Using cross-functional, cross-firm teams to co-create value: The role of financial measures

Increasingly, the involvement of representatives from all major business functions in cross-functional, crossfirmteams is being viewed as a means to develop and maintain profitable business-to-business relationships.However, if the measurements of the value co-created in these relationships with customers and suppliers donot incorporate the financial outcomes of joint cross-functional initiatives, managers can be led to makedecisions that jeopardize the long-term profitability of the two firms. In this paper, the authors explore thedifferences in value co-creation when a company is linked to key customers and key suppliers through crossfunctionalteams and when it is not. Using a case study approach, the authors measured value co-creation infinancial terms and describe how managers changed their behaviors toward customers and suppliers whenthey were able to compare the value that was being co-created in each relationship. In each pair ofrelationships, one involved cross-functional teams and the other did not. The results indicate that crossfunctional,cross-firm involvement leads to increased value co-creation. The research suggests that marketingscholars and managers should emphasize the use of cross-functional teams that involve all major functions tomanage relationships with key customers, and should incorporate financial measures in the evaluation ofrelationship performance

Strategic Price Positioning for Revenue Management: The Effects of Relative Price Position and Fluctuation on Performance

Emerging price optimization models systematically incorporate competitor price information into the derivation of optimal price points. While consideration of competitor pricing at this tactical level is essential to maximizing short-term revenues, the long-term impact of competitive price positioning on revenue performance should not be overlooked. This study examines the effect of two key dimensions of strategic price positioning - relative price position and relative price fluctuation - on the revenue performance of 6998 US hotels over an 11-year period. It finds that revenue performance is strongest for hotels that price higher than the competition and maintain a consistent relative price over time. Implications for revenue management practitioners are discussed

Phase transition between quantum and classical regimes for the escape rate of a biaxial spin system

Employing the method of mapping the spin problem onto a particle one, we have derived the particle Hamiltonian for a biaxial spin system with a transverse or longitudinal magnetic field. Using the Hamiltonian and introducing the parameter $p (\equiv (U_{max}-E)/(U_{max}-U_{min}))$ where $U_{max}$ (U_{min}) corresponds to the top (bottom) of the potential and $E$ is the energy of the particle, we have studied the first- or second-order transition around the crossover temperature between thermal and quantum regimes for the escape rate, depending on the anisotropy constant and the external magnetic field. It is shown that the phase boundary separating the first- and second-order transition and its crossover temperature are greatly influenced by the transverse anisotropy constant as well as the transverse or longitudinal magnetic field.Comment: 5 pages + 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Total Hotel Revenue Management: A Strategic Profit Perspective

Hospitality firms are expanding traditional revenue management (RM) practice to focus on customer value and strategic profit management. Participants in series of semi-structured interviews suggested that revenue management is moving away from a sole focus on top-line rooms revenue toward a bottom-line orientation focused on the customer. Thus, RM will expand to multiple revenue sources and encompass a multi-channel demand management approach. The interviews with sixteen senior hotel leaders, RM vendors, and solution providers highlighted the importance of profit, rather than just revenue, given rising distribution and variable costs. Despite the attraction of other revenue and profit sources, such as F&B, spas, and function space, the participants noted that expanding RM to those areas involves complexities not found in the rooms division. Ideally, hoteliers seek to assess the value of each customer’s patronage and develop a specific relationship with each customer. With changes envisioned by these hotel leaders, the practice of revenue management will evolve into the more accurate and expansive notion of strategic profit management

Purchasing From Minority Small Businesses

This article employs a transaction costs framework to analyze the problems of Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) purchasing programs. The results from field surveys of small minority firms and corporate purchasing personnel indicate that program participants face differences in transaction costs and in their preferences of ways to overcome these costs. In the majority of situations, minority firms face higher transaction costs than do their corporate purchasing counterparts. The article offers recommendations for improving the performance of MBE purchasing programs, and the policy implications for these programs are discussed

On the Observability of Meso- and Macro-scopic Quantum Coherence of Domain Walls in Magnetic Insulators

Results are presented of a numerical calculation of the tunneling gap for a domain wall moving in the double well potential of a pair of voids in a magnetic insulator. Both symmetric and asymmetric double well potentials are considered. It is found that, even in the absence of dissipation, the prospects for observing quantum coherence on a meso- or macro-scopic scale appears unlikely.Comment: 15 pages, Plain LaTex, UBC TP-93-1

The Value Orientations of Minority and Non-Minority Small Business Owners

This study examines value orientations of minority and non-minority small business owners and contrasts their perceived similarity with corporate customers. Six categories of organizational values, including the values of collectivism, duty, rationality, novelty, materialism, and power are examined. Analyses of a sample of 252 small business firms Indicate that minority owners differ from non-minority owners in their value orientations; and are significantly different from non-minority owners in the degree to which they perceive organizational value similarity with customers. However, the levels of perceived value similarity with corporate customers did not vary among the minority groups (i.e. blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans). An implication is that value orientation may be an important component in the process of aligning the minority business firm with its environment. Further, a value system may be guiding the behavior of the minority small business owners against the overwhelming odds of racial/ethnic dissimilarities

Tunnelling series in terms of perturbation theory for quantum spin systems

Considered is quantum tunnelling in anisotropic spin systems in a magnetic field perpendicular to the anisotropy axis. In the domain of small field the problem of calculating tunnelling splitting of energy levels is reduced to constructing the perturbatio n series with degeneracy, the order of degeneracy being proportional to a spin value. Partial summation of this series taking into account ''dangerous terms'' with small denominators is performed and the value of tunnelling splitting is calculated with allowance for the first correction with respect to a magnetic field.Comment: 7 pages, REVTeX 3.

Best Practices in the U.S. Lodging Industry: Overview, Methods, and Champions

When a lodging operation is doing an innovative and excellent job in a particular area, the industry benefits from spreading the word about the practice. But first one has to discover those best practices