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Firms in the electrical, machine tool builders, food processing equipment, and fluid power industries were surveyed concerning their export marketing policies. Except in promotion, most of these industrial firms follow a standardised marketing approach. Their export budgets are smaller than their domestic budgets. Also the firms indicated that they were only lukewarm about their overall export performance; those most satisfied with their export performance tend to be larger, more experienced in exporting, or spend equal or greater amounts on export promotion than on comparable domestic product line promotion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine cash savings from six potential sources of cash: net equity issues, net debt issues, internally generated cash flows, asset sales, changes in short-term debt, and changes in net working capital.

The authors use both fixed effects and dynamic panel-data estimations to examine cash savings by using a sample of firms from 72 countries for the period 1991-2010.

The authors observe that net equity issue is the largest source of new funds while cash savings rates are highest for asset sales, changes in net working capital, and net equity issues. Constrained firms have higher total savings rates than unconstrained companies. The authors also find that savings rates are positively related to whether firms perform R & D, multinational status, and protection for creditors and investors.

The results suggest that firms usually use multiple channels when they increase their savings as opposed to relying only on one channel.

To comprehend the rationale behind managerial choices that lead companies to implement different types of collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) collaborations.

Seven case studies of supply networks whose central firms operate in different sectors have been analysed.

Identifies six types of CPFR collaborations, the choice of which can be explained by considering some important contingent factors, such as the CPFR goals, characteristics of the products and markets in which they are sold, supply network's physical and relational structure, and CPFR development stage.

Further research developed in other contexts is necessary to refine the domain of applicability of the research findings. The opportunity to use the relationships found in this research as a managerial tool calls for the testing of research findings within larger samples of firms, representative of a broader range of industries.

Suggests managers how to select the most appropriate action to be taken to implement CPFR, through the analysis of the context in which CPFR should be implemented.

This paper fulfils the need to clarify the reasons why companies decide to implement different types of CPFR collaborations. Moreover, it contributes to the definition of measures for the CPFR concept, and to the advance of substantive research on CPFR. In literature, few authors devote their attention to rigorously defining CPFR variables or proposing relationships among variables and measures.

To highlight how vendor managed inventory (VMI) can be extended both upstream and downstream in the supply network to co‐ordinate the material and information flows among a number of different suppliers, manufacturing and distribution plants (“extended VMI”).

The research is based on data and information gathered during an in‐depth case study within the supply network co‐ordinated by GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's leading research‐based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

Defines the peculiarities and the requisites of the extended VMI as to: the information flows supporting the relationships among the supply network members; the information systems, supporting the data collection, management, diffusion and elaboration; the performance monitoring system, highlighting the benefits for each supply network member as well as avoiding opportunistic behaviours.

The research intends to offer an original contribution to the stream of research on VMI, explaining the peculiarities and the requisites of the extended VMI. Future research should seek to consider the extended VMI in light of some supply chain management (SCM) practices which have emerged in recent years, such as collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment. Moreover, a second research opportunity lies in investigating the mixes of SCM initiatives – among which is also the extended VMI – needing launch in a perspective of optimisation of the whole supply network.

The case reported here and the research findings should offer guidance for managers facing the decision‐making process concerning the implementation of the VMI both upstream and downstream in the supply network.

Most authors tend to consider VMI at the dyadic level, namely as an approach for managing materials and information flows between one or more customers and their immediate suppliers. Instead, this research adopts a supply network perspective, seeking to explain how VMI can be extended both upstream and downstream and considering the supply network as a whole rather than as a series of dyads.

This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of the cognitive processes that facilitate creativity from a multi-level perspective. Because cognitive processes are viewed as residing within the individual and as an individual-level phenomenon, it is not surprising that a plethora of research has focused on various cognitive processes involved in creative production at the individual level and the factors that may facilitate or hinder the successful application of these processes. Of course, individuals do not exist in a vacuum, and many organizations are utilizing teams and groups to facilitate creative problem solving. We therefore extend our knowledge from the individual to the team level and group level, providing more than 50 propositions for testing and discussing their implications for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to present an operations model for retail replenishment collaboration and identifies its expected benefits and limitations for the members of a grocery supply chain.

A case study is conducted on a development project between a grocery wholesaler and two grocery product suppliers. Data are collected through semi-structured interviews with key respondents from four different companies.

Despite advances in collaborative practices in grocery supply chains, retail store replenishment management faces challenges. In particular, demand exceptions management is a challenge in the grocery industry. A replenishment model called Collaborative Buyer-Managed Forecasting (CBMF) creates a proactive planning approach and a platform for close collaboration in the supply chain. The centralised forecasting transforms retailer sales data into a plan which serves the whole supply chain by creating one-order forecast. The CBMF model facilitates efficient demand management, improves demand responsiveness and promotes better availability of products in retail stores.

CBMF provides a replenishment planning model for the whole supply chain. It is tested to a limited extent in one supply chain.

The study provides managers with a better understanding of the benefits of centralised forecasting and closer replenishment collaboration, especially during periods of exceptional demand.

A new approach for managing demand in grocery supply chains with centralised forecasting is provided.

MacWorld Expo Report. With over 400 vendors filling some 1400 booths in San Francisco's Moscone Center and Brooks Hall and Civic Auditorium, MacWorld Expo clearly demonstrated that the Apple Macintosh had matured in its first half decade as a computing choice on its own grounds and as a vehicle to work with other computers. As usual, there were a number of hardware and software announcements but none as anticipated as those from Apple Computer. It was well known that Apple would describe at the Expo a new version of its most popular CPU, the Macintosh SE, thanks in large part to leaks at Apple that supplied page one copy for MacWeek in three consecutive issues before the Conference. Nevertheless, there was hope that in spite of these previews, Apple might start the year off with a huge surprise, describing the oft‐hinted and wished‐for laptop Mac, or a high‐end model utilizing erasable optical disk technology. There were no surprises from Apple, other than the obvious — that there will be a number of CPU options for the prospective Macintosh owner by the end of the calendar year.