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Managing firms’ supply network is a difficult task. The process is complex because it involves many interrelated business decisions, and a wide range of companies at different levels. So far, little is available to assist managers in analysing and monitoring a supply network performance. This paper proposes a tool, supply network analysis process (SNAP), to address this gap. SNAP can be implemented in a three‐stage process. The tool enables managers to explore, connect, and visualise the interaction of network decisions in such a way that it is easy to understand and communicate, that engage more people within an organization, and that unlock the creativity of participants. A case study is used to illustrate the application of the SNAP tool. Finally, the implication of this research to managers and academics is discussed.

The aims of this paper are: to argue the role of Kelley's personal relationship theory (PRT) in explaining the maintenance and success of alliance outcomes; to argue the inclusion of communication between supply chain partners as a major component of relationship capital in addition to trust and commitment; to test the impact of interdependence between supply chain partners on strategic alliance outcomes; and to test the role of relationship capital as a mediating construct between interdependence.

A questionnaire was constructed and sent to 2,156 supply chain managers in Malaysia. The questionnaire captured three constructs: interdependence – task, goal and reward; relationship capital – trust, commitment, and communication; and strategic alliance outcomes – goal, value‐creation, and re‐evaluation. The companies were selected randomly from the Federation of Malaysian Manaufacturers (FMM) directory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The major findings are: communication must be included as a major component of relationship capital in addition to trust and commitment; Kelley's PRT plays a prominent role in explaining the maintenance and success of strategic alliance outcomes; interdependence has a significant relationship with relationship capital; relationship capital has a significant relationship with strategic alliance outcomes; and relationship capital acts as a pure mediator between interdependence and strategic alliance outcomes.

This research contributes significantly to the theoretical and empirical developments that enrich the strategic alliance literature.

The paper aims to explore the road to independence of the less-fortunate women in early Hong Kong society and their means in passing of wealth after death. In the 1970s, about 400 Chinese wills from the 1840s to the 1940s were dug up on a construction site in Hong Kong. One-fourth of these were from women who had held a substantial amount of property. How they obtained this property intrigued us because, at that time, women were seen as subordinate to men and excluded from the labor market. Why they had wills led to further questions about Hong Kong society of that time and the role of women in it.

The analysis of this paper is based on archival data gathered from the Hong Kong Public Records Office. These data include 98 women’s wills filed from the 1840s to the 1940s and a 500-page government investigation report on the prostitution industry released in 1879. The former recorded valuable information of brief testators’ family and personal life history, amount of assets, and profolio of investment, etc. The latter included testimonials of brothel keepers and prostitutes and their life stories and the background of legalizing prostitution in early Hong Kong. Apart from basic quantitative analysis on women’s marital status, number of properties, nature of wills and number of brothels, qualitative analysis is directed to review the testator’s life of self-reliance, wealth accumulation and reasons of using wills for arranging wealth transmission after death.

In this paper, the authors found that because the colonial government declared prostitution legal, and only women could obtain employment by becoming prostitutes or brothel keepers, they earned their own livelihood, saved money and finally became independent. However, because these professions were not seen as “decent”, and these women were excluded from the formal marriage system, intestacy could cause problems for them. Through their socio-business connections, they became familiar with the Western concept of testate inheritance. So, they tended to use wills – a legal document by which a person assigns someone to distribute his or her property according to his or her wishes after his or her death – to assign their property.

Because only archival data are chosen for analysis, the research results may lack generalizability. Follow-up researches to examine whether the studied women acquired their wealth through their own work or simply as gifts from others are required.

This paper explores the understudied women’s life and method of estate passing after death in the early Hong Kong society. It fills the academic gap of women’s contribution to Hong Kong’s success and enriches our understanding on the important factors that could attribute women’s real independence.

The study aims to provide an inventory of the existing English and Chinese research on service quality in China’s hospitality and tourism industry. The study aims to identify the reasons for the lack of research on service quality in China’s hospitality and tourism industry and the ignorance of the Chinese language literature in the field.

A synthesis review is conducted of 31 articles published in 11 leading Chinese and English academic journals from 1998 to 2013.

Popular research themes are service quality management and evaluation in the hotel sector. The majority of the reviewed articles are empirical studies that adopt quantitative methods, and none of the English articles use qualitative methods. Recent studies tend to use sophisticated statistical techniques such as confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Changes in disciplines, publication trends and statistical techniques are observed. The theoretical and practical contributions of the Chinese and English publications are compared, and recommendations are made for future research.

This study is one of the first to review and compare the existing publications in the leading Chinese- and English-language journals. It provides a platform for scholars, especially non-Chinese literate researchers, to understand the research on service quality in the China hospitality and tourism industry.

Inter-organizational trust has a vital role in any external trade relationship. However, there are not many studies relating to growth strategies and inter-organizational trust in firms in emerging markets. The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare the effect of external growth strategies on the organizational performance of companies and to examine the mediating role of inter-organizational trust between growth strategies and organizational performance.

Data were collected from 240 senior managers from public listed companies (PLCs) in Malaysia and were analyzed using analysis of a moment structures.

The findings indicate that growth strategies have a significant effect on organizational performance. Strategic alliances and acquisitions also have significant effects on organizational performance. Moreover, inter-organizational trust fully mediates the effect of growth strategies on organizational performance.

As purposive sampling was used, selecting only managers with experience of the issues concerned, any common findings are likely to be generalizable to managers in similar situations.

Building inter-organizational trust among companies and relying on strategic alliance and acquisition, rather than merger, will sharpen their competitiveness and enable them to survive and thrive.

The increase in organizational performance of PLCs will have a significant effect on employment and on gross domestic product (GDP), which will have a beneficial effect on citizens.

Studies that are related to these variables in emerging economies are still in their infancy. This study compared the effect of external growth strategies and contributed to the literature in the area of trust and external growth strategies.