Search results

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of global sourcing and exports on US domestic manufacturing inventories and quantify the additional inventory costs associated with global operations.

A panel data set of 19 US manufacturing sectors is constructed over the period 2002‐2005. Data are collected from the US economic census and other government statistics. Fixed and random effects models in both linear and LOG terms are estimated and the estimated coefficients used to calculate the cost to US manufacturing industries of additional inventories attributed to global operations.

Imports and exports have a positive, significant impact on raw materials inventory and finished goods inventory, respectively, in terms of days of supply. Based on estimations using 2005 data, a 10 percentage point increase in the import and export ratios for all US manufacturers is estimated to be accompanied by $3.03 billion additional costs for raw materials inventory and $5.33 billion for finished goods inventory, respectively.

This study is among the first to quantify the impact of global sourcing and exports on US domestic inventories using secondary data. To macroeconomic policy makers and industry managers, the results may serve as a benchmark to how domestic inventories are affected by global outsourcing and exports, and as a reminder that the benefits of global activities may be overestimated if inventory costs are not explicitly taken into consideration.

A survey of 372 logistics managers in different industries revealed multiple outsourcing linkages among logistics activities. These results are consistent with previous findings that suggest that firms can improve customer service and reduce costs by outsourcing multiple logistics functions. The results are also consistent with previous research on the role that improved coordination of information and material flows have in the achievement of economies of scale and economies of scope. Future research developments in the field of logistics outsourcing are also proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that transportation modal mix in global supply chains is a result of the strategic alignment between industry characteristics and supply chain strategies.

Using annual US trade statistics and manufacturing industry data for the years 2002-2009 between the USA and its top 12 Asian trading partners, this study applies various regression methods to examine key factors associated with the transport modal decision.

The results show that industry characteristics have an impact on the transportation modal mix in global supply chains. Manufacturing industries use more air freight and less ocean freight when facing positive sales surprises, high-monthly demand variation, a high-contribution margin ratio, a high cost of capital, and increased competition.

The findings provide important insights for logistics managers and freight forwarders. While transportation cost remains an important concern, a logistics manager must also consider non-cost factors such as competition, working capital, and demand uncertainties in their modal decisions. Freight forwarders should be supply chain solution providers who consider all of these industry factors and suggest a proper mix of transportation modes for their customers.

This study is among the first efforts to examine the impact of industry characteristics on the transportation modal mix in global supply chains. This study first develops a theoretical framework for the modal choice decision for international transportation movements and then, using an extensive and innovative data set, provides new findings regarding current air freight practices in global supply chains.

Patent litigation consists of non-market actions that firms undertake to access intellectual property rights defined by prior legislation and enforced by the courts. Thus, patent litigation provides an interesting context in which to explore aspects of firm’s non-market strategies. In contrast with prior non-market strategy research that has largely focused on how political institutions define the rules of the game for market competition, non-market actions within patent litigation primarily seek to access and apply these broad policies to specific situations, products, or assets that matter to the firm. Furthermore, because such non-market actions are directly influenced by the firms’ market strategies, they represent a promising area for research on integrated (market and non-market) strategies as well.

The goal of this paper is to explain how generic patent strategies that firms use to support their competitive advantage in the product-market influence non-market outcomes related to the timing of patent litigation resolution. In contrast with prior research that has studied settlement in patent litigation essentially as a one-shot bargaining game, this paper seeks to explain litigation resolution as an outcome of the competing mechanisms of settlement and adjudication that operate continually during litigation. Using a large sample of patent litigations in research medicines and computers, I model the timing of patent litigation resolution in a proportional hazards framework, wherein settlement and adjudication are competing risks. The evidence found is consistent with the proposition that the speed with which patent litigation is resolved by either settlement or adjudication reflects the use of proprietary, defensive, and leveraging patent strategies by firms. These findings also help to explain unexpected and anomalous findings regarding the settlement of patent litigation reported in prior research.

This chapter reviews the effects of air transport liberalization, and investigates the roles played by airport-airline vertical arrangements in liberalizing markets. Our investigation concludes that liberalization has led to substantial economic and traffic growth. Such positive outcomes are mainly due to increased competition and efficiency gains in the airline industry, and positive externalities to the overall economy. Liberalization allows airlines to optimize their networks, and thus may introduce substantial demand and financial uncertainty to airports. Vertical arrangements between airlines and airports may offer a wide range of benefits to the parties involved, yet such arrangements could also lead to airline entry barriers which reduce the effects of liberalization. Three approaches have been developed to model the effects of liberalization in complex market conditions, which include the analytical, econometric and computational network methods. These approaches should be selectively utilized in policy studies on liberalization.

The term ‘obsolescence’ occurs frequently in the literature of librarianship and information science. In numerous papers we are told how most published literature becomes obsolete within a measurable time, and that an item receives half the uses it will ever receive (‘half‐life’) in a few years. ‘Obsolescence’ is however very rarely defined, and its validity, interest, and practical value are often assumed rather than explained. Before reviewing studies on ‘obsolescence’, therefore, it is necessary to look at the concept and to identify the reasons why it should be of interest.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the aesthetic dimension of entrepreneur poems. The notion of the entrepreneur as storyteller, and the entrepreneur story as cultural genres have become so firmly entrenched in the collective social consciousness that little consideration is given to the existence of other narrative genres, such as business poetry as expressions, or manifestations of enterprising behaviour and indeed identities. Poetry, like art, possesses aesthetic dimensions which make it difficult to theorize and analyze. Indeed, as a genre, poetry seldom features as a heuristic device for better understanding entrepreneurial behaviour or learning. This is surprising because poetry in particular is a wonderfully creative and expressive narrative medium and accordingly, many entrepreneurs engage in writing poetry as a form of creative expression.

In this study the author considers the entrepreneur as poet and from a reading of the literatures of entrepreneurship and aesthetics develops an aesthetic framework for analysing entrepreneur poetry which is used to analyze six poems written by entrepreneurs or about entrepreneurs.

That poetry has value in terms of entrepreneurial learning because of its atheoretical nature it permits listeners to experience the emotion and passion of lived entrepreneurial experiences and to relive these vicariously. In particular entrepreneur poems are a variant form of entrepreneur story devoid of the usual cliché.

There are obvious limitations to the study in that the analysis of six poems can merely scratch the surface and that aesthetic analysis is by its very nature subjective and open to interpretation. The study opens up possibilities for further research into entrepreneur poems, the aesthetics of other non-standard entrepreneur narratives and consideration of the aesthetic elements of entrepreneurship per se. Poetics and aesthetics are areas of narrative understanding ripe for further empirical research.

The paper is original in terms of creating an aesthetic framework used to analyze entrepreneur poems. Indeed, little consideration had previously been given to the topic.