The purpose of this paper is to discuss the actual state of demand chain management compared with its promises of a few years ago.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the actual state of demand chain management compared with its promises of a few years ago.
Design/methodology/approach
The most important literature on demand chain management of recent years is confronted with recent findings on strategies of the main supply and demand‐oriented firms in the fashion industry and on consumer behaviour.
Findings
Following Hoover et al. the demand chain is defined as “the chain of activities that communicates demand from markets to suppliers”. In this paper some interesting contributions to this debates are reviewed. Then, on the basis of remaining problems in the fashion industry in the realm of failing customer satisfaction, questions whether the promise of demand chain is not a consequence of shortcomings in the field of marketing – which apparently has moved too much into the direction of strategic positioning and information push instead of market research.
Research limitations/implications
Even when some of the most interesting approaches to demand chain management and key developments in the industry are confronted with one another, these selections cannot claim to be exhaustive.
Practical implications
The conclusion, proposing to concentrate on efficient supply chain management, on the one hand, and better understanding consumers, on the other hand, helps fashion firms to focus their attention more clearly.
Originality/value
No such overview and confrontation, as presented in this article, existed until now. Also, the view that demand chain management in a way tries to fill the gaps left by market research sheds new light on these discussions.
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This article examines and defines the main concepts in knowledge management. Since our economy has evolved over the last couple of years into a knowledge‐based economy, knowledge…
Abstract
This article examines and defines the main concepts in knowledge management. Since our economy has evolved over the last couple of years into a knowledge‐based economy, knowledge has become one of the main assets of companies. Knowledge can be defined as: information; the capability to interpret data and information through a process of giving meaning to these data and information; and an attitude aimed at wanting to do so. In making these factors productive knowledge management can be defined as achieving organisational goals through the strategy‐driven motivation and facilitation of (knowledge) workers to develop, enhance and use their capability to interpret data and information (by using available sources of information, experience, skills, culture, character, etc.) through a process of giving meaning to these data and information. Consultants and managers should ask themselves strategic, organisational and instrumental questions regarding knowledge management to stay competitive in a highly dynamic and changing world.
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This article deals with a field which gets little or no attention in the research done into knowledge management: small and medium‐sized companies. In the first part of this…
Abstract
This article deals with a field which gets little or no attention in the research done into knowledge management: small and medium‐sized companies. In the first part of this article a conceptual model will be developed. This model can be used to analyse the most important knowledge management processes in companies. In the second part of the article our model is used to analyse 12 innovative companies from the industrial and business service sector. Knowledge management appears in small and medium‐sized companies to get its form especially at an operational level. A total of 79 instruments were found with which knowledge is organised in practice: 18 instruments for determining the knowledge gap and for evaluating knowledge; 41 instruments for acquiring and developing knowledge; 20 instruments for knowledge sharing. On a strategic and tactical level there are provisions for knowledge management but they have not been developed as such.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how women academics from the Arab Middle East enact their careers with reference to double-bounded contexts: academia as an institution…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how women academics from the Arab Middle East enact their careers with reference to double-bounded contexts: academia as an institution encoding organizational career scripts and gender as another institution encoding specific gender roles. It is hoped that this cross-cultural perspective would broaden the understanding of careers beyond the economically advanced industrialized countries and better inform the current debate on the boundaryless career model.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is qualitative and exploratory in nature. It draws on one-to-one interviews with 23 female academics in early, mid and late careers, working in research universities in the Arab Middle East region.
Findings
The choice of academia as a profession is mainly driven by the subjective perception of an academic career as a calling, the lack of attractiveness of other career options in the region, and the appeal of the flexibility of academic work. Furthermore, the findings highlight both organizational (lack of mentoring and university support) and cultural factors (Islam, patriarchy, and family centrality) that shape/bind women's careers choices and patterns allowing thus for a better understanding of local constraints to the boundaryless career view in the Arab Middle East context.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the boundaryless career theory development by addressing one of its major shortcomings, namely the lack of attention to context. It provides fresh insights from the Arab Middle East to the ongoing debate whether careers are boundaryless and subject to individual agency or whether careers are shaped by wider institutional factors and support existing calls in the literature to conceptualize careers at the intersection of several influencing factors.
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Susan Dorr Goold, Laura Damschroder and Nancy Baum
Deliberative procedures can be useful when researchers need (a) an informed opinion that is difficult to obtain using other methods, (b) individual opinions that will benefit from…
Abstract
Deliberative procedures can be useful when researchers need (a) an informed opinion that is difficult to obtain using other methods, (b) individual opinions that will benefit from group discussion and insight, and/or (c) group judgments because the issue at hand affects groups, communities, or citizens qua citizens. Deliberations generally gather non-professional members of the public to discuss, deliberate, and learn about a topic, often forming a policy recommendation or casting an informed vote. Researchers can collect data on these recommendations, and/or individuals’ preexisting or post hoc knowledge or opinions. This chapter presents examples of deliberative methods and how they may inform bioethical perspectives and reviews methodological issues deserving special attention.
Media attention on nonconsensual intimate image dissemination has led to the relatively recent proliferation of academic research on the topic. This literature has focused on many…
Abstract
Media attention on nonconsensual intimate image dissemination has led to the relatively recent proliferation of academic research on the topic. This literature has focused on many areas including victimization and perpetration prevalence rates, coerced sexting, legal and/or criminal contexts, sexual violence in digital spaces, gendered constructions of blame and risk, and legal analysis of high-profile cases and legislation. Despite this research, several gaps exist, including a lack of empirical research with service providers. Informed by in-depth interviews with 10 sexual violence frontline professionals in Southern Ontario (Canada), this chapter focuses on their perspectives of the additive role of technology. With respect to nonconsensual intimate image dissemination, technology acts as a digital “layer” that operates in addition to the commission of physical acts of sexual violence, and compounds the harms experienced by the victim by adding a virtual – and indelible – “permanent remembering” of the violence. Nuancing the contours of consent in a digital age, this chapter concludes by considering what consent means in a technological context.
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This paper proposes to evaluate the heart of the concept of citizenship of the European Union: namely, freedom of movement and residence. The evolution of citizenship, from its…
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This paper proposes to evaluate the heart of the concept of citizenship of the European Union: namely, freedom of movement and residence. The evolution of citizenship, from its inception in the Maastricht Treaty, as a political concept will be treated. Freedom of movement and residence, with its rights and limitations, historically and legally accrued to economically active persons. Non‐economically ac tive per sons have been given rights in secondary legislation to move and to reside subject to specified conditions and limitations. The jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, in accordance with which the link with economic in dependence and the freedom to move and reside has been broken, will be critically appraised. Resort to the principle of non discrimination on grounds of nationality in Article 12 of the European Community Treaty, read in conjunction with the citizenship provisions in Articles 17 and 18 EC, has resulted in legal rights for nationals of European Union Member States who are lawfully resident in, and who do not become an unreasonable burden on, the host Member State. Enforceable at the suit of individuals, EU citizenship has given rise to social advantages for non‐economic actors. Citizenship has become a legal source of rights be yond those agreed to by the Member States, the legitimacy for which lies with the degree of financial solidarity accorded under the principle of non‐discrimination and the level of integration of a particular EU citizen into the society of the host Member State. The need to establish a real link and the proportionate legitimate interests of the Member State are limits to citizenship as a source of rights. Nevertheless, it is the intention of this paper to examine the potential for citizenship to transform the polity of the European Union, from one based on economic and social rights, to one based on fundamental rights.
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Nico Cloete, Nancy Côté, Logan Crace, Rick Delbridge, Jean-Louis Denis, Gili S. Drori, Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist, Joel Gehman, Lisa-Maria Gerhardt, Jan Goldenstein, Audrey Harroche, Jakov Jandrić, Anna Kosmützky, Georg Krücken, Seungah S. Lee, Michael Lounsbury, Ravit Mizrahi-Shtelman, Christine Musselin, Hampus Östh Gustafsson, Pedro Pineda, Paolo Quattrone, Francisco O. Ramirez, Kerstin Sahlin, Francois van Schalkwyk and Peter Walgenbach
Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good…
Abstract
Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good functioning of universities’ contribution to society and democracy. In this concluding paper of the special issue on collegiality, we summarize the main findings and takeaways from our collective studies. We summarize the main challenges and contestations to collegiality and to universities, but also document lines of resistance, activation, and maintenance. We depict varieties of collegiality and conclude by emphasizing that future research needs to be based on an appreciation of this variation. We argue that it is essential to incorporate such a variation-sensitive perspective into discussions on academic freedom and scientific quality and highlight themes surfaced by the different studies that remain under-explored in extant literature: institutional trust, field-level studies of collegiality, and collegiality and communication. Finally, we offer some remarks on methodological and theoretical implications of this research and conclude by summarizing our research agenda in a list of themes.