Examining a client network development framework for a logistics service provider: a longitudinal case study

Buyer-seller relationships represent a core theme in industrial marketing management. From the supplier’s perspective, extant marketing literature, however, focuses on client retention in preference to client recruitment. Within the context of logistics outsourcing, although numerous studies have taken the buyer’s perspective and shown how manufacturers/retailers select logistics service providers (LSPs), there is a shortage of studies and a lack of theoretical understanding from the supplier’s perspective on how LSPs recruit clients. This study contributes to rectifying this through a longitudinal case study conducted on a fourth-party logistics service provider appraising its recruitment of clients. A mid-range client recruitment framework is developed, built abductively on the case and through the theory of mediating firms value creation. Theoretically, the framework refines notions of the mediating firm theory. Managerially, this client recruitment framework is proposed as a guide to aid LSP managers in their organic growth strategies through client network development

Collaboration modes and advantages in supply chain

This research aims to address supply chain collaboration with a perspective of broader three-dimensional relationship, not a linear two-dimensional relationship discussed broadly in previous research. Case study was adopted for this research, and data collection was mainly conducted via interview. The research results highlighted that supply chain collaborations are common practice across all levels of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The results also indicated that the different strengthen levels of barging power among collaborative partners will influence the achieved advantages at different supply chain levels, including strategic, operational and political levels

Smart manufacturing and supply chain management

In the fourth industrial revolution, smart manufacturing will be characterized by adaptability, resource efficiency and ergonomics as well as the integration of customers and business partners in business and value processes. Business model, operations management, workforce and manufacturing process all face substantial transformations to reasoning the manufacturing process. This paper explores the impacts of smart manufacturing on supply chain management, and develops several propositions to improve supply chain performance under the context of smart manufacturing

Critical Connections: Communication for the Future

The U.S. communication infrastructure is changing rapidly as a result of technological advances, deregulation, and an economic climate that is increasingly competitive. This change is affecting the way in which information is created, processed, transmitted, and provided to individuals and institutions. The report analyzes the implications of new communication technologies for business, politics, culture, and individuals, and suggests possible strategies and options for congressional consideration

Social Enterprise in Asia

In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the ""International Comparative Social Enterprise Models"" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on bottom-up approaches to capture the SE phenomenon. This strategy made it possible to take into account and give legitimacy to locally embedded approaches, thus resulting in an analysis encompassing a wide diversity of social enterprises, while simultaneously allowing for the identification of major SE models to delineate the field on common grounds at the international level. These SE models reveal or confirm an overall trend towards new ways of sharing the responsibility for the common good in today’s economies and societies. We tend to consider as good news the fact that social enterprises actually stem from all parts of the economy. Indeed, societies are facing many complex challenges at all levels, from the local to the global level. The diversity and internal variety of SE models are a sign of a broadly shared willingness to develop appropriate—although sometimes embryonic—responses to these challenges, on the basis of innovative economic/business models driven by a social mission. In spite of their weaknesses, social enterprises may be seen as advocates for and vehicles of the general interest across the whole economy. Of course, the debate about privatisation, deregulation and globalised market competition—all factors that may hinder efforts in the search for the common good–has to be addressed as well. The first of a series of four ICSEM books, Social Enterprise in Asia will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts, policy makers, journalists and other categories of people who want to acquire a broad understanding of the phenomena of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship as they emerge and develop across the world

Social Enterprise in Asia

In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the ""International Comparative Social Enterprise Models"" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on bottom-up approaches to capture the SE phenomenon. This strategy made it possible to take into account and give legitimacy to locally embedded approaches, thus resulting in an analysis encompassing a wide diversity of social enterprises, while simultaneously allowing for the identification of major SE models to delineate the field on common grounds at the international level. These SE models reveal or confirm an overall trend towards new ways of sharing the responsibility for the common good in today’s economies and societies. We tend to consider as good news the fact that social enterprises actually stem from all parts of the economy. Indeed, societies are facing many complex challenges at all levels, from the local to the global level. The diversity and internal variety of SE models are a sign of a broadly shared willingness to develop appropriate—although sometimes embryonic—responses to these challenges, on the basis of innovative economic/business models driven by a social mission. In spite of their weaknesses, social enterprises may be seen as advocates for and vehicles of the general interest across the whole economy. Of course, the debate about privatisation, deregulation and globalised market competition—all factors that may hinder efforts in the search for the common good–has to be addressed as well. The first of a series of four ICSEM books, Social Enterprise in Asia will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts, policy makers, journalists and other categories of people who want to acquire a broad understanding of the phenomena of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship as they emerge and develop across the world