Imitation of Management Practices in Supply Networks: Relational and Environmental Effects

This study investigates the imitative use of management practices across a multitier supply network. Although imitation may take the form of any management practice, operationally, we focus on whether the buyer’s control practices used with first-tier suppliers results in similar control practices being used by these first-tier suppliers with the second-tier suppliers. Drawing on institutional theory, we identify relational context (i.e., affective commitment) and environmental context (i.e., environmental uncertainty) as two important factors influencing the extent to which such imitation takes place. Using unique survey data of vertically linked supply chain triads, we generally find support for the occurrence of imitation and more so in cases of high affective commitment. The results regarding environmental uncertainty further reveal selectivity in imitative behavior, calling attention to the level of deliberateness in imitation decisions in supply networks. Besides contributing to theory on imitative behaviors in the supply chain, this study also generates practical implications on the spread of management practices across multiple tiers

Co-Creative Action Research Experiments—A Careful Method for Causal Inference and Societal Impact

The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic that does not seem to go away so easily. The grassroots movement Responsible Research in Business and Management, for instance, is a very active and prominent advocate of the need to change current research practices in the management domain, broadly defined. One of its main critiques is that current research practices are not apt to address day-to-day management challenges, nor do they allow such management challenges to feed into academic research. In this paper, we address this issue, and present a research design, referred to as CARE, that is aimed at building a bridge from rigor to relevance, and vice versa. In so doing, we offer a template for conducting rigorous research with immediate impact, contributing to solving issues that businesses are struggling with through a design that facilitates causal inference

Plant-RRBS, a bisulfite and next-generation sequencing-based methylome profiling method enriching for coverage of cytosine positions

Background: Cytosine methylation in plant genomes is important for the regulation of gene transcription and transposon activity. Genome-wide methylomes are studied upon mutation of the DNA methyltransferases, adaptation to environmental stresses or during development. However, from basic biology to breeding programs, there is a need to monitor multiple samples to determine transgenerational methylation inheritance or differential cytosine methylation. Methylome data obtained by sodium hydrogen sulfite (bisulfite)-conversion and next-generation sequencing (NGS) provide genome- wide information on cytosine methylation. However, a profiling method that detects cytosine methylation state dispersed over the genome would allow high-throughput analysis of multiple plant samples with distinct epigenetic signatures. We use specific restriction endonucleases to enrich for cytosine coverage in a bisulfite and NGS-based profiling method, which was compared to whole-genome bisulfite sequencing of the same plant material. Methods: We established an effective methylome profiling method in plants, termed plant-reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (plant-RRBS), using optimized double restriction endonuclease digestion, fragment end repair, adapter ligation, followed by bisulfite conversion, PCR amplification and NGS. We report a performant laboratory protocol and a straightforward bioinformatics data analysis pipeline for plant-RRBS, applicable for any reference-sequenced plant species. Results: As a proof of concept, methylome profiling was performed using an Oryza sativa ssp. indica pure breeding line and a derived epigenetically altered line (epiline). Plant-RRBS detects methylation levels at tens of millions of cytosine positions deduced from bisulfite conversion in multiple samples. To evaluate the method, the coverage of cytosine positions, the intra-line similarity and the differential cytosine methylation levels between the pure breeding line and the epiline were determined. Plant-RRBS reproducibly covers commonly up to one fourth of the cytosine positions in the rice genome when using MspI-DpnII within a group of five biological replicates of a line. The method predominantly detects cytosine methylation in putative promoter regions and not-annotated regions in rice. Conclusions: Plant-RRBS offers high-throughput and broad, genome- dispersed methylation detection by effective read number generation obtained from reproducibly covered genome fractions using optimized endonuclease combinations, facilitating comparative analyses of multi-sample studies for cytosine methylation and transgenerational stability in experimental material and plant breeding populations

The Relationship between Brand- and Media Personality Characteristics

Brand personality has regained interest as a marketing topic since the development of the brand personality scale in 1997 by Aaker. Research, however, on personality traits of media channels as brands as such, but also as carriers of brand personalities of other brands, is still a rather untapped source. However, comparing brand with media personalities could probably reveal helpful insights to improve the current media selection algorithms which largely rely on the personalities and lifestyles of the users of the brands and media channels. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between brand- and media personality characteristics. For this purpose, brands and media channels are described with the same personality characteristics so that they can be represented in the same perceptual mapping of personality characteristics.Media channels, Personality characteristics, Brands