Supply chain agility as an acclimatisation process to environmental uncertainty and organisational vulnerabilities: insights from British SMEs

Abstract

Even though supply chain agility (SCA) has been considered an essential concept in supply chain management (SCM) research, the way it is experienced and manifested, especially by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has received much less attention. Our purpose is to focus on SME organisational vulnerabilities in the context of increased environmental uncertainty, and explore how SCA is developed and applied by SMEs amid their vulnerabilities. By relying on insights from comparative case studies of three British SMEs, we examine SME SCA as an acclimatisation process and delve into SMEs’ experiences of facing environmental uncertainty while developing and applying SCA. Our findings highlight that organisational attitudes underlie how SMEs perceive environmental uncertainty, tackle organisational vulnerabilities and develop SCA as an acclimatisation process. Our findings also reveal that resource constraints, supply chain relationships, interorganisational power dynamics, and access to information play important roles in developing SCA.     

关注利益相关者与实现民营外贸企业成功转型的关系研究

入世后,我国民营外贸企业得到了迅猛的发展,目前已基本完成了"量"的积累,进入了全面转型和提升"质"的阶段。民营外贸企业要突破当前的发展困境,必须关注企业的内外部利益相关者,只有得到他们的充分理解与大力支持,才能成功实现企业的转型。     

Did small and medium enterprises maintain better jobs during the early years of the recession? Job quality multidimensional evidence from Spain

While the literature has indeed confirmed a general tendency linking small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to a dynamic of greater job creation, there is little available evidence on what has happened to job quality since the financial crisis. Through a representative sample of 5311 employees in 2008 (first year of job destruction) and 4925 employees in 2010 (last year for which data were available), and using a two-stage structural equation model, this article empirically analyses the multidimensional determinants of job quality, by enterprise-size class, in Spain. The research has revealed three main results. First, job quality in Spain improved in all enterprises, regardless of their size, during the early years of the recession. Second, the greatest improvements were found in SMEs. Although job quality was already better in SMEs than in large enterprises in 2008, the differences between them subsequently widened. Third, this accelerated divergence was explained by the following dimensions: working conditions, work intensity, health and safety at work, and work–life balance. These dimensions were much more positive in SMEs. Employment-related public policy should therefore focus more specifically on SMEs. There are two reasons for this. First, despite the recession, SMEs have shown themselves to be key factors in the explanation of job quality. Second, by making changes to their value generation model, they could continue to drive the creation of better quality jobs.     

法治视野下科研事业单位国有资产监管体制的风险拷问

科研事业单位的国有资产,不能因其资产的非生产性、无偿使用性、公共利益性就脱离法律监管的视域,因为法治精神意味着法律权威在监管主体和监管对象之间要建立约束与契约关系,故而以法治精神为参考坐标,可以清楚地认识到当前我国的科研事业单位国有资产监管体制存在着诸多漏洞和风险。     

Optimal cut-off for rare events and unbalanced misclassification costs

This paper develops a method for handling two-class classification problems with highly unbalanced class sizes and misclassification costs. When the class sizes are highly unbalanced and the minority class represents a rare event, conventional classification methods tend to strongly favour the majority class, resulting in very low detection of the minority class. A method is proposed to determine the optimal cut-off for asymmetric misclassification costs and for unbalanced class sizes. Monte Carlo simulations show that this proposal performs better than the method based on the notion of classification accuracy. Finally, the proposed method is applied to empirical data on Italian small and medium enterprises to classify them into default and non-default groups.     

农业产业化龙头企业可持续发展战略研究——基于郑州市农业龙头企业发展的分析

农业产业化龙头企业发展到现在,迫切需要建立起自己的发展战略体系,以指导企业未来的经营与发展,使企业更好地适应越来越严峻的竞争形势。通过对郑州市农业龙头企业可持续发展问题的分析,提出我国农业产业化龙头企业可持续发展的战略。     

苏北民营企业发展竞争力研究

企业的竞争力是企业生存与发展的基础，面对国内外日益激烈的市场竞争，要想在竞争中立于不败之地，民营企业就必须注重提升企业竞争力。在比较苏南、苏北民营企业竞争力的基础上，从产权结构与治理结构、创新能力、人才资源、市场结构、运营成本等方面分析了苏北民营企业竞争力的制约因素，提出了提升苏北民营企业竞争力的对策。     

基于决策树算法的农业上市公司股利分配政策研究

股利分配政策是上市公司对盈利进行分配或留存的决策问题.在大数据时代运用微软商业智能中的决策树算法,可以对农业上市公司的相关财务数据进行深入挖掘.通过决策树规则进行分析,找出农业上市公司股利分配采购影响因素,为农业上市公司制定现金股利分配股利分配政策提供决策依据,也为商业智能工具在企业决策中的运用提供借鉴.     

金融发展影响我国中小企业出口规模的实证研究

基于2001—2013年我国30个省市面板数据,从金融规模、金融结构和金融效率3个角度,详细探究了金融发展与我国中小企业出口规模的关系以及影响效应。结果表明：金融规模对中小企业出口规模扩张存在显著的负向影响,金融结构对中小企业出口规模扩张产生促进作用,而金融效率指标对中小企业出口的影响不显著;政府财政支出和外商直接投资显著促进中小企业出口活动,基础设施水平一定程度上抑制了中小企业出口活动。     

中国上市 ITO 企业经营效率评价及影响因素分析

运用基于规模报酬可变的投入导向的超效率DEA模型,对在沪深两市上市的具有代表性的30家中国ITO企业的经营效率进行实证研究,结果表明中国上市ITO公司整体运营效率不高,且各企业之间存在显著差异性。为分析企业规模、员工素质、研发投入等因素对中国上市ITO企业效率的影响,采用Tobit模型发现企业规模、员工素质、政府支持等因素对企业运营效率有着积极地影响,而研发投入对企业运营效率的影响并不显著。