their work–family interactions.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research, with the ethnographic elements, has included 32 Chinese mothers to share about their mothering experiences through semi-structured interviews. This methodological design with feminist lens embraces women’s own narratives as sources of knowledge and learns their voices to reinvent their role and bodily engagement in shaping their family dynamics.
Findings
This discussion basically reaffirms the argument where the mother’s involvement in their children’s schoolwork becomes one of the core elements in their actual everyday mothering practices. It has further reflected the dynamics of family quality time in the light of mothers’ cultural logics as much as their attentive agency capacity to present their respectable femininity in the form of mothering.
Research limitations/implications
This research process has revealed the actual experiences of the participants from their own narratives. For future research development, data collection can be extended to include the husbands’ profiles and their narratives in understanding their wives’ mothering experiences.
Originality/value
This discussion enriches the work-family literature by extending it to the Asian Chinese context. While the concepts of cultural capital and habitus have been addressed in previous studies, this discussion highlights the agency capacity of the university-educated Chinese mothers in their cultural logics to deliver their respective mothering practices. This filtering process to transmit cultural capital to their children is as much as they involve in reproducing status boundaries for the family.
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Chui Ling Yeung, Chi Fai Cheung, Wai Ming Wang, Eric Tsui and Wing Bun Lee
Narratives are useful to educate novices to learn from the past in a safe environment. For some high-risk industries, narratives for lessons learnt are costly and limited, as they…
Abstract
Purpose
Narratives are useful to educate novices to learn from the past in a safe environment. For some high-risk industries, narratives for lessons learnt are costly and limited, as they are constructed from the occurrence of accidents. This paper aims to propose a new approach to facilitate narrative generation from existing narrative sources to support training and learning.
Design/methodology/approach
A computational narrative semi-fiction generation (CNSG) approach is proposed, and a case study was conducted in a statutory body in the construction industry in Hong Kong. Apart from measuring the learning outcomes gained by participants through the new narratives, domain experts were invited to evaluate the performance of the CNSG approach.
Findings
The performance of the CNSG approach is found to be effective in facilitating new narrative generation from existing narrative sources and to generate synthetic semi-fiction narratives to support and educate individuals to learn from past lessons. The new narratives generated by the CNSG approach help students learn and remember important things and learning points from the narratives. Domain experts agree that the validated narratives are useful for training and learning purposes.
Originality/value
This study presents a new narrative generation process for a high-risk industry, e.g. the construction industry. The CNSG approach incorporates the technologies of natural language processing and artificial intelligence to computationally identify narrative gaps in existing narrative sources and proposes narrative fragments to generate new semi-fiction narratives. Encouraging results were gained through the case study.
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Fang Jia, Zhilin Yang and Ling (Alice) Jiang
The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of channel partners’ government relations within channel performance and explore how institutional factors interact to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of channel partners’ government relations within channel performance and explore how institutional factors interact to influence channel performance. A theoretical framework, inclusive of hypotheses, is proposed to demonstrate the interaction of government relations and institutional environments on firm performance. Drawing on an institutional perspective, this paper suggests that the effect of partner’s government relations on firm performance is moderated by institutional environment factors, such as government interference, legal protection, and the importance of guanxi.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a questionnaire survey and collected data from 393 Chinese manufacturer managers in China.
Findings
Partner’s government relations increase focal firm’s performance and this effect is moderated by different levels of legal protection. Partner’s government relations increase firm performance only in the context of high-legal protection; whereas, when legal protection is low, partner’s government relations decrease focal firm performance. As for the interaction of institutional factors, legal protection and importance of guanxi, all three moderate the negative effect of government interference on firm performance.
Originality/value
This paper provides insights on how channel partner’s government relations, representing a key institutional capital, interact with institutional environment factors to influence channel performance.
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Alice Schmuck, Katarina Lagerström and James Sallis
This study aims to understand the performance implications of when a business internationalizes. Many managers take the performance implications of internationalization for…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the performance implications of when a business internationalizes. Many managers take the performance implications of internationalization for granted. Whether seeking a broader customer base or cost reduction through cross-border outsourcing, the overwhelming belief is that internationalization leads to higher profits.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper offers a systematic review, content analysis and cross-tabulation analysis of 115 empirical studies from over 40 major journals in management, strategy and international business between 1977 and 2021. Focusing on research settings, sample characteristics, underlying theoretical approaches, measurements of key variables and moderators influencing the multinationality and performance relationship, this study offers a detailed account of definitions and effects.
Findings
The findings of this study suggest a tenuous connection between internationalization and performance. No strain of research literature conclusively identifies a consistent direct path from internationalization to performance. The context specificity of the relationship makes general declarations impossible.
Research limitations/implications
Future researchers should recognize that internationalization is a process taking different forms, with no specific dominant form. General declarations are misleading. The focus should be on the process of internationalization rather than on the outcome.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the international business literature by exploring reasons for the inconsistent results and lack of consensus. Through a detailed account of definitions and effects, this paper explores the lack of consensus as well as the identified shapes of the relationship.
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Vahid Nabavi, Majid Azizi and Mehdi Faezipour
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of the ISO 9001 quality management system on customer satisfaction and show an application of an analytic hierarchy process…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of the ISO 9001 quality management system on customer satisfaction and show an application of an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based method for measuring the customer satisfaction index (CSI). This will be useful to anyone who wants to have an ISO 9001 quality management system in his or her organization.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper describes an ISO 9001 quality management implementation process based on ISO 9001 requirements, and uses the AHP method for weighting effective criteria on customer satisfaction. All data were obtained via questionnaires and assessed with EXPERT CHOICE 11 software.
Findings
According to the results of the weighting, the factors influencing the satisfaction of a kitchen worktops customer, price and sales terms of this product has a significant impact on customer satisfaction and, in competitive conditions, this criterion has a determining role in the creation of utility for customers. ISO 9001 quality management system has been able to increase the CSI within an 11-month period of study.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to use the AHP method with a new approach in a case study, offering a complete, comprehensive method for assessing customer implications.