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To investigate the status of third party logistics (3PL) in Mexico and the feasibility of 3PL as a global, uniform strategy.

A survey among firms located in the central part of Mexico, followed by a comparison of the results with data from existing 3PL studies of Europe and the USA.

3PL seems a common but “low profile” practice among large Mexican firms. Only a third outsources more than three functions, which are mostly supportive and operational. Compared to Mexico, 3PL use is higher in Europe and USA. Firms in Europe and USA focus more on tactical, integrated functions and cost reduction when using 3PL while Mexican firms aim for improved customer service and concentration on core activities. The lack of competitive local providers makes 3PL expensive and may favour larger, international providers.

The results warrant additional surveys of Mexico and other developing regions, preferably using a unique survey design and covering more SME's. Case studies are needed to further investigate how multinational firms manage the 3PL decision process on different organizational and regional levels.

Uniform, global 3PL strategies should be considered with care: what may work in Europe may not work in Mexico or the USA. Outsourcing should be seen as a means and not as an end. Mexican firms can use 3PL successfully yet achieve different ends than European firms. Mexico's large SME market offers opportunities for providers of 3PL services.

This is the first thorough study about outsourcing logistics practices in Mexico, which adds a Latin‐American perspective to the very few 3PL studies conducted in developing regions. In addition, the comparison of Mexican outsourcing practice with practices across the USA and Europe offers a cross‐cultural view on 3PL and identifies the need for further mapping of expectations and conditions related to effective outsourcing of logistics in other regions.

To develop a prescriptive model that provides effective guidance in the early stages of outsourcing processes, while taking into the decision‐makers' bounded rationality.

Provides an overview of existing prescriptive decision models for outsourcing based on literature review. Contrasts these models with empirical accounts of outsourcing including two case‐studies of outsourcing of logistics activities. Discusses and explains discrepancies from the point of view of literature on bounded rationality and satisficing. Develops a conceptual decision model based on the principles of satisficing.

That there appear to be discrepancies between many of the prescriptive outsourcing models in the literature and the processes observed in practice. That satisficing concept provides a useful explanation of these discrepancies and useful design principles for developing more realistic prescriptive outsourcing decision models.

The model developed in this paper constitutes a first step and its details must be worked out and investigated in more detail. In that respect, specific suggestions for further research are included in the paper, e.g. regarding the potential of methods and techniques from operations research in certain parts of the model.

Explains discrepancies between existing outsourcing decision models and outsourcing processes in practice – in particular regarding the practice of outsourcing (combinations of) logistics activities. Offers the basis for realistic decision guidance in outsourcing processes.

This paper is one of first which presents an outsourcing model that explicitly incorporates satisficing principles.

The purpose of this paper is to present three heuristics for choosing supplier selection criteria. By considering the balance between the expected relative effort and benefit of using different selection criteria, the heuristics suggest which criteria should be prioritized. The heuristics serve to develop our understanding of the search and evaluation heuristics used in supplier selection and to facilitate further research.

The research is primarily theoretical, yet draws on empirical studies of supplier selection. The theoretical basis is Simon’s notion of procedural rationality (Simon, 1976). The author makes the general notion of procedural rationality more concrete for supplier selection by formally describing three heuristics for choosing selection criteria. The heuristics share the same logic but differ in terms of the precision of the input information required from the purchaser. The paper provides illustrations of the heuristics.

It appears that procedural rationality can be specified for the process of designing the supplier selection process by explicitly recognizing the cost and value of selection criteria. There is no one way of doing this, but at the most basic level, it requires an ordinal ranking of criteria. Already such a rudimentary, qualitative, assessment can help identifying suitable criteria. The heuristics developed appear compatible with established approaches for the subsequent selection of suppliers.

The paper addresses the early stage of supplier selection which has been largely ignored in the literature.

The purpose of this chapter is to carry out a theoretical review of the state of the art in relation to Latin American Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) communication practices and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from 2009 to 2016. A range of recently published papers (2009–2016) is retrieved in a literature search of the Web of Science and Google Scholar under keywords such as ‘CSR’, ‘SME’, ‘Communication’, and ‘CSR in Latin America’. This chapter provides information about CSR in SMEs, indicating what can be found on this topic and how the management of CSR communication can help those firms. It also recognizes the lack of any real formation in SMEs to solve their problems in this area. This chapter emphasizes that, in general terms, SMEs are aware of CSR management opportunities but, because of the aforementioned constraints, their current CSR communications practices are absolutely basic and their management is still limited and short-term. Instead of a generalized exhaustive study, this is an approach to develop new studies in the future. It does not contain empirical results but rather practical information for reflections on CSR and communication in Latin American SMEs. A useful source of information for SME managers. CSR communications policies generate no value unless they have been taken into account in the overall design of corporate CSR policy, particularly if there is no clear vision of how new stakeholders may be more valuable strategically than operationally. This chapter fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers indications for future lines of research.

The growth of luxury tourism has been brought to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting most parts of the world since early 2020. Although the time for recovery of hospitality and tourism industries is still unclear, experience from the SARS outbreak in 2003 showed that the bounce back from consumers could be fast. The group of most affluent consumers, mostly known as HNWIs (high net worth individuals), will resume their original consumption behaviour much sooner than the rest of the market; these affluent consumers are the main target market of luxury hospitality and tourism industries.

This chapter presents different types of luxury tourism, luxury lifestyle, luxury tourists' decision-making and luxury hospitality products. The luxury food and beverage business in Singapore is presented to illustrate the commercial environment during the pandemic.

Most educational institutions worldwide have shifted to online teaching and learning approaches to mitigate risks imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This causes several issues, particularly in delivering the construction management (CM) courses which require site visits, interpreting technical drawings and developing 3D building models. This paper aims to identify the key strategies for online learning and teaching adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic and to investigate the implications for construction management education.

The research approach is twofold. First, the study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) through a synthesis of the existing literature to identify the key strategies and lessons learned about online education during the COVID-19 pandemic in tertiary programs. It also discusses their implications in the context of the construction management (CM) sector in particular. Secondly, the authors shared their hands-on experience as construction management course facilitators – using the autoethnography approach – during the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition to identifying the key strategies such as online course delivery and assessments, the paper critically discusses the barriers to online learning and teaching, including (1) the technological and infrastructure barriers; (2) required online teaching skills and competencies; (3) issues surrounding mental health and wellbeing; (4) lack of consistency in the online delivery of various courses in a given program (5) difficulties around students' engagement and (6) the course characteristics and requirements.

The study offers some implications and recommendations not only for educational institutions and staff but also for vendors of online course delivery software. To prepare educational institutions for future online course delivery, the paper proposes several strategies. These include developing a set of guidelines for online course delivery, incorporating online teaching training modules into the recruitment process for academic staff, applying agile and resilience teaching and learning methods, wellbeing and mental health support and continuously improving course features to adapt to the online environment.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the consumers of mezcal in México based on their motivations, identifying different groups of consumers and their demographic characteristics.

A questionnaire based on the Food Choice Questionnaire was applied to 310 consumers: 154 directly to mezcal consumers in three “mezcalerías” (mezcal bars) and 156 through five social networking communities of mezcal consumers. The data obtained were analysed using multivariate statistics, factor and cluster analysis.

The results show that the search for tradition is the determining buying motivation, whereas quality seals do not exert a significant influence. Four profiles of mezcal consumers can be identified according to their consumption patterns: consumer linked to the territory, traditional consumer, consumer in transition and social consumer. The predominant demographic characteristics in the four consumer groups described a male, between 20 and 39 years old, single, childless, with professional education and employed. The overall results reveal a consumer who shares the quality criteria established by mescal-producing communities and is strongly interested in traditionally processed drinks.

In México, there are two important distilled drinks, tequila and mezcal. There is ample research on the first one, but there is less research on mezcal, despite it has an annual increase of 45 per cent in consumption. Most of the research work has been focused on aspects of diversity, sustainability and productivity, but there are not studies on the factors that affect mezcal consumption. Thus, this paper aims to characterize the consumers of mezcal, based on their motivations.

Although many researchers have widely studied additive manufacturing (AM) as one of the most important industrial revolutions, few have presented a bibliometric analysis of the published studies in this area. This paper aims to evaluate AM research trends based on 4607 publications most cited from year 2010 to 2020.

The research methodology is bibliometric indicators and network analysis, including analysis based on keywords, citation analysis, productive journal, related published papers and authors indicators. Two free available software were employed VOSviewer and Bibexcel.

Keywords analysis results indicate that among the AM processes, Selective Laser Melting and Fused Deposition Modeling techniques, are the two processes ranked on top of the techniques employed and studied with 35.76% and 20.09% respectively. The citation analysis by VOSviewer software, reveals that the medical applications field and the fabrication of metal parts are the areas that interest researchers greatly. Different new research niches, as pharmaceutical industry, digital construction and food fabrication are growing topics in AM scientific works. This study reveals that journals “Materials & design”, “Advanced materials”, “Acs applied materials & interfaces”, “Additive manufacturing”, “Advanced functional materials” and “Biofabrication” are the most productive and influential in AM scientific research.

The results and conclusions of this work can be used as indicators of trends in AM research and/or as prospects for future studies in this area.