Supply Chain Models with Mutual Commitments and Implications for Social Responsibility

In today's increasingly globalized environment, more and more companies recognize the mutual dependence of supply chain partners in value creation. When making business decisions, they take into consideration their partners’ bottom line profitability, especially in emerging markets. The question is, is this kind of practice sustainable? This study makes an attempt to formalize this issue by examining a stylized two‐party supply chain model in which each player maximizes its own profit while making a certain commitment to its partner. We compare five different games between the two supply‐chain partners, which reflect different power positions of the players and different levels of commitment. We identify conditions under which both players are better off with mutual commitments than without, a situation we call win–win. We show that win–win can be achieved if and only if the mutual commitments are comparable. Thus, the recognition of mutual dependence of the supply chain members needs to be translated into reciprocal concerns. In addition, different players’ commitments play different roles but together they have a similar effect as a profit sharing contract. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings in the context of socially responsible operations. In particular, our analyses show that it is possible to care about the supply chain partners’ bottom line without sacrificing one's own profitability, and our models can be used as a tool to determine the commitment levels by evaluating the predicted outcome.     

From War Refugees to Immigrants: The Case of the KMT Yunnanese Chinese in Northern Thailand1

The KMT (Kuomintang) Yunnanese Chinese in Northern Thailand have a complex migration history spread over different generations and places. It not only reflects political entanglements involving different power entities, but also illustrates the dynamic reaction of the people to the complications. The article focuses on the interactions between the political powers and the people. The process highlights that the Yunnanese are not mere objects controlled by external policies or conditions. After a few decades of hard life, they have been transforming themselves from refugee warriors to immigrants.     

Actuarial balance sheets as a tool to assess the sustainability of social security pension systems

The choice of the methodology used to produce a social security pension system's balance sheet is mainly determined by the system's financing approach. In this article, it is shown using the example of the Canada Pension Plan that if the assessment of the financial sustainability of a pay‐as‐you‐go or partially funded system is done through the means of an actuarial balance sheet, then the methodology used should take into account future contributions of current and future participants. The balance sheets produced using the open group approach, as well as methodologies used in United States and Sweden, are discussed.     

Dynamic Marketing Capabilities: Toward an Integrative Framework

In recent years, the dynamic capabilities view has attracted attention in the management literature, and theoretical papers note many research challenges. Currently, one of the most significant issues is the role of the marketing function in the development of dynamic capabilities, and some recent discussions have even introduced the new term ‘dynamic marketing capabilities’. The main area of interest is how to achieve a well‐integrated framework to serve as the starting point for empirical papers. Although the most recent research proposes a wide range of processes as possible dynamic marketing capabilities, it is difficult to find consensus among these proposals. To resolve this difficulty, this paper seeks to define the dynamic marketing capabilities construct based on accepted components in the generic dynamic capabilities view. More specifically, it defines the role of dynamic marketing capabilities through absorptive capacity and knowledge management. By identifying these components and relating them in an integrative model, the authors propose to explain how dynamic marketing capabilities work and precisely which marketing processes promote both components.     

Estimating the Probability of Rare Events Occurring Using a Local Model Averaging

In statistical applications, logistic regression is a popular method for analyzing binary data accompanied by explanatory variables. But when one of the two outcomes is rare, the estimation of model parameters has been shown to be severely biased and hence estimating the probability of rare events occurring based on a logistic regression model would be inaccurate. In this article, we focus on estimating the probability of rare events occurring based on logistic regression models. Instead of selecting a best model, we propose a local model averaging procedure based on a data perturbation technique applied to different information criteria to obtain different probability estimates of rare events occurring. Then an approximately unbiased estimator of Kullback‐Leibler loss is used to choose the best one among them. We design complete simulations to show the effectiveness of our approach. For illustration, a necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) data set is analyzed.     

Risk‐Based Approach for Microbiological Food Safety Management in the Dairy Industry: The Case of Listeria monocytogenes in Soft Cheese Made from Pasteurized Milk

According to Codex Alimentarius Commission recommendations, management options applied at the process production level should be based on good hygiene practices, HACCP system, and new risk management metrics such as the food safety objective. To follow this last recommendation, the use of quantitative microbiological risk assessment is an appealing approach to link new risk‐based metrics to management options that may be applied by food operators. Through a specific case study, Listeria monocytogenes in soft cheese made from pasteurized milk, the objective of the present article is to practically show how quantitative risk assessment could be used to direct potential intervention strategies at different food processing steps. Based on many assumptions, the model developed estimates the risk of listeriosis at the moment of consumption taking into account the entire manufacturing process and potential sources of contamination. From pasteurization to consumption, the amplification of a primo‐contamination event of the milk, the fresh cheese or the process environment is simulated, over time, space, and between products, accounting for the impact of management options, such as hygienic operations and sampling plans. A sensitivity analysis of the model will help orientating data to be collected prioritarily for the improvement and the validation of the model. What‐if scenarios were simulated and allowed for the identification of major parameters contributing to the risk of listeriosis and the optimization of preventive and corrective measures.     

Variables Affecting Readiness to Benefit From Career Interventions

This article identifies and briefly describes the broad range of variables that may influence clients’ readiness to benefit from career interventions. The article also discusses consequences of low readiness for effective use of career interventions and addresses implications for practice as well as for future research. Variables contributing to low readiness for effective use of career interventions include personal characteristics and circumstances; knowledge of self, options, and decision making; and prior experience with career interventions. Consequences of low readiness for using career interventions include premature disengagement, negative perception of skills and interests, selective acquisition of incomplete information, premature choice foreclosure, protracted exploration, dependent decision‐making style, and poor evaluation of options.     

Computer‐Assisted Career Guidance Systems: A Part of NCDA History

The first computer‐assisted career planning systems were developed in the late 1960s and were based soundly on the best of career development and decision‐making theory. Over the years, this tradition has continued as the technology that delivers these systems’ content has improved dramatically and as they have been universally accepted as effective tools for career guidance practice. Although their widespread use in the United States is currently affected by financial conditions, the potential for using these systems in developing countries as a part of their implementation of career guidance services is promising.     

Good Effects of Bad Feelings: Negative Affectivity and Group Decision‐making

Extending the growing interest in the relationship between affect and workgroup processes, we propose that groups make better use of their distributed information and therefore make better decisions when group members are higher in negative affectivity. In an experiment, we studied the influence of negative affectivity when information was distributed among group members and when group members had fully shared information. Results indicated that negative affectivity indeed stimulates group information processing and decision quality when information is distributed among group members.