The role of supply chain diversification in mitigating the negative effects of supply chain disruptions in COVID-19

Purpose: This study examines the firm-level financial consequences caused by supply chain disruptions during COVID-19 and explores how firms' supply chain diversification strategies, including diversified suppliers, customers and products, moderate the negative effect on firm performance. Design/methodology/approach: Based on data drawn from 222 publicly traded firms in China, the authors use event study methodology to estimate the effects of supply chain disruptions on the financial performance of affected firms. Regression analyses are conducted to examine the moderating effects of supply chain diversification. Findings: Firms affected by supply chain disruptions during COVID-19 experienced a significant decline in shareholder value in two weeks and a subsequent decrease in operating performance in one year. Diversified suppliers, customers and products act as shock absorbers to alleviate the negative effects. Further regression shows a substitution effect between customer and product diversification. Cross-industry comparisons reveal that service firms experienced more loss than manufacturing firms. Customer diversification mitigates the adverse effects of supply chain disruptions for both manufacturing and service firms. Supplier diversification exerts a noteworthy role in manufacturing firms, while product diversification is beneficial for service firms. Originality/value: The study provides empirical evidence on the magnitude of financial consequences of supply chain disruptions during COVID-19 in both the short term and long term and enriches the current understanding of how to build resilience from the supply chain diversification perspective

Passung zwischen Führungskraft und Mitarbeitern: Der PS Fit Ansatz

Viele Führungskräfte können mit manchen Mitarbeitern besser und effektiver zusammenarbeiten als mit anderen. Eine wichtige Bedeutung hierfür hat die Passung zwischen Führungskraft und Mitarbeiter, der sogenannte Person Supervisor (PS) Fit . PS Fit erfasst, inwieweit Führungskraft und Mitarbeiter auf der gleichen Wellenlänge liegen und hinsichtlich ihrer Eigenschaften, Einstellungen und Werte übereinstimmen. In diesem Kapitel werden zentrale Forschungsergebnisse zu PS Fit vorgestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird geschildert, was Führungskräfte tun können, um PS Fit zu fördern und um die negativen Auswirkungen von PS Misfit zu reduzieren

The political economy and dynamics of bifurcated world governance and the decoupling of value chains: An alternative perspective

Employing insights from political economics, international relations, and China studies, we identify the key variables that shape the dynamics of the U.S.–China rivalry and investigate their impacts on the bifurcation and value-chain decoupling processes. We show that the ongoing conflict and disengagement processes are more likely to evolve in the long run in significantly different ways to the one envisioned by current Washington decision-makers and echoed by Petricevic and Teece (2019). The latter predicted an escalation of the disengagement processes and inevitable convergence to a ‘bifurcated world’. Our main findings are: (1) The potential costs of bifurcation and consequent value-chain decoupling are prohibitive to both China and the U.S. Resistance is likely to grow by U.S.’ own MNEs and allies; (2) Washington decision-makers overstate the threats that ‘China’s rise’ poses to the survival of the liberal world order; and (3) China’s techno-nationalistic threats are likely to dissipate after a period of escalation, as a result of its own resource constraints, increasing costs of key programs, and inability to sustain in the long run its rapid innovation processes due to growing central controls. We conclude the paper by outlining an approach to maintain an open global economy and secure innovation systems

The role of the state and the intensification of R&D in China:evidence from large and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing firms

We investigate the role of the state in the R&D intensification of China's manufacturing industries. Using a data set that spans the population of large and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2016, we find evidence of two distinct models of technological innovation in China: state-owned enterprises that invest heavily in R&D and actively seek patents, which are not related to their economic performance; non-state-owned enterprises have been narrowing the gap with the state-owned enterprises in R&D spending, which boosts their economic performance, but these enterprises lag behind state-owned enterprises in patenting. The non-state model has seen its share of China's R&D spending increasing at the expense of the state model, and government grants for firm R&D are partial to obtaining patents. All of this has taken place as Chinese manufacturing industries are becoming more competitive and less export-oriented

Toward Understanding Employees 'Responses to Leaders' Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior:An Outcome Favorability Perspective

The uncovering of several recent corporate scandals has brought to light unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) in organizations. A growing body of research has provided insights into employees' UPB and its antecedents. However, our understanding of leader UPB and its effects remains limited. In this study, we develop and test a theoretical model that explains employees' responses to their leader UPB. By drawing on the theory of motivated reasoning and the trust literature, we posit that, in general, leader UPB is linked to unfavorable responses from employees such as a lower perception of leaders' trustworthiness, which, in turn, reduces the citizenship behaviors of employees. However, our model also shows that these effects do not emerge automatically but depend on a crucial boundary condition-followers' outcome favorability, or the extent to which followers personally benefit from leader UPB. Specifically, we contend that negative responses to leader UPB arise mainly when followers' outcome favorability is low but decrease significantly when followers' outcome favorability is high. The results of two multi-wave, multi-source field studies support our hypothesized model. These findings offer a new, instrumental perspective on followers' responses to unethical leader behaviors, with valuable theoretical and practical implications

Longitudinal Multivariate Profiling of Well-Being Among Chinese Freshmen

This research adopts a person-centered approach towards well-being, examining the heterogeneity in well-being profiles by simultaneously considering the longitudinal trajectories and multivariate compositions of well-being. Specifically, we measured subjective well-being (positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life or SWL), vitality, and peace of mind (PoM) among 1050 Chinese college students, across six time points over their freshmen year. At the first time point, we also measured three sets of predictor variables: self-determination (“what” and why” of goal pursuit), basic psychological needs (autonomy, relatedness, competence, and inner compass), and positive individual differences (optimism, hope, grit, meaning, autonomous functioning, and personal growth initiative). Results from parallel-process latent class growth models supported five distinct profiles: Profile 1 Flourishing has high and improving levels of almost all well-being indicators; Profile 2 Moderate-converging has moderate levels of all well-being indicators, and a trend for satisfaction with life and vitality to converge towards the midpoint; Profile 3 Devoid is stably low on all well-being indicators; Profile 4 PoM-dominant is characterized by high levels of peace of mind; Profile 5 SWL-low features high well-being except for relatively low satisfaction with life. Multivariate logistic regression showed that predictors from all three sets had unique effects in predicting membership in well-being profiles. These results are among the first to uncover the longitudinal multivariate profiles of general well-being and the associated predictors. We also provide implications for differential interventions to improve well-being in student subpopulations, in contrast to the “one-size-fits-all” approach in traditional variable-centered research

Peak sales time prediction in new product sales:Can a product manager rely on it?

Managers dealing with new products need to forecast sales growth, especially the time at which the sales would reach the peak, known as the peak sales time (T*). In most cases, they only have a few initial years' data to predict T*. Although product managers manage to predict T*, there is no method to date that can predict T* accurately. In this paper, we develop a new metric based on the diffusion modeling framework that can help in assessing the prediction accuracy of T*. This metric is built on the premise that observed sales growth is affected both by the force that systematically varies with time and by the non-systematic random forces. We show that the two forces must be carefully combined to assess if a predicted T* is accurate enough. In addition, we empirically prove the efficacy of the proposed metric

What shall I learn? Two-stage decision making under social influence on corporate E-learning platforms

E-learning platforms have increasingly been adopted by corporate employees in the workplace. On these platforms, users typically follow a two-stage decision-making process: they first choose which content to learn and then decide how much to continue learning. The decisions of individual employee users are influenced by members of the same workplace organization (group influence) and general users on the platform from other organizations (mass influence). Extant research has not shown how different types of social influence impact different decisions. Using data from a corporate e-learning platform, this study examines how group influence and mass influence support employees' learning decisions, from the perspective of the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). The results reveal that mass users' past choices only influence low-elaborative choice decisions but not high-elaborative engagement decisions. In contrast, workgroup members' past choices influence both the low-elaborative choice and high-elaborative engagement decisions. Furthermore, positive synergy exists between the two types of social influence for the choice decision, but the synergy dissipates for the engagement decision. These findings can help online content platforms design appropriate information-sharing systems to influence users' choice and engagement decisions. The results can also help corporates take advantage of social influence to motivate employees to engage in work-related online learning.<br/

梯度培育,提升“独角兽”自主创新力

要针对科技型企业的成长特点，从企业实际需求出发，为企业发展营造更好的环境和创新生态，进一步优化创新环境、加强政策引导、提高支撑配套。独角兽企业具有高成长性,一定程度上代表了经济转型升级的方向。2023年4月,胡润研究院发布《2023全球独角兽榜》,总体来看,全球有1361家独角兽企业,总估值4.3万亿美元,分布在48个国家。79%的独角兽企业销售软件和服务,主要来自金融科技、软件服务、电子商务和人工智能；21%销售实体产品,主要来自新能源、生物科技、食品饮料和半导体。要针对科技型企业的成长特点，从企业实际需求出发，为企业发展营造更好的环境和创新生态，进一步优化创新环境、加强政策引导、提高支撑配套。独角兽企业具有高成长性,一定程度上代表了经济转型升级的方向。2023年4月,胡润研究院发布《2023全球独角兽榜》,总体来看,全球有1361家独角兽企业,总估值4.3万亿美元,分布在48个国家。79%的独角兽企业销售软件和服务,主要来自金融科技、软件服务、电子商务和人工智能；21%销售实体产品,主要来自新能源、生物科技、食品饮料和半导体

Dealing with negative mentoring experiences:the roles of 'can-do' and 'reason-to' factors

Academics and practitioners have long worked to reduce negative mentoring experiences. Drawing on social cognitive theory and expectancy–value theory, we examined the link between mentors' perceived organizational support and protégés' negative mentoring experiences, shedding light on the mediating effect of mentoring self-efficacy and the moderating effect of mentors' self-enhancement motives. Results based on data from 260 protégés and 214 mentors in Chinese organizations supported our proposed hypotheses. Mentoring self-efficacy mediated the negative relationship between mentors' perceived organizational support and protégés' negative mentoring experiences. In addition, mentors' self-enhancement motives intensified both the negative relationship between mentoring self-efficacy and negative mentoring experiences and the indirect impact of mentors' perceived organizational support on protégés' negative mentoring experiences via mentoring self-efficacy. A discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings is included