William K.W. Choy, Prem Ramburuth and Bee Eng Adeline Lee
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for international managers to rethink current managerial practices, especially the application of a universalistic approach in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for international managers to rethink current managerial practices, especially the application of a universalistic approach in an international business context. A differentiated managerial approach is recommended to meet the challenges of a dynamic environment.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review based on secondary data provides the analysis of the bilateral trade relationship between China and ASEAN. This paper cites the case of the China‐Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park project to illustrate the difficulties in international partnerships.
Findings
The findings highlight differences in business philosophies; differences in state bureaucracies and political viewpoints concerning business arrangements; socio‐cultural differences in values, and expectations of political and business leaders, and their people.
Research limitations/implications
The paper highlights the need for further research in Chinese managerial styles and knowledge.
Practical implications
The recommended differentiated management approach will allow international managers an alternative option in managing international teams and workforce diversity in cross border business partnerships.
Originality/value
The literature gap in this particular area of study presents an opportunity to explore new managerial approaches in international management practices.
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The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive…
Abstract
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.
This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.
The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.
This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.
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Danping Lin, Carman Ka Man Lee, M.K. Siu, Henry Lau and King Lun Choy
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential impacts of various variables on product return activities after online shopping. Previous studies on customer behaviour have…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential impacts of various variables on product return activities after online shopping. Previous studies on customer behaviour have been predominantly concerned with return on used products and other product-quality-related constructs in the model. This study aims to specially examine the logistics service-related and customer intention–related variables for general products under the e-commerce circumstance.
Design/methodology/approach
Structured questionnaire data for this study were collected in the two southeast cities of China (162 useable responses). Structural equation modelling was used to examine the latent variables.
Findings
The results confirmed that product return intention has the greatest impact on online shopping returns with a direct effect of 0.63, followed by the flexibility in return (logistics service) with a direct effect of 0.49.
Originality/value
Such a model not only enriches the theoretical understanding of customer behaviour studies but also offers online shopping stores and platforms a quantitative benchmark and new perspective on the design of online shopping supply chains by considering product returns so as to improve the customer satisfaction.
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Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects…
Abstract
Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.
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As students increasingly incur debt to finance their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially…
Abstract
As students increasingly incur debt to finance their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially borrowers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), this research explores how student debt and social class intersect and affect individuals’ trajectory into adulthood. Based on 50 interviews with young adults who incurred $30,000–180,000 in undergraduate debt and who were from varying social classes, the findings are presented in terms of a categorization schema (income level by level of cultural capital) and a conceptual model of borrowing. The results illustrate the inequitable payoff that college and debt can have for borrowers with varying levels of cultural resources, with borrowers from low-income, low cultural capital backgrounds more likely to struggle throughout and after college with their loans.
S.T. Boris Choy, Wai-yin Wan and Chun-man Chan
The normal error distribution for the observations and log-volatilities in a stochastic volatility (SV) model is replaced by the Student-t distribution for robustness…
Abstract
The normal error distribution for the observations and log-volatilities in a stochastic volatility (SV) model is replaced by the Student-t distribution for robustness consideration. The model is then called the t-t SV model throughout this paper. The objectives of the paper are twofold. First, we introduce the scale mixtures of uniform (SMU) and the scale mixtures of normal (SMN) representations to the Student-t density and show that the setup of a Gibbs sampler for the t-t SV model can be simplified. For example, the full conditional distribution of the log-volatilities has a truncated normal distribution that enables an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm. These representations also provide a means for outlier diagnostics. Second, we consider the so-called t SV model with leverage where the observations and log-volatilities follow a bivariate t distribution. Returns on exchange rates of Australian dollar to 10 major currencies are fitted by the t-t SV model and the t SV model with leverage, respectively.
Siddhartha Chib, William Griffiths, Gary Koop and Dek Terrell
Bayesian Econometrics is a volume in the series Advances in Econometrics that illustrates the scope and diversity of modern Bayesian econometric applications, reviews some recent…
Abstract
Bayesian Econometrics is a volume in the series Advances in Econometrics that illustrates the scope and diversity of modern Bayesian econometric applications, reviews some recent advances in Bayesian econometrics, and highlights many of the characteristics of Bayesian inference and computations. This first paper in the volume is the Editors’ introduction in which we summarize the contributions of each of the papers.