Value facilitation has become a critical element of value creation in buyer-supplier relationships. The literature lacks studies that provide an understanding of how facilitators or intermediaries in a supply chain perceive and create value for themselves and their customer(s) across the distribution channel. The objective of this research is to bridge this gap through an in-depth qualitative investigation. Findings about value drivers of facilitators are discussed as well as implication and areas for future research. Keywords: Customer value, Supply Chain, Intermediaries, Business relationship To cite this document: Ivan Russo, Ilenia Confente, and Ayman Omar, "Understanding the Value Drivers for Intermediaries: An Exploratory Study in the Heating Industry", Contemporary Management Research, Vol.9, No.1, pp. 67-72, 2013. Permanent link to this document http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.11063

Motivated by the recent supply chain management practice of the Chinese PC industry, we examine the impact of demand forecasting and demand substitution estimation on inventory management and pricing with short selling seasons for a PC supply chain consisting of one retailer and two manufacturers. Based on PC products’ demand characteristics, product life cycle (PLC) is incorporated into the traditional multiplication demand model and a multi-period dynamic inventory and pricing integrated decision model is developed. This model assumes that retailers always place an initial order at pre-season, and the order quantity would be split into multiple batches following the retailers’ dynamic inventory replenishment requirements under the constraint that the sum of the split orders should be almost the same as the initial order. Meanwhile, the retailer would dynamically determine the selling price according to effective demand and demand forecasting per cycle, and the manufacturers decide the wholesale price and rebate depending upon the retailer’s total order quantities. Finally, empirical analysis is given, and analysis results show that the model enjoys good feasibility and effectiveness, that can overcome the negative impact of high demand fluctuations on profits and service levels. Keywords: Dynamic Inventory Decision, Dynamic Pricing, Demand Forecasting, Product Life Cycle, Demand Substitution

The article analyzes factors stimulating firms’ capacity for marketing innovation in terms of the design and packaging of goods and services. The data were obtained from the 4th Community Innovation Survey. The results of the logistic regression show that RD acquisition of machinery, equipment, and software; acquisition of other external knowledge; and carrying out other procedures—plus the factor of marketing activities—influence Portuguese firms’ tendency to innovate in marketing. Keywords: Marketing Innovation, Logit Model, CIS

The multi-buyer joint replenishment problem (MJRP) is the multi-item inventory problem which deals with the replenishment of a group of product items that are jointly delivered to multi-buyer. The objective of MJRP is to develop policy to minimize the total cost which consists of the holding cost and the transport cost. In this paper, we propose a modified genetic algorithm (called GAT) which adopts a New Gene, basic cycle time, to solve the multi-buyer joint replenishment problem (MJRP). The genetic algorithm (GA) has been widely applied to solve MJRP. However, most of the literature which used the genes for chromosomes were the ratio of each product delivery cycle time to the basic cycle time. This searching method is called GAK here. The disadvantage of GAK is that the number of genes is determined by the number of product items and buyers, and the length of chromosomes will be expanded when the number of product items or buyers is increased. The length of chromosomes will impact the CPU running time in the genetic algorithm. The proposed GAT can improve the disadvantage of GAK. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the GAT is very efficient and outperforms GAK. The running time of GAK is improved over 96% by GAT. Keywords: Joint Replenishment Problem, Multi-item Multi-buyer, Genetic Algorithm

As an important behavioral trait in consumer psychology, regulatory focus (RF) has been proven to describe and predict human behavior in numerous situations as it demonstrates that individuals can be distinguished according to two independent structures of strategic inclination and orientation in the pursuit of goals: promotion focus and prevention focus. However, to date no research has explicitly considered the potential link between RF and perceived risk in the various dimensions of online shopping (OS). This paper aims to fill this gap. By developing an RF model of online consumer shopping behavior (REFCOS) covering motives, behaviors, and continuance-evaluation and empirically testing a number of hypotheses, we find how consumers with different foci use the Internet. Our findings provide confirmatory evidence for emerging literature that RF is a powerful predictor of behavior in OS. Keywords: Internet shopping, Regulatory Focus Theory, Consumer Behavior, REFCOS

This research takes a two-pronged approach, identifying and then proposing a solution for the basic problem keeping many potential users from engaging in online auction trading, and discouraging those who do use these sites from buying or selling high-value items. The problem? ---The absence of a reliable user registration process. To remedy this situation, this study proposes a new authentication protocol adding two levels of protection and providing users with a trustworthy trading environment through stronger identification and authentication functions. Keywords: Online Auction, E-commerce Trust, User Authentication, eBay Reputation

The purpose of this paper is to extent internationalization theories by investigating the potential moderating impact of three common foreign direct investment (FDI) characteristics (years of operation, size and role) on the market orientation of MNE subsidiaries located in Greece. By developing hypotheses based on existing literature, our findings indicate that market-seeking FDI and import substitution strategies correlate with an increased importance for the focal, and those markets which are characterized by geographical proximity and similar structural elements (Balkan countries). Strategic-seeking FDI and subsidiaries’ mandate to extent MNEs’ original product line mainly targets at supplying integrated economic areas (EU) and global markets. Subsidiaries which are relatively smaller and more recently established tend to focus on more geographically dispersed markets. In the main, the results meet our expectations for a middle-income peripheral European economy, where foreign operations show strong elements of static and immediate competitiveness, but also emerging potentials to upgrade their roles into more sophisticated regional representatives of their respective network. Keywords: Internationalization Strategies, Subsidiaries, Greece

The knowledge economy represents an intangible economic configuration whereby knowledge is valued as a key factor in production. Economic growth in leading world economies is increasingly based on knowledge, in addition to tangible assets such as capital and labor. Knowledge work involves creation, and can therefore be operationalized by innovation for empirical analysis. Under this definition, this study looks at the innovation capacities across all metropolitan regions in the U.S., and the extent to which they determine economic growth in these regions. Using industry data on U.S. metropolitan regions from 1988 to 2007, the research findings show that the impact of innovation capacity on economic growth has significantly increased after the dot com era. However, the magnitude of increment was small. This can be explained by the wide variations in the U.S. in industry bases, and their region-specific contextual factors. To explain these findings, the study concludes with a literature review on a contextual approach to study the economic impact of innovation capacity on a region’s economic performance. The researcher proposes taking a more focused and less aggregated approach to study and compare regions, so as to account for various contextual factors. Keywords: Innovation Capacity, Knowledge Economy, Economic Growth

ABSTRACT Organizational culture and occupational culture are powerful forces that drive organizations and their members. This study explores their effects on the perception of managerial accounting terms, as measured by semantic differential scales. The sample comprises two occupational groups (i.e. 64 management accountants and 68 non-financial managers) in ten organizations. Organizational culture is measured by the Organizational Culture Inventory. INDSCAL and cluster analysis results indicate that different organizational and occupational cultures are associated with differential perceptions of managerial accounting terms. This finding has implications on the effectiveness of accounting communication. It also shows the importance of understanding the effects of organizational culture and occupational culture, which are powerful forces driving organizations and their members. Keywords: Organizational Culture, Occupational Culture, Accounting Communication, Managerial Accounting Terms, Perceptual Mapping Techniques