Educational Effect of a Supply Chain Management Game: Simulation Results for Supply Chain Experts

The purpose of this study is to explore factors of the educational effect of the supply chain management (SCM) game. This study focuses on a beneficent influential point in SCM from prior research and the effects these points have on supply chain (SC) experts as SCM game players. For the statistical analysis, this study uses the game results of a new online SCM game named the “elephant game.” The results show that knowledge sharing between SC nodes not only reduces the bullwhip effect and total inventory cost but also changes the opinions of SC experts. Miscalculations of lead time and the existence of strategy also change their minds. Thus, this research finds important learning factors for SC experts in the SCM game. The results indicate the potential for the elephant game to be an education tool for SC experts and future SCM research

Organizational Learning and Technological Knowledge Transfer on Merger

企業合併に関する先行研究は、存続企業の立場に立った研究が多いが、本研究は、存続企業から消滅企業への技術知識移転を促進するメカニズムを、合併企業双方の立場に視点を切り替えることにより明らかにした。仮説は、組織学習と知識吸収能力理論の枠組み内で、取引費用理論とエージェンシー理論に基づいて構築した。分析は、特許データと市場データを用いて1996から2008年までの日本の化学企業の合併データを利用した。この結果、(1)存続企業から消滅企業を見た時、技術知識の関連性が低く、市場知識の関連性が高い企業と合併した場合と、(2)消滅企業から存続企業を見た時、技術と市場知識の関連性が高い企業と合併した場合に、技術知識移転が促進されることが明らかとなった。さらに、合併時に消滅企業がとる行動を説明する理論として、エージェンシー理論よりも、取引費用理論が適していることが明らかとなった

The Influence of Firms’ Pragmatic Legitimacy on Investors’ Perceptions of Their Environmental Protection Activities

This study demonstrates the mechanisms by which the pragmatic characteristics of legitimacy influence the promotion of corporate social responsibility activities, focusing on firms and investors. We hypothesize that the more aggressive a firm is in its environmental protection efforts, the higher the reduction in investment risk from its environmental performance. Multiple regression analysis was performed for Japanese chemical-related industries from 2017 to 2019. The results revealed that firms that balance environmental performance with business profits should invest in environmental protection activities and improve their environmental performance without touting profitability. The findings reveal the need to incorporate a profitability perspective when considering the relationship between environmental protection activities and investor perceptions

Internal and inter-organizational collaborations created by companies and standards that transcend national boundaries

As the world has become increasingly globalised, it is now commonplace for companies to have a head office in one country, but various outposts in other countries. Manufacturing is one of the prime examples of this, where the main driving force of an organisation is located in one place but production sites are located overseas. Indeed, the flexibility of a company's ability to relocate production sites overseas is seen as an effective strategy for global manufacturing firms. However, there is a traditional way of viewing such structures, where the main headquarters of a company are the lifeblood of that company, with the localised production sites seen as almost peripheral. Professor Nobuko Nishiwaki is based within the Nihon University College of Economics in Japan, and is the Principal Investigator of a project that seeks to qualify and establish the importance of local production sites; that they are far more than passive actors in the process by which production is relocated. She is working alongside colleagues Associate Professor Akitsu Oe from the Tokyo University of Science and Professor Takashi Shimizu from The University of Tokyo.</jats:p