农业企业社会责任动机对财务绩效的影响

运用扎根理论研究方法,对沪深两市中14家农业企业2008年的社会责任表现数据进行分析,构建农业企业社会责任动机与财务绩效的关系模型并进行检验.得出战略动机有助于提高企业财务绩效,而利他动机对财务绩效的影响以负面为主,但不排除因赢得社会声誉提高财务绩效的可能性;产品创新和过程创新的契合度调节了企业社会责任表现对财务绩效的影响,即产品创新、过程创新与企业社会责任表现的协调一致能够有效提高企业财务绩效.     

The effects of integrated supply management practices and environmental management practices on relative competitive quality advantage

Superior quality continues to be central to a manufacturing company's success, and firms are constantly striving for quality advantage over their competition. It is therefore crucial for companies to ensure the sound practice of quality management principles. However, companies must also seek additional avenues to enhance the relative competitive quality advantage of their product offerings. In this context, we examine the role of integrated supply management practices (SMP) and environmental management practices (EMP) as drivers of actual and perceived quality. We suggest that these groups of practices, in addition to quality management practices, are crucial in an increasingly transparent, competitive and global business environment. As such, SMP can be leveraged with suppliers providing expertise, capabilities and high quality inputs for the final product, resulting in higher actual quality, but also via the suppliers’ more intangible reputation, generating higher perceived quality. Similarly, EMP can result in process improvements impacting actual quality, but can also create a favourable image of the company among customers, enhancing the perceived quality of the firm's products. Overall, we suggest SMP and EMP as key strategic drivers aiding in the further differentiation of firms. Our hypotheses are grounded in the resource-based view of the firm, and are tested with survey data collected from 434 manufacturing plants.     

The mediator role of learning capability and business innovativeness between total quality management and financial performance

The concept of total quality management (TQM) has attracted many researchers from a variety of disciplines. In particular, the literature has addressed the impact of TQM on a firm’s operations and performance. However, disparate perspectives on the relationship between TQM and a firm’s financial performance have emerged. In this paper, we suggest an interconnected relationship among TQM, organisational learning capability (OLC), business innovativeness, and a firm’s financial performance and propose that OLC and business innovativeness mediate the relationship between TQM and a firm’s financial performance. By studying 193 firms in Turkey, we found that: (1) TQM affects OLC and a firm’s business innovativeness, (2) OLC influences a firm’s business innovativeness and (3) a firm’s business innovativeness affects its financial performance. Also, we found that OLC and business innovativeness in a firm mediate the relationship between TQM and the firm’s financial performance.     

How to understand “salable fake goods” and “unsalable quality goods”? An insight from the view of quality responsibility and consumers’ brand loyalty

A body of theoretical and practical research suggests technology innovation is the driving force for enterprise survival and development and that maintaining business ethics is an important guarantee in sustaining these enterprises developments. Fulfilling the “hard responsibility” of product quality based on technical standards and the “soft responsibility” of product quality based on business ethics is an important principle stimulating the benign interaction and continuous progress of technological innovation and business ethics, and realizing a balanced development of enterprises and society, which could promote positive brand and enterprise image to both stakeholders and consumers, helping consumers choose high-quality products in the market and social competition. However, the strange marketing phenomena of “salable fake goods” and “unsalable quality goods” shows that no systematic marketing strategies have been identified to date, that enterprises could adopt to effectively promote the recognition of consumers and turn them into a loyal customer group and have a stable market share. Based on customer buying behavior theory, cognitive consistency theory, signal theory, and social identity theory, this study explored the influencing mechanism of quality responsibility on brand loyalty of consumers and the mediating role of corporate reputation and brand identification, using 224 valid questionnaires from 16 communities (residents) in Shanxi and Henan provinces of China tested by SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 25.0. Results show that quality responsibility has a significant positive influence on brand behavior loyalty and brand attitude loyalty, and both corporate emotional reputation and brand identification play mediating roles in the relationship between quality responsibility and brand behavior loyalty, and quality responsibility and brand attitude loyalty. Additionally, corporate cognitive reputation only plays a mediating role in the relationship between quality responsibility and brand behavior loyalty. Obtained conclusions in the study provide references for enterprise managers and government decision-makers in exploring management strategies of expediting future technological development and next-generation upgrades & transformations, improving quality and technology benchmarks, optimizing product quality responsibility system and promoting sustainable social development.     

Integrating failure analysis and risk analysis with quality assurance in the design phase of medical product development

Today, manufacturing operates as a global network, which has created more awareness of the quality of products and services. A systematic and rational way of managing quality assurance is currently lacking. This can cause serious problems in sectors such as the medical industry, as product failure may not only cause time delays, but also create risks for the health and safety of patients and users. This paper proposes a quality assurance approach that incorporates risk analysis (based on ISO14971) and failure analysis (based on FMEA) into the product design phase to assure product quality in the short term and facilitate global manufacturing practices in the long run. The proposed approach includes a Markov model to predict product failure from a customer perspective, which serves as a checkpoint for feedback to provide a basis for quality assurance. A medical equipment firm is used as a test-bed to illustrate how the proposed approach works and to verify its effectiveness.     

Developing environmental and social performance: the role of suppliers’ sustainability and buyer–supplier trust

We explore how environmental and social performance of manufacturing firms can be improved as sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) develops and evolves within a firm from internal to external practices. Importantly, this study considers how key suppliers’ sustainability performance and buyer–supplier trust mediate and moderate such a development. A conceptual framework is developed which relies on resource-based theories and emerging empirical evidence. Then, partial least square methodology is applied on survey data from a sample of Italian manufacturing firms. Results show that manufacturing firms’ sustainability performance improves as SSCM develops; however, while internal practices have a direct impact on performance, the effect of external practices on a manufacturing firm’s sustainability performance is fully mediated by key suppliers’ sustainability performance. Yet, buyer–supplier trust significantly influences the scope of such gains. Since evidence suggests that manufacturing firms are still struggling with how to leverage supply chain innovation potential for sustainable development, this study provides a timely and valuable contribution.     

Product data quality validation system for product development processes in high-tech industry

Among various product data, 3D CAD data plays a key role in current product design and manufacturing processes including industrial design, detail design, CAE, inspection, mould-making, production, and so on. If 3D CAD data has geometrical or topological errors by user mistakes or modelling software bugs and those errors are not cleaned by the data creator in an early stage, the data will be transferred to the downstream operators and they have to fix the errors before starting their own work. Because 3D data is quite complex, it is very difficult to recognise the data errors manually in a modelling system before a big problem is encountered which blocks the next operation. In this case, it generally causes time delay and high cost for data correction and the effect will be bigger when the process is close to the back-end. In this research, we develop a fully automated product data quality validation and management system to support the product development processes of high-tech products like televisions, camcorders, mobile telephones, home appliances, etc. The system automatically validates the 3D data in real time and gives 3D error reports to the creator to correct modelling failures in their steps. Also, project managers can check or control the data delivery based on the data quality for each step.     

Agent-based knowledge management system with APQP: implementation of semiconductor manufacturing services industry

Future challenges posed to semiconductor manufacturing services firms demands a system framework which could not only introduce, development, and design new products into mass production with customer-acceptable quality level and profitable approaches, but also re-use best practice in the shop floor to continuously optimise the existing order fulfilment process with effectiveness and efficiency. Advanced product quality planning (APQP) tool integrated with agent-based knowledge management (KM) intelligence develops a systematic framework that responds to such challenges. We propose an APQP tool working with an agent-based knowledge management system (ABKMS) which builds on organisational knowledge resources and works with the APQP concept as well as KM agents. The proposed framework reflects how an APQP tool with KM agents seeks significant inroads into process knowledge repository to recommend a solution for decision making in delivering semiconductor manufacturing services in customer selection, parts and material selection, bill of material, equipments, and tools selection, with a modified APQP concept to work out the approach to be used to develop the streamlined and common process.     

The role of crowdsourcing in product design: The moderating effect of user expertise and network connectivity

To meet the challenges of customization and personalized design in the context of the digital economy, increasing numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are using crowdsourcing platforms to seek product design innovation. While crowdsourcing has significant potential for eliciting product ideas, it remains unclear whether it can generate high-quality designs for relatively more complex product design tasks. Based on a leading social new product development website Quirky.com, we explore the antecedents of a firm's adoption decision of crowdsourcing, the impact of crowdsourcing on product design quality, and the moderating effect of user expertise and network connectivity by utilizing treatment effect model. The results indicate that: (1) crowdsourcing has a significant positive impact on product design quality; (2) user expertise positively moderates the role of crowdsourcing in product design quality; (3) network connectivity has an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on crowdsourcing and product design quality relationship; (4) the probability of firm's crowdsourcing adoption is negatively correlated with the complexity and reliability of initial product idea but positively correlated with popularity, novelty, and numbers of images. This study not only enriches the crowdsourcing and social network theory; but also provides guidance for crowdsourcing platform firms to better manage the crowdsourcing process and user crowdsourcing communities.     

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Many capital good firms deliver products that are not strictly one-off, but instead share a certain degree of similarity with other deliveries. In the delivery of the product, they aim to balance stability and variety in their product design and processes. The issue of engineering change plays an important in how they manage to do so. Our aim is to gain more understanding into how capital good firms manage engineering change, design variety and process variety, and into the role of the product delivery strategies they thereby use. Product delivery strategies are defined as the type of engineering work that is done independent of an order and the specification freedom the customer has in the remaining part of the design. Based on the within-case and cross-case analysis of two capital good firms several mechanisms for managing engineering change, design variety and process variety are distilled. It was found that there exist different ways of (1) managing generic design information, (2) isolating large engineering changes, (3) managing process variety, (4) designing and executing engineering change processes. Together with different product delivery strategies these mechanisms can be placed within an archetypes framework of engineering change management. On one side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to open product delivery strategies, have some practices in place to investigate design reuse potential, isolate discontinuous engineering changes into the first deliveries of the product, employ ‘probe and learn’ process management principles in order to allow evolving insights to be accurately executed and have informal engineering change processes. On the other side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to a closed product delivery strategy, focus on prevention of engineering changes based on design standards, need no isolation mechanisms for discontinuous engineering changes, have formal process management practices in place and make use of closed and formal engineering change procedures. The framework should help managers to (1) analyze existing configurations of product delivery strategies, product and process designs and engineering change management and (2) reconfigure any of these elements according to a ‘misfit’ derived from the framework. Since this is one of the few in-depth empirical studies into engineering change management in the capital good sector, our work adds to the understanding on the various ways in which engineering change can be dealt with.     

The moderating effect of slack resources on the relation between quality management and organisational learning

Recent literature in the field of strategic management suggests that firms must learn to combine internal competencies and resources in order to achieve competitive advantages. This paper examines how firms employ slack resources to enhance the relationship between quality management (QM) and organisational learning to obtain sustainable competitive advantages. The findings use empirical data gathered from 202 quality managers to support the hypotheses that: (1) there is a strong connection between organisational learning and QM; and (2) the relation between organisational learning and QM is moderated by slack resources.     

Theory and practice of manufacturing strategy

This paper first proposes a methodology for manufacturing strategy development based on a critical review of the theory of manufacturing strategy. The methodology captures the essential factors that must be considered, and the steps that must be taken, by a firm attempting to design a viable manufacturing strategy. An exploratory study of the process of formulating and implementing manufacturing strategy practised by three firms is conducted. Their experiences in the manufacturing strategy process are reported and analysed. While the practice of each firm is different, the process of manufacturing strategy formulation seems to be in line with the conceptual models discussed in the literature. Our findings offer some evidence that manufacturing is slowly shedding its image as the ‘missing link’ in corporate strategy. While managers of the studied firms are fully aware of the competitive advantages that manufacturing can provide, they are not totally committed to articulating a manufacturing strategy because of concerns about its successful implementation. It is proposed that further research on manufacturing strategy focus on such implementation issues as the infrastructure, corporate culture, performance measurements, decision-making and managerial styles.     

新时期品牌形象推广面临的问题及对策

随着国家经济文化的快速发展,新形势下品牌形象在设计推广中面临前所未有的竞争和挑战。通过对新时期品牌设计与经济民生的作用,品牌推广对智能科技与文化价值输出的影响,以及品牌设计对人才培养及企业发展与社会责任等多方面问题分析,从品牌视觉传达设计管理角度,根据多年实践经验总结、梳理出影响品牌推广的宏观和微观的关键内容。通过对新时期下社会发展人才需求的分析,找到专业的学科新架构和学科人才培养方向,为解决国家、城市、企业品牌建设和社会经济发展服务找到更好的方式和方法。     

Examining the antecedents of idea contribution in online innovation communities: A perspective of creative self-efficacy

In recent decades, firms have increasingly utilized online innovation communities to facilitate product development and improvement by encouraging users' product idea submission. An emerging research stream examines the driver of users' idea contributions. The present study explores the impact of peer feedback on the basis of creative self-efficacy theory, sponsoring firm feedback, direct mastery experiences, and social learning on idea contribution. Using data from 13,116 users of MIUI Forum, our empirical results show that peer feedback and sponsoring firm feedback are positively related to the quantity and quality of users' ideas. Although social learning positively affects the number of user's ideas, it is negatively associated with idea quality. Direct mastery experiences have no significant effect on idea quantity but reduce idea quality. The negative impact of direct mastery experiences on idea quality is stronger with users' higher membership status. These findings offer significant implications for online innovation community management.     

Are quality management practices enough to improve process innovation?

The popularity of quality management as a system for continuous improvement has not been accompanied by deep theoretical understanding of its effects on process innovation. In this work, the resource-based view serves as the basis for the construction of a model designed to explain the effects of quality management practices (QMP) on process innovation performance and the mediating role of dynamic capabilities in this relationship. The empirical data were analysed using the structural equation modelling technique by examining 6 competing models that represent full, partial mediation and non-mediation relationships on a sample of 550 Spanish industrial companies. The findings indicate that the implementation level of QMP is not directly related to process innovation performance, but learning and technological capabilities fully mediate this relationship. Therefore, QMP needs to enhance and develop dynamic capabilities to effectively achieve the improvement and transformation of a firm’s processes.     

Enhancing the firm's performance through quality and supply base management: An empirical study

Over the past ten years, both total quality management and supply base management have become significant strategic tools for firms that are striving to achieve competitive success. This study examines firms' operational quality approaches, supplier evaluation practices, and supply base management activities, and relates these strategic initiatives to firm performance. Hypotheses were tested through the use of bivariate correlation, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis of survey data from a cross-industry sample of quality directors and vice presidents in US firms. While many strategic quality approaches and supply base management tools are positively correlated with firm performance, our results show that quality management and supply base management techniques and tools must be implemented conjointly to achieve superior financial and business performance. The implication is that managers must seek to integrate the activities of quality assurance with those of purchasing and materials management.     

基于保质设计方法的产品开发决策研究

讨论了保质设计思想指导下的产品开发设计策略,并以产品开发设计的关键阶段——概念设计为对象,进一步研究了产品概念设计决策过程,建立了产品概念设计方案的评价指标体系和基于模糊优选理论的决策模型.     

Exploring the impact of organisational,technological and relational contingencies on innovation speed in the light of open innovation

ABSTRACT

Striving for competitive advantage pushes firms to innovate at a high speed along innovation contingencies and resource limitations they face. Yet, little is known about how management of contingencies such as absorptive capacity or technology radicalness can impact the innovation speed of firms. In this explorative study, we provide new empirical evidence to the innovation speed literature. We examine to what extent innovation speed is affected by organisational, technological, and relational contingencies that preoccupy firms with open innovation practices. Taking the firm perspective, we track innovation timeline and emphasise the complex trade-offs that firms encounter while innovating. Our results show that many of the contingencies, emphasised by the literature promoting innovation, could slow down its speed. Thus, strengthening competitiveness by accommodating contingencies can hinder time-critical adaptations. Furthermore, we find that innovation assets and capabilities can become liabilities for technologically innovative firms.     

Contextual and mediation analysis between TQM critical factors and organisational results in the EFQM Excellence Model framework

Following a total quality management (TQM) approach and the EFQM Model framework, this contribution aims to study the influence of TQM social factors on organisational results, by considering the TQM technical factors as a mediating variable in this relationship. Moreover, the effect of size and type of business on the implementation of TQM and results is analysed, as well as determining which TQM practices have a more important effect on the operational results. The research questions and hypotheses proposed in this research model are tested on a sample of 116 Spanish firms. The results support the reliability, validity and the high-predictive power of the EFQM Excellence Model as a framework for the implementation of TQM. Moreover, our findings indicate that TQM social factors provide a cornerstone for the success of the quality system. Similarly, TQM technical factors partially mediate the relationship between TQM social factors and results. It was also found that TQM social factors and processes management are the main predictors of operational performance. Finally, significant differences were found in TQM implementation, and in the key results of companies, based on their size; however, these differences are not significant based on the sector activity.     

企业在社会偏好度下的产品线延伸策略

基于Hotelling模型，讨论企业在无社会偏好和具有社会偏好的情况下产品线延伸策略的选择问题。研究企业在无社会偏好和具有社会偏好时不同产品线延伸策略下的利润和定价策略，以及面临低质竞争者时企业的产品线延伸策略。结果表明，企业在无社会偏好度时，向下延伸产品线会产生挤出效应；而企业具有社会偏好后，企业生产母产品质量较高时，向下延伸产品线则会吸引竞争者进入市场。当企业具有社会偏好时，企业产品线的最优延伸策略与母产品的质量有关。