SMEs' purchasing habits : A procurement maturity model for stakeholders

Although micro companies overpower the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment, generalizations are often with medium size companies, and therefore, there are many unknowns, especially when it comes to its buying behavior. Conformist studies and industry practices assume SMEs to be “normative” or “conservative” buyers; however, this hypothesis is untested. This article aims to scrutinize the reality, and proposes a unified model that rejects pre-containerization in buying behavior typologies, as well as selectiveness in terms of audience type, whether it is corporate, SME, or consumer. While replacing researchers’ perceptions with the audience’s, the model yields actual knowledge that can lead to audience’s beliefs in lieu of the opposite, which is used to mislead stakeholders. The study shows that SMEs also buy like individuals and spend in a similar way to consumers’, including not only “normative” and “conservative” but also “negligent” and “impulse” zones. From the research-implications perspective, future studies by behaviorists can explore why SMEs purchase in this way. Marketers may benefit from the finding that SMEs buy like individuals. In addition, SMEs may want to be conscious of their purchasing habits, and—utilizing the newly introduced “risk score” frontier—policymakers should assess the consequences of these habits at the macro level

The historical evolution of accounting in China (novissima sinica): effects of culture (2nd part).

Este artículo intenta explicar los criterios que sustentan la idea de que la contabilidad China ha sido conformada durante el pasado siglo con arreglo a factores culturales, económicos y políticos. Asimismo se propone estudiar los fenómenos históricos experimentados por la contabilidad china en el transcurso de los años, y evaluar comparativa y críticamente los efectos culturales de los mismos con las transformaciones políticas y económicas que han tenido influencia en el desarrollo de la contabilidad China. This paper attempts to argue the criteria which claim that Chinese accounting has been shaped by together with cultural, economical and political factors in the last century. This paper also aims to compare historical phenomena which occurred in Chinese accounting over the years, and then to assess comparatively or critically the effects of culture with politic and the economic transformations on the development of Chinese accounting.Contabilidad comparativa, contabilidad china, factores culturales, historia, sociología. Chinese accounting, comparative accounting, cultural factors, evolution, history, sociology.

Project quality management in virtual environments : a primer

The rise of geographically dispersed project teams enabled by technology has made project quality management a significant challenge for organizations. This paper uses findings from a project on geographically dispersed, cooperating SMEs in the building trade, to explore whether concepts and artefacts from the Rational Unified Process&reg; (RUP&reg;) software development approach could be adapted and used to better manage quality in virtual projects. Our future research aims to explore the use of RUP artefacts in a virtual environment and their impact onproject management and quality.<br /