Barriers to Swift,Even Flow in the Internal Supply Chain of Perioperative Surgical Services Department: A Case Study*

This research analyzes the internal service supply chain of a perioperative surgical services department of a nonacademic community hospital using the theory of swift and even flow as a theoretical lens. Performance data were gathered using an in‐depth case study and it was determined that the swift and even flow constructs did affect flow speed and variance, but did not account for all the effects observed. To understand the need for departments to coordinate their efforts with each other and how this affected flow, further analysis was conducted using insights from Pagell's (2004) theory of internal integration and Gittell's (2002) research about coordinating mechanisms. The findings suggest the need to incorporate a variable measuring supply chain coordination into the theory of swift and even flow.     

A Note on Interpersonal and Communication Skills for IS Professionals: Evidence of Positive Influence

A recent article by Byrd and Turner (2001) reported that interpersonal skills on the part of information systems personnel had a negative influence on the success of systems as measured by competitive advantage. Several reasons were forwarded to account for this unexpected result, including lack of richness in the measure of these skills, the use of strategic success measures, the true complexity of interpersonal relations within an organization, and the sample of CIOs who may have a bias in favor of technical skills. We address these concerns by incorporating a set of communication skills into the interpersonal skills set, sampling users for a different set of stakeholders, and employing a more complex model based on theories of expectation. The results indicate that the impacts of interpersonal skills on system success is not a simple function of the perceived level of the IS staff's skill proficiency but is also determined by the understood expectations of skill requirements.     

A Transaction‐Efficiency Analysis of an Internet Retailing Supply Chain in the Music CD Industry*

The emergence of the Internet may have fundamentally altered the mechanisms underlying information exchanges between sellers and end consumers. However, little attention has been given to the impact these mechanisms have on the efficiency of supply chain operations. This paper begins to address this deficiency in the literature by evaluating supply chain transaction efficiency effects from Internet purchases by consumers. It develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework examining the role Internet purchases have in establishing transaction‐efficiency levels in product exchanges involving sellers, placed at different supply chain echelons, and consumers. The theoretical framework integrates the transaction‐cost and internet economics, inter‐organizational information systems, and supply chain management literatures. Empirical testing, via structural equation modeling, is based on archival data in the Internet music CD market. The results show that Internet‐mediated purchases by consumers allow for greater transaction efficiencies when inventory ownership is postponed farther upstream in the supply chain and supply chain echelons are disintermediated. The results also indicate that channel structure configuration, defined by the supply chains' Internet retailing echelon, moderates these transaction efficiency effects.