Search results

The paper seeks to investigate the applicability of strategic supply chain management (SCM) models in one-off luxury contexts such as the yacht industry, where durable products are manufactured with project configuration.

A literature review was assessed in order to identify contingency-based SCM models. Then, multiple case-study analysis was performed to explore how these models are adopted in practice for drawing strategic SCM directions. Data arose from a number of interviews to the top-management of four world-leading yacht-building companies.

The findings of explorative case studies suggest the implementation of various strategic SCM strategies in order to fit the requirements of the market (e.g. protect critical resources, implement a customized leagile production strategy, enhance SC flexibility). In this direction, specific SCM practices are already adopted by investigated firms.

A call to develop specific strategic directions for project-based luxury business is suggested, as the SC contingencies of this context have not been properly caught by extant literature.

A set of practical indications are offered in order to support managers in the choice of an appropriate SCM approach and related operational practices. Identified techniques and tools aim to achieve high customisation while reducing changes in specification.

This article represents a first attempt to investigate the SCM issue for durable luxury products in the project context.

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the development of supply chain management (SCM) introduction in the construction industry, investigating the risk factors affecting the implementation of SCM principles.

To achieve the research objective a literature review approach was adopted, which involved the selection and classification of about 140 research articles. Papers were critically classified and analyzed according to a risk management (RM) perspective.

Results from the literature review identified a lack of construction supply chain risk management (CSCRM) literature which is mainly conceptual and descriptive and focused especially on the risk assessment phase. A total of 13 common risk factors are identified in literature and critically analyzed considering eight key perspectives. These stress the attention on the project planning phase and confirm the main contractor as the main promoter for the SCM practice.

The developed model has to be further investigated and tested with empirical case studies and its major limitation results from a subjective selection of researches and from the comparison between findings with distinct aims.

The research explores SCM literature in the construction field, spanning a period of 11 years (2000‐2011). None of the review dealing with SCM principles focuses on the risk management area in the construction field. Findings constitute a first attempt for the development of an operative risk assessment framework supporting a successfully implementation of SCM in the Sector. Gaps in research are described in order to give a contribution and encourage additional works.

It is widely believed that ICT has a significant influence on the daily life of the poor and has positive spillover effects in their livelihoods. Mobile phones are one of the few ICT innovations that have found their way into the hands of the poor residing in remote and rural areas. In Ethiopia, mobile phones are recently introduced but got an acceptance from everyone including the rural poor; in five years’ time, mobile phones subscription has increased from less than 4% to more than 40%. Empirical evidence generally documents the positive role mobile phones play in facilitating the development efforts of poor households. However, using panel data from Ethiopia, the current paper explores a less investigated issue of the possible effects of mobile phone adoption on the credit uptakes of the rural poor who are mostly neglected from the formal credit markets but finance their credit demand from informal sources including relatives/friends.

To investigate the relationship between mobile phones and credit uptake and/or loan size, one can use different empirical strategies. For partly unleashing the endogeneity problem, an instrumental variable estimation approach is adopted in this paper. To deal with the endogeneity problem, one may consider using the linear IV approach or the control function. But the outcome variable and the endogenous variable are binary in nature, and the usual trend is to use the linear IV models or control functions, which do not consider these binary natures of the variables. To this end, a special regressors estimator is adopted, mostly used when both the dependent and the endogenous variables are binary in nature.

The econometric results suggest mobile phones are positively associated with the credit uptake of rural households, especially credit uptake from informal sources. Households with mobile phones are found to have 4%–14% higher probabilities of credit uptake and about 6%–17% in the case of credit from informal sources. Besides, households with mobile phones are found to have about ETB 65 (USD 3.42) higher loan size and about ETB 78 (USD 4.11) higher amount of loan in the case of a loan from the informal sources. Thus, policy-makers and financial providers working on providing credit in rural areas need to exploit the use of mobile phones in reaching out to the rural poor.

The author attests the fact that the work described has not been published previously and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Besides, it is the original work of the author.