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Discusses briefly the implementation of acquisitions and serials check‐in modules for a newly acquired Innovative Interfaces INNOPAC system at the University of Arkansas libraries. Stresses the dramatic reduction in time and resources spent using the CAT ME micro enhancer software for downloading OCLC records in large batches.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze patterns of client and professional interaction as reported by professionals in the apparel industry.

This qualitative research involved 23 professionals or individuals who worked for more than ten years in an executive position. The participants, who worked in a variety of positions, in the US apparel industry were interviewed extensively about their professional experiences. Data were analyzed by identifying themes in the interview transcripts using a grounded approach methodology.

The participants described their professional relationships with clients. Clients included individuals in the general public and other industry professionals who used the service or bought the product. The participants, all women, showed similarity or homophily with clients' values, fashion level, age, gender, economic level, and body size. All participants emphasized differences or heterophily with clients in expertise and level of innovation.

This information is helpful for new professionals in the apparel industry and other business professionals to understand how to succeed and what to emphasize when relating to clients.

This study demonstrates how a grounded approach to interview analysis can add to theory and provide useful information about succeeding in a business environment. Limited research exists about professionals' use of homophily and heterophily to relate to their clients. Homophily and heterophily dimensions (e.g. age, gender, and expertise) used by apparel industry professionals in relating with clients are identified. Also, strategies that these professionals used to create homophily and heterophily are discussed.

A fear appeal is a communication tactic designed to scare people into adopting desired behaviors (e.g. wash hands to avoid contracting COVID-19). While it is generally acknowledged that fear appeals can be persuasive at motivating behavior, this paper aims to identify how to optimally identify how to optimally frame the focal threat to increase their effectiveness as well as to uncover additional underlying processes.

The authors conducted four experimental studies.

This research validates that exposure to fear appeals can strongly motivate behavior. However, this study shows that this effect is moderated by threat specificity. Specifically, this study demonstrates that people are more motivated to engage in behaviors that facilitate threat avoidance after exposure to a personally relevant threat that represents a nonspecific (e.g. aging appearance) rather than a specific outcome (e.g. wrinkles). This effect is mediated by perceptions of assimilation (versus contrast) to the focal threat. This study reliably shows the effect across three threat domains (i.e. aging appearance, weight gain, illness) and for different behaviors.

Theoretically speaking, this study contributes to the fear appeal literature by identifying a new type of message framing that has the potential to increase fear appeal’s persuasive power, and uncovering a distinct mechanism by which fear appeals impact behavior. Practically speaking, the findings confirm that fear appeals have the potential to help marketers mobilize consumer behavior, especially when the communication highlights a nonspecific rather than specific threat.

The purpose of this paper is to gather the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage, to develop standards for assessing definitions and to apply these standards to the most readily available definitions of the term.

In this research, the authors gathered the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage from journals, textbooks, universities, and industry associations and online.

The research ends with proposed definitions for consideration. Discussion and areas for future research are included.

Involved organizations, supply chain management programs in higher education, and professional and certifying organizations in the field need to meet and work together to research consensus on the final definition of the field, realizing that definitions can evolve, but also recognizing that a starting point is needed in this rapidly growing area.

The authors argue, quite simply, that a consensus definition of supply chain management is unlikely as long as we continue offering and accepting definitions that are technically unsound. Many of the current definitions violate several principles of good definitions. For these reasons, they are either empty, too restrictive, or too expansive. Until we come across or develop a definition that overcomes these limitations and agree on it, then we will still search for “the” definition without finding it. The field will become more crowded with definitions, but less certain, and progress will be restricted.

Theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners in a discipline require key terms in a field to share a nominal definition and prefer to have a shared real or essential definition. Yet in supply chain management, we find no such shared definition, real or nominal. Even the Council of Supply Chain Management Professional offers its definition with the caveat: “The supply chain management (SCM) profession has continued to change and evolve to fit the needs of the growing global supply chain. With the supply chain covering a broad range of disciplines, the definition of what is a supply chain can be unclear” (CSCMP, 2016).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of salary raises and employees’ perception of these salary raises on their intended retention and turnover. By using a survey data set from a representative American public university, this study investigates a novel hypothesis that faculty perceptions of salary raises, relative to their perceptions of other faculty members’ assessments of the raises, influence their intended labor supply.

Using both ordered probit and OLS modeling frameworks, the authors focus on the impact of salary raises and the relative perception of these raises on intended labor supply behavior. They explore a hypothesis that a mismatch between one’s ranking of the salary raise and the perception of others’ rankings causes dissatisfaction.

The results provide evidence that salary raises themselves are effective monetary tools to reduce intended turnover; however, the results also suggest that relative deprivation as a comparison of one’s own perceptions of a salary raise with others affects employee intended retention. The authors find that employees who have less favorable perceptions of salary adjustments, compared to what they believe their colleagues think, are more likely to consider another employer, holding their own perception of raises constant. Conversely, more favorable views of salary raises, compared to how faculty members think other’s perceived the salary raises, does not have a statistically significant impact on intended retention.

This is the first study that explores an employee’s satisfaction with salary raises relative to perceptions of other employees’ satisfaction with their own salary raises, and the resulting intended labor supply in an American university. The results indicate that monetary rewards in the form of salary raises do impact faculty intended retention; however, perception of fairness of these salary raises is more important than the actual raises. Given the high cost of job turnover, these findings suggest that employers may benefit from devoting resources toward ensuring that salary- and raise-determining procedures are generally perceived by the vast majority of employees as being fair.

Using the resource-based and the resource dependence theoretical approaches of the firm, the paper explores firm responses to supply chain disruptions during COVID-19. The paper explores how firms develop localization, agility and digitization (L-A-D) capabilities by applying (or not applying) their critical circular economy (CE) and blockchain technology (BCT)-related resources and capabilities that they either already possess or acquire from external agents.

An abductive approach, applying exploratory qualitative research was conducted over a sample of 24 firms. The sample represented different industries to study their critical BCT and CE resources and capabilities and the L-A-D capabilities. Firm resources and capabilities were classified using the technology, organization and environment (TOE) framework.

Findings show significant patterns on adoption levels of the blockchain-enabled circular economy system (BCES) and L-A-D capability development. The greater the BCES adoption capabilities, the greater the L-A-D capabilities. Organizational size and industry both influence the relationship between BCES and L-A-D. Accordingly, research propositions and a research framework are proposed.

Given the limited sample size, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Our findings extend supply chain resiliency research. A series of propositions provide opportunities for future research. The resource-based view and resource-dependency theories are useful frameworks to better understanding the relationship between firm resources and supply chain resilience.

The results and discussion of this study serve as useful guidance for practitioners to create CE and BCT resources and capabilities for improving supply chain resiliency.

The study shows the socio-economic and socio-environmental importance of BCES in the COVID-19 or similar crises.

The study is one of the initial attempts that highlights the possibilities of BCES across multiple industries and their value during pandemics and disruptions.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the goals and processes of reverse logistics related to disposal and renewal to an industry example, in this case, the tufted carpet manufacturing industry. With an industry-wide coalition, the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), the carpet industry offers lessons for other industries on how to create new products from waste, how to develop systems to process this waste, how to encourage the development of infrastructure for reprocessing and how to remove barriers to recovery. A major part of the US floor covering cluster is headquartered around Dalton, Georgia. The industry has formed a coalition to divert manufactured carpet from landfills and find other uses for used carpet. This industry-wide coalition, known as the Carpet America Recovery Effort, offers many lessons for other industries on creating new products from waste, developing systems to process this waste, encouraging the development of infrastructure for reprocessing and removing barriers to recovery.

Academics have proposed several frameworks for examining reverse logistics. In this study, the framework developed by de Brito and Dekker (2004) is utilized because it focuses on essential forces in reverse logistics, asking four simple questions: Why? What? How? and Who? To this list, is added a question: Where? This modified framework is applied to the carpet manufacturing industry, focusing on post-consumer carpet.

The carpet industry is becoming a model for developing renewal supply chains that take waste products and create new ones. Although disposal remains the largest part of the end-of-use supply chain for carpet, this is changing, though not rapidly enough to suit the industry.

This case focuses on what the industry is currently doing and on the impediments it has encountered in developing these chains. Renewal chains may well dominate the future of reverse logistics in the industry, but much work remains. The paper concludes with a discussion and areas for future research.