Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer preferences towards innovative rice products, and cross-cultural determinants of customers’ perceived value and loyalty.

A self-administered survey was designed to obtain participants’ perceptions about Thai rice, and preferences towards innovative Thai rice products. A total of 937 surveys were distributed and 908 valid surveys were returned, yielding a 96.7 per cent overall response rate. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assure the reliability and validity of the measures used in the survey instrument. Structural equation modelling was employed to assess the five hypothesised relationships between the four elements of the marketing mix, customer perceived value, and post-purchase behaviour, and to compare the path coefficients across the two cultural groups.

The findings reported herein show that eastern and western customers’ perceptions of marketing mix variables positively impact their perceptions of value, in turn, enhancing their loyalty to Thai rice. A successful marketing strategy should meet changing customer needs through adopting new products, services and unique marketing mix bundles. Such strategies should be tailored to the differing needs across cultures, and can address issues arising from changing competitive and environmental landscapes.

The first limitation concerns the scope of the study. Specifically, the authors only conducted surveys during a two-month time period in 2018; the sampling sites were limited to several shopping malls in Bangkok; and the authors surveyed a high proportion of young, single, educated participants. The second limitation pertains to the selection and adaptation of constructs and their observed variables (such as the 4P indicators). Most of the observed variables were selected based on a literature review and the opinions of the scholars who participated in this study.

These results should be beneficial to members of the international rice industry, Thai rice exporters, the Thai government and to academics. Long-term success will be supported by focused attention on target segments and launch of innovative rice products that match differing preferences across nationalities.

Understanding consumers’ perspectives and preferences are critical to appropriate positioning and marketing of value-added Thai rice products. This study represents one of the first attempts to integrate marketing mix decisions, customers’ perceived value and loyalty within a Thai rice purchase behaviour context across eastern and western customers.

This paper aims to recount the genesis of a successful innovation cluster among Irish-based divisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and Irish universities in the pharmaceutical industry. This cluster was actively “narrativized” through the language of obligation, desire, competence and know-how. As such, it is typical of the “hero’s quest” literary genre in which challenges are faced, obstacles are overcome and victory is ultimately won. Importantly, in this story, the cluster was morally and pragmatically charged with dealing with significant challenges faced by the Irish pharmaceutical industry. Broader societal discourses operated as a resource for actors to use in proposing collaboration and innovation as the appropriate response to such challenges. Specifically, through narrative and discourse, actors created the necessary conditions conducive for a cluster to develop. These created a discursively constituted shared purpose which ultimately ensured successful innovation collaboration. Essentially, through narrative and discourse, the key actors identified the collaboration a protagonist in pursuit of a quest. By linking theoretical and empirical insights, the paper offers a conceptual framework that can be used in future studies to understand the emergence of clusters.

Adopting Wengraf’s (2001) structured approach to narrative interviewing, 18 key actors shared their understanding of how the cluster came into being. Each interview began with a single question intended to induce narrative, in this case “tell me the story of the cluster as you see it.” This allowed participants to be in control of their own story (Wengraf, 2001). Each interview was transcribed in full and appended to notes taken at the time of the interview. Each narrative offered a “purposeful account” (Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000) of how and why the cluster was formed and the centrality of the participants’ roles. In line with recognised protocols, in the authors analysis of data, they paid specific attention to how stories were told, the roles assigned to key protagonists, as well as how events and actors were linked in stories (see Czarniawska, 1997).

This paper further demonstrates how language, metaphor and narrative and discourse (Hatch, 1997) becomes a strategic resource on which actors can draw to create desired realities (Hardy et al., 2000) particularly in terms of collaboration and innovation. Further, this case highlights how dialogue was encouraged throughout the process of establishing the cluster and has continued to be an important element. Rather than imposing some grand design, the SSPC cluster is and always will be emergent. In this sense, in the early stages of collaboration, detecting and supporting existing and emergent communities is essential to success, and shared identity which is the outcome of members’ discursive practices appears to be a powerful driver of collaboration.

There are important insights for cluster and innovation theory development that can be extrapolated from this study. First, context-specific narrative accounts provided in this study further extend the authors’ understanding of the process through which fundamental changes (innovation) in organisational activities are enacted (Ettlie and Subramaniam, 2004). Second, the authors’ understanding of how new ventures are attributed organisational legitimacy through language and story is augmented (Gollant and Sillince, 2007; Pentland, 1999). Third, the authors have articulated how different discourses are mobilised by actors at different stages of development and for different audiences to create desired innovation outcomes, illustrating that innovations can result from advances in knowledge (McAdam et al., 1998). Finally, the authors see how discourse and practice are dynamic as participants articulate their intention to exert further influence on innovation discourse through their lobbying activities.

By focusing on the specific problem of crystallisation, and using the discourse of collaboration, particularised ties emerged around SSPC and this inspired synergistic action. When seeking approval from host organisations, they spoke in terms of return on investment and the potential to add value, part of the discourse of organisational effectiveness. Consequently, the authors stress the benefits of understanding audiences and adjusting discursive approaches on this basis. As such, this study provides evidence that tailored discursive approaches can be used as a resource for managers and practitioners that are seeking to inspire innovation through collaboration.

The discourse of collaboration also became a resource upon which actors could draw to articulate how they might respond to the context and realise the vision. Because this discourse is promoted in government reports and embodied in government strategy, the protagonists were able to borrow from the discourse to secure the necessary resources (in this case funding) that would enhance the possibilities of more effective collaboration. This is because different stakeholders engage with discourse in ways that help to create the outcomes they desire. It was noticeable that the leaders within the Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster recognised the importance of discourse to innovation collaboration, and on this basis, they successfully adjusted the use of terminology in relation to the exchange partners they were addressing. When addressing potential partners within industry and academia, they utilised both the “burning platform” and “Ireland Inc.” metaphors to create generalised membership ties around the need for innovation and action.

First, context-specific narrative accounts provided in this study further extend the authors’ understanding of the process through which fundamental changes (innovation) in organisational activities are enacted (Ettlie and Subramaniam, 2004). Second, the authors have articulated how different discourses are mobilised by actors at different stages of development and for different audiences to create desired innovation outcomes, illustrating that innovations can result from advances in knowledge (McAdam et al., 1998). Finally, the authors see how discourse and practice are dynamic as participants articulate their intention to exert further influence on innovation discourse through their lobbying activities.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Purpose – This article examines management accounting practice in relation to the two aspects of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): risk management and internal controls.

Methodology/Approach – We conducted a survey of experienced management accountants to find out about the risk management and internal control aspects of their current ERM practices, and their perceived effectiveness in performing various ERM roles, within the context of the ERM culture and the level of information systems support for ERM in their organizations.

Findings – In terms of the risk management aspects of ERM, the management accountants in the survey contribute highly to managing risks of a financial or compliance/legal nature and tend to focus mostly on risks with potentially higher impact and higher likelihood of occurring. In terms of the internal control aspects of ERM, they play a highly important role in ERM activities related to prevention and internal risk treatment. Their organizations have an ERM culture that is perceived as open to challenging discussions about risk and have implemented IS support for management accounting in areas such as information security and standardized information architecture. Overall, the effectiveness of their contributions to ERM is perceived to be high in the areas of compliance and finance-related risk.

Originality/Value – We develop a framework and offer empirical evidence about the ERM contributions of management accountants. We propose and use two original scales: one to classify ERM activities, and the other to assess ERM culture.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to recount the scale, composition and agents of red capital in Hong Kong; second, to conceptualise the peculiarity of red capital; and third, to explore the impact of red capital on the political and economic institutional setup in Hong Kong.

The paper consults the comparative capitalism literature to conceptualise the phenomenon of red capital. The paper gathers data from Hong Kong Stock Exchange and indices to provide an overview of red capital. Furthermore, the case study of 2016 Legislative Election is deployed to investigate the mechanisms of red capital’s influence. The paper concludes with a summary of how red capital may challenge the validity of the “One Country, Two Systems” framework.

This paper argues that red capital replicates China’s state–capital nexus in Hong Kong and morphs the game of competition in favour of Chinese nationally controlled companies. In tandem with the emerging visibility of the party–state in Hong Kong’s economic sphere, the authors observe attempts of Chinese economic actors to compromise democratic institutions, deemed obstacles to state control.

This paper is the first attempt to systematically embed the discussion of red capital into comparative capitalism literature. This study provides conceptual tools to examine why red capital could pose a threat to liberal societies such as Hong Kong. Through this paper, we introduce a novel research agenda to scrutinise capital from authoritarian states and investigate how the capital is changing the political infrastructure shaped by liberal principles and values.

Organizational purchasing decisions can be thought of as rule‐discovery tasks in which members of the buying center develop proposals regarding the best choice of products and vendors. The uncertainty associated with buying center decisions causes the group to search for generalizations that describe the distinguishing characteristics of successful suppliers. Such generalizations identify the “rules” used to categorize future vendors; discovery of the best rules is key to accurate classification. Acknowledging the process of searching for patterns not only focuses attention on the information members use to derive patterns, but also provides a mechanism for investigating how members influence each other’s assessment of the patterns. Research into rule‐discovery tasks has the potential to enable monitoring of simulated organizational purchasing decision processes in the controlled environment of an experiment. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a set of propositions and a methodology for examining rule discovery task behavior in buying centers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze demand forecast strategies to support a more sustainable management in a pallet supply chain, and thus avoid environmental impacts, such as reducing the consumption of forest resources.

Since the producer presents several uncertainties regarding its demand logs, a methodology that embed zero-inflated intelligence is proposed combining fuzzy time series with clustering techniques, in order to deal with an excessive count of zeros.

A comparison with other models from literature is performed. As a result, the strategy that considered at the same time the excess of zeros and low demands provided the best performance, and thus it can be considered a promising approach, particularly for sustainable supply chains where resources consumption is significant and exist a huge variation in demand over time.

The findings of the study contribute to the knowledge of the managers and policymakers in achieving sustainable supply chain management. The results provide the important concepts regarding the sustainability of supply chain using fuzzy time series and clustering techniques.

As guest editors, we welcomed the opportunity to help compile a volume that reflects current trends in cross-national analyses of educational stratification. Our interest in macro-comparative stratification research stems from a shared dissatisfaction with the extensive amount of research on schooling and social stratification exclusively on American education. Of course, studying what is close at hand is less complicated (and less fraught with data limitations), and investigations of a single nation or society often provide the basis for more or less universal generalizations.

Today’s world is struggling with the hardship of climate change that has drastically disturbed human life, wildlife and the earth’s biological system. This study aims to show how implementing climate change mitigation strategies and environmental protection measures can ensure sustainable development through collaborative efforts between governmental authorities and the nation’s populace.

An extensive literature review of studies is conducted from across the world concentrating on holistic, sustainable development, enabling a showcase of various conferences, action plans initiated and resolutions passed. VOSviewer software is used to quantify the results of bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis. A total of 260 research studies released between 1993 and 2022 on the Scopus platform are quantified in terms of topmost publications, collaborations among authors, citations index and year-wise publication. The search string has keywords including “climate change,” “sustainable development” and “environment protection.”

The study results revealed a steep increase in research publications in the last three years, from 2017 to 2021, which serves as the basis of the emergence of high-impact articles. The most cited document in this context throws light on assessing vulnerability to climatic risk and building adaptive capacity. It also draws attention to voluntary carbon markets’ rationale while condemning emission trading systems for climate change due to structural flaws, negative consequences and questionable emission-cutting effectiveness. Low energy demand, zero energy buildings and shared socioeconomic pathways should be implemented as strategies for sustainable development.

This study provides a significant opportunity to construct a valuable addition to mitigate climate change. Also, it shows a positive and significant correlation between mitigation and adaptation policies by analyzing publication efforts worldwide considering local climate risks and national adaptation mandates.

The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive approach, combining literature review, bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis to provide insights into current research trends, challenges and potential strategies for addressing climate change and promoting sustainable development. The study’s emphasis on the correlation between mitigation and adaptation policies adds practical significance to its findings.