Corporate Sponsorships of Philanthropic Activities: When Do They Impact Perception of Sponsor Brand?

We examined the benefits to a corporate sponsor of two types of philanthropic activities — cause promotions and advocacy advertising. Results from 4 laboratory studies indicate that perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are affected by consumers’ elaboration levels. Consumer perceptions of CSR are more favorable for cause promotions, which do not receive much elaboration, than they are for advocacy advertising, which prompts more elaboration. In addition, perceived congruence between the sponsor and the social issue is shown to moderate these effects: Higher congruence between the sponsor and social issue increases favorable ratings of CSR for cause promotions but only if elaboration on the sponsorship activity is facilitated. On the other hand, lower congruence increases favorable ratings of CSR for advocacy advertising as long as elaboration on the sponsorship is not constrained. We also found that higher congruence enhances CSR ratings if participants are primed to focus their attention on the sponsor brand, whereas lower congruence enhances CSR if participants are primed to focus their attention on the social issue

An overview of Smart manufacturing for competitive and digital global supply chains

This research study aims to examine and review the key advantages of smart manufacturing to achieve and improve performance within global supply chain environments. In recent years supply chain has been arisen as one of the major areas to gain a competitive edge in manufacturing industries. The current business methodologies of short product life cycle, increased outsourcing, expanding product variety, improved customer focus and improved technologies has led supply chain to be some challenging and complex tasks. Smart Manufacturing has been considered as a successful advancement in industrial revolution featuring resource efficiency, adaptability, agitability with wide application of internet and other innovative engineering technologies integrating of customers and business value processes creating a better manufacturing environment. The research is at its preliminary stages and will aim to examine and evaluate existing literature within the areas of smart and digital manufacturing and compare examples of best practices and methods towards creating a detailed comprehensive and systematic finding of the key research studies. This paper is a literature review which aims to review the benefits of smart manufacturing and its influence to achieve an improved performance in supply chain

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

The impact of context on variety-seeking in product purchases

One reason consumers seek variety in product choices is to satisfy a need for stimulation. It is suggested that consumers may try to achieve an optimal level of stimulation by balancing the stimulation sought from product choice with the stimulation available from the external choice context. Several laboratory experiments are conducted that show that causing changes in the external choice context (thus increasing stimulation) decreases the amount of variety-seeking subjects exhibit in product choices. Specifically, the results of these experiments suggest that consumers\u27 needs for stimulation may be met by providing variety in a different product category or in other aspects of the choice context. We also show that subjects who desire more stimulation in general (i.e., have higher OSL) need a larger increase in contextual stimulation in order to reduce their variety-seeking behavior, as compared to subjects with lower OSL. In addition, we investigate the process mechanism that may lead to differential choice of variety or novelty in products when contextual stimulation is high or low. We find that when contextual stimulation is lower, subjects tend to search for more novel features and/or items of the product category and tend to choose a more novel item from the choice set, as compared to subjects in the higher contextual stimulation condition. Finally, some of the limiting conditions to the central proposition are also examined. If either preferences change due to the changing external situations, or if positive affect is induced, then the reduction in variety-seeking behavior is mitigated

Growth of digital supply chains for SMEs transformation

Over the past years supply chain has undergone a massive change, from operational function which reported to sales or manufacturing which then focused on ensuring the supply of production lines and delivery to customers, to an independent supply chain management team which is led by Chief Supply Chain Officer in some organisation. Industry 4.0 and their innovative technologies has created a disruption which requires the organisations to redesign their supply chain. Emergence of the industry 4.0 has paved the way for next level of supply chain- Digital Supply Chain. Global market leading manufacturers has positioned themselves with the world of supply chain 4.0 to meet the expectation of their end customers. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) plays has major role in supporting the global market leaders. But SMEs lacks the knowledge of significance of digitalising themselves with the extremely complex supply chain 4.0 which may lead them to losses and closures if they do not transform themselves with the latest innovative technologies and adopt digital supply chain (DSC). This paper aims to review the current literature's on digital supply chain to gain insight of current status of relevant literature's which focus on Digital transformation of supply chain within manufacturing SMEs

Are SMEs ready for Industry 4.0 technologies: an exploratory study of I 4.0 technological impacts

Fourth Industrial revolution, Industry 4.0– A rapidly growing world of digitization that opens the doorway for new era of automation plays a crucial role within the industry which requires a constant research and improvements to achieve and sustain themselves in current world of competitive market. Implementation of industry 4.0 technologies pioneer for a profit maximization with cost reduction and has even realized to show a significant refinement in improved sustainability. Global Market leading organisations are positioning themselves with world of digitisation to their end consumers utilising the digital marketing, e-commerce and customer experience virtually driving towards a completely new era of digital ecosystem. Supply chain management (SCM) within the small and medium enterprises (SME’s) plays an important role in supporting the global manufacturing economies. SME’s lacks the understanding and significance of transforming themselves with the extremely complex digital supply chain systems that may leads to losses if they don’t embrace now for innovations and implement the latest technological advancements. This paper aims to examine the current trends and impacts of latest technologies within the SME’s with the view of key factors of Industry 4.0

An overview of digitalisation in conventional supply chain management

Rapidly growing technology and a digitally focused world have opened the door for a new wave of automation to enter the work force in the industry. Industry 4.0 plays a vital role in Supply chain management (SCM) which requires constant research and improvements due to high demand to meet their global competitive markets. As part of achieving this high demands, SCM has been incorporating the latest evolving technologies by digitalizing and automating themselves to increase their financial profits and competitiveness in the market. This paper aims to have a review on Supply Chain Management (SCM) and latest technologies in Industry 4.0 revolution