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This study investigates the imagined utopia of Chinese masculinity to uncover contemporary ideals of Chinese manhood and prototypes of gender relationships. To this end, the study involves in-depth interviews with 25 danmei creators and online questionnaires collected from danmei communities in mainland China. This study contributes to previous scholarly discussions by delineating danmei’s fandom and danmei’s literary formulae. The created masculinities in danmei reflect rising female creators’ subjectivities. Nevertheless, danmei’s political implications in China are limited and cannot be generalized as a move to overthrow the patriarchy or oversimplified as a step towards a feminist movement. Among the different archetypes of relationships, the pairing of two strong male characters enjoys the most popularity, which attests to women’s projection of independent subjectivity and rising neoliberal sensibilities in China. However, these emergent masculinities, initiated by female creators, persist in negotiations with the market and the state. The danmei industry in China, although subject to stringent surveillance, continues to flourish through underground avenues such as piracy and overseas purchasing agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vibrant Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector is fundamental for ongoing development in both advanced and emerging economies. MSMEs are significant employment providers, particularly in OECD countries, employing around two-thirds of the formal workforce. In India, MSMEs play an important role in the economy by fostering entrepreneurial culture, innovation, and job creation. They are well-distributed across various economic sectors, catering to domestic and international markets. As of November 2021, India had approximately 63.38 million MSMEs, with significant portions in manufacturing and trading, contributing about 29% to India's GDP. Despite their economic importance, MSMEs face significant challenges in securing financing, particularly working capital. Compared to larger businesses, MSMEs have higher capital intensity per unit of revenue due to limited internal cash reserves, making timely access to affordable finance essential. Liquidity issues, primarily due to delayed payments from corporate buyers, exacerbate these challenges. The Reserve Bank of India introduced the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) in 2014 to address these issues by facilitating the financing of MSME trade receivables from corporate buyers through multiple financiers. This study examines the condition of MSMEs in India, their economic significance, and their financing challenges, with a particular focus on the TReDS e-discounting platform. The study updates the literature by detailing the TReDS process, presenting recent data on its growth, and identifying current challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe need to find sustainable food sources to feed the growing population makes the utilization of all available food resources especially important. But introducing new food is challenging and often fails. In the consumer behavior literature, food neophobia (FN), the unwillingness to try new food, has been identified as a crucial factor in understanding the adoption of new food products. However, limited research can be found on the role of FN in industrial buyers’ choice of new food products. Industrial buyers are important gatekeepers for the introduction of new food products as they decide what is offered to the consumers and may stop any market entry long before a new food product reaches the consumers’ attention. Thus, the understanding of the potential FN in industrial buying behavior, in different markets, is important to succeed with the introduction of new food products. In this study, we have explored FN as a potential barrier to the adoption of a new seafood product, farmed lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus), by industrial buyers in South Korea and Vietnam. The results revealed differences between the two countries’ industrial buyers, with South Koreans demonstrating more FN than the Vietnamese. This contradicts with the consumer research showing that FN decreases with increased income, education, and urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of A&C - Administrative & Constitutional Law Review - Revista de Direito Administrativo e Constitucional is the property of A&C - Revista de Direito Administrativo & Constitucional (Instituto Bacellar) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Managers often accompany salespeople to customer meetings, and their presence can be invaluable to the interaction. However, at times, managers may act in ways that are harmful rather than helpful. Scant scholarly attention has been allocated to understanding the dark side of managerial involvement. When negative manager behaviors manifest in customer-facing situations, salespeople must understand and mitigate these occurrences to prevent deleterious outcomes. This study conducts a qualitative inquiry of professional salespeople and organizational buyers to uncover the ways customer-facing adverse manager behaviors (CFAMBs) occur and affect sales calls. Specifically, manifestations of manager arrogance, apathy, and awkwardness can negatively affect customer outcomes. In addition, factors affecting the severity of CFAMBs' impact include timing in the sales cycle, customer status, and pre-, in-, and post-call mitigation strategies. Collectively, the findings advance role theory and theory germane to the salesperson–sales manager interface and provide practical guidance for dealing with CFAMBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the challenges of implementing antibiotic stewardship – reducing and optimizing the use of antibiotics – in agricultural settings of Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) as a strategic part of addressing the global problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It does so through analysis of the rapidly transforming yet diverse Kenyan poultry sector, characterized by growing commercial operations alongside traditional smallholder farming. Our research involves interviews with farmers, processors, policymakers, and agro-veterinary stores in these settings. We blend Chandler's (2019, p. 8) notion of "antibiotics as infrastructure" with value chain frameworks to understand how the structural role of antibiotics in agriculture plays out through contrasting value chains, with different implications for stewardship. Weak regulation and intense market-based pressures are shown to drive widespread antibiotic use in poultry value chains involving small- and medium-sized farms supplying open markets. Antibiotic stewardship through adherence to agricultural and food safety standards is more evident, though unevenly observed, in value chains involving large commercial farms and processors supplying corporate buyers. Our findings reveal the complex structural roles of antibiotics in maintaining producer livelihoods in an intensely competitive and heterogeneous Kenyan poultry sector. This highlights challenges with applying global AMR policy to transforming food systems in LMICs without appropriate translation. We argue that attempts to reduce and optimize the use of antibiotics in agriculture must be informed by nuanced understandings of the roles of antibiotics in food systems in specific places including where very different scales and models of farming and value chain co-exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is being presented simulation of increasing membrane permeability cellular baker's yeast for the set values concentrations of alcohol solutions. It allows for easy activity forecasting intracellular catalase. Due to the costs associated with disposal large volumes of waste and the purchase of permeabilizing agents the tolerance of the permeabilization process to changes in alcohols concentration was checked. For this purpose, appropriate mathematical models were used. The obtained results confirm the high sensitivity of the process to changes in concentration permeabilizing factor. Of the three permeabilizations studied, this is the process using ethanol turned out to be the least tolerant to change concentration of the permeabilizing factor. The concentration of the solution of this alcohol, which will be used in permeabilization to obtain cells yeast with catalase activity half of the optimal activity, is only 20% lower than the optimal concentration. Processes permeabilization using the other two alcohols considered less sensitive to changes in their concentration. The concentrations of 1-propanol and 2-propanol solutions for AS = 1/2 Aopt are 2.5 times and 3.5 times lower than the optimal concentrations, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the interrelated role of relational commitment and dependence as drivers of key performance outcomes. Specifically, the authors provide a conceptual model of the impact of commitment on relationship value dependence and switching cost dependence. The authors further investigate how these dimensions of dependence offer differing noneconomic and economic paths to strategic and financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data was collected from 296 purchasing agents across multiple industries located in the USA. The conceptual model and accompanying hypotheses were tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings: The results show that the relational path is driven by affective and normative commitment, which are related to relationship value dependence. Conversely, calculative commitment is related to switching cost dependence. This economic path is related to both strategic and financial performance, whereas the relational path is more closely related to strategic as opposed to financial performance outcomes. Research limitations/implications: This study extends research on Business-To-Business (B2B) relationships by leveraging social exchange theory to examine the interrelated roles played by two forms of dependence on performance outcomes. Thus, the authors answer Scheer et al.'s (2015) call for research into the two distinct types of dependence – relationship value and switching cost dependence – and their roles in determining B2B relationship outcomes. The findings contribute to the literature by integrating social exchange and relationship marketing concepts to develop a dual pathway approach to B2B partnerships. Practical implications: The results suggest that dependence is not necessarily negative for firms. Specifically, buyers can and do still exhibit positive performance, both strategic and financial, in relationships with suppliers even when dependent on the relationship. Regardless of whether buyers are dependent due to a relationship or economic factors, both can, in different ways, lead to positive strategic and financial outcomes. Together, the authors contribute to the understanding of B2B partnerships by offering guidelines for both buyers and suppliers in the dyad. Originality/value: The authors derive a comprehensive model depicting primarily relational and economic paths to performance through different types of commitment and dependence. The authors contribute to the literature by demonstrating that relational and economic paths to success are not the same, highlighting how firms could influence performance even when the relationship is not necessarily characterized by generally positive relational benefits and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a eulogy for Professor Emeritus Edward Baugh, a highly respected figure in Caribbean literature who passed away in 2023. The eulogy highlights Baugh's achievements as a scholar, administrator, and poet, emphasizing his contributions to Caribbean criticism, leadership in literary organizations, and numerous awards. Baugh's poetry, such as "The Carpenter's Complaint" and "Lignum Vitae," is praised for its portrayal of Jamaican culture. The eulogy also acknowledges the impact Baugh had on his students, including notable writers like Marlon James and Kei Miller. The text concludes with a poem dedicated to Baugh's family and expresses the author's personal sense of loss. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: It is crucial for the Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to implement a few of the most important Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and reap maximum benefits of sustainability. This paper aims to prioritize I4.0 technologies that can help achieve the sustainable operations and sustainable industrial marketing performance of Indian manufacturing MSMEs. Design/methodology/approach: I4.0-based sustainability model was developed. The model was analyzed using data collected from MSMEs by deploying analytic hierarchy process and utility-function-based goal programming. To have a better understanding, interviews were conducted. Findings: Predictive analytics, machine learning and real-time computing were found to be the most important I4.0 technologies for sustainable performance. Sensitivity analysis further confirmed the robustness of the results. Business-to-business sustainable marketing is prioritized as per the sustainability need of operations of industrial MSME buyers. Originality/value: This study uniquely integrates literature and practitioners' insights to explore I4.0's role in MSMEs sustainability in emerging economies. It fills a research gap by aligning sustainability goals of industrial buyers with suppliers' marketing strategies. Additionally, it offers practical recommendations for implementing technologies in MSMEs, contributing to both academia and industry practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of worker-driven co-research in global supply chains, with a focus on Latin America. It discusses three case studies from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, which demonstrate the impact of worker-driven co-research on labor conditions and organizing efforts. The research involves workers actively participating in the research process, including design, analysis, and dissemination of findings. The article highlights the importance of worker inclusion and the potential for social and political transformations through this research approach. The case studies in Honduras and Mexico specifically examine the impact of collective bargaining agreements on workers' conditions and the role of unions in supporting workers. Overall, worker-driven co-research is seen as a powerful tool for empowering workers and driving positive change. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the norms and guidelines related to the issuance of material test certificates for metallic semi-finished products. It outlines the importance of including these certificates as an integral part of orders to avoid discrepancies between buyers and sellers regarding the content and confirmed properties of delivered metallic products. It delves into the European standard DIN EN 10204, highlighting different types of certificates and their respective purposes.

Purpose: The research aims to qualitatively explore e-marketplace service quality (EMSQ) from the perspective of an industrial buyer as a sole decision-maker. It further intends to quantitatively examine its impact on the industrial buyer's perceived value (PV), overall satisfaction (SAT), and e-loyalty (ELOY) in the context of business-to-government (B2G) e-commerce. Design/methodology/approach: The research used an exploratory sequential mixed-method design. A qualitative exploratory study of EMSQ was conducted using a Straussian grounded theory (GT) technique, followed by an explanatory quantitative study using PLS-SEM to evaluate causal links between various research variables. Findings: In the area of e-services, the investigation found that the hierarchical structure of EMSQ encompasses six broadly applicable dimensions and one B2G context-specific dimension of the e-governance process quality. The study also reinforced previous research findings in the B2C and B2B e-commerce domains, highlighting that e-service quality positively impacts online buyer's PV, SAT and ELOY. Research limitations/implications: This research contributed to the area of e-service operations by developing and validating the EMSQ model in the B2G e-commerce settings. Further, it has opened up new research avenues in B2G e-commerce. Practical implications: The findings from this research highlighted that e-service operations managers should focus on usability, technological concerns, product/vendor quality concerns, customer support reliability, along with effective e-governance, ordering and logistics processes for e-business success. It also provides policymakers with guidelines for making B2G e-marketplaces sustainable. Originality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study employing the GT and PLS-SEM techniques to explore EMSQ from the viewpoint of industrial buyers in B2G e-commerce. The study contributed to prior literature by proposing and validating the hierarchical EMSQ model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a seller and a buyer. Considering the case where the buyer faces uncertain demand and yield, the paper investigates the buyback contract for the supply chain and studies how the yield uncertainty and the relative bargaining power affect the performance of buyback contract. The results suggest that when the seller's bargaining power is relatively high and can control the uncertain yield, the buyback contract is sufficient to coordinate the supply chain. Conversely, when the seller's bargaining power is relatively low or cannot guarantee yield stability, the buyback contract does not work. To coordinate such a supply chain, a combined contract named Buy-Back-Revenue-Sharing contract is proposed. Furthermore, this paper presents the optimal orders to maximize the profits of the buyer and the whole supply chain and it finds that if the seller cannot control the yield, the buyer will place fewer orders and both parties will gain lower profit with supply chain coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the initial diffusion of innovation, this article investigates how early adopters reach a tipping point with a shared and emphatic preference for atypical products. In a community of enthusiasts where members mutually observes each other, we show that potential buyers are reluctant to express a preference for highly atypical products despite their vanguard positive attitude toward atypicality. We argue that such reluctance is driven by a membership-validating concern: while favoring highly atypical products, potential buyers still need to avoid atypical but low-quality alternatives that would undermine their sense of membership to the vanguard group. Consistently, we hypothesize that the endorsement granted by other community members to a basket of atypical products alleviates—and eventually removes—potential buyers' reluctance. Between equally endorsed alternatives, potential buyers will then include the most atypical one in their displayed preference, thereby revealing their vanguard attitude and validating their membership to the in-group. We situate our analysis in a community of enthusiasts for electronic music recordings and find robust support to our hypotheses. By raising the bar of how a product must be to be distinctive, membership-seeking enthusiasts raise the threshold of atypicality. In so doing, they also expand the range of products deemed typical by the general consumer. These twined processes fuel the ongoing diffusion of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Sales Education in the United Sta... In this article, the authors examine syllabi and survey sales professors to highlight the common practices for teaching sales. "Sales Enablement: Definition, Domain, a... The authors explore the development of the sales enablement construct, which they define as a "cross-functional assimilation (marketing, training, operations, management, automation, etc.) of content, processes, and technology that readies a firm to more productively assist the customer's journey" (46). "Antecedents and Outcomes of Salesperson Interna... The authors leverage job demands-resources (JD-R) theory to investigate antecedents of business-to-business (B2B) salesperson attitudes toward internal relations and their impact on important salesperson job outcomes. Also, behavior control, salesperson experience, and salesperson knowledge positively impact salesperson implementation of strategy, enhancing sales performance. [Extracted from the article]

Supplier firms in business-to-business (B2B) contexts increasingly are introducing digital sales channels. This marks a fundamental change for salespeople, in particular, given the extended capabilities of contemporary digital sales applications. While prior research has begun to explore the benefits of introducing digital sales channels for salespeople, insights into the challenges remain vague and fragmented. In addition, knowledge about contextual boundary conditions that help salespeople cope with the introduction of digital sales channels is scarce. Drawing on in-depth interviews with key decision-makers from supplier firms (21 interviews) and buyer firms (18 interviews), this article advances current theoretical knowledge by identifying three main challenges for salespeople, namely (1) the amplification of professional purchasing's strategic reorientation, (2) the threat of purchasers pitting personal and digital sales channels against each other, and (3) tightrope acts in buyer education. Furthermore, this research offers insights into contextual boundary conditions, which are (1) sales buy-in for e-commerce and (2) sales empowerment for multichannel selling. These findings extend personal selling, multichannel, and strategic change implementation research. Moreover, they offer actionable practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zhejiang Electric Power is the property of Zhejiang Electric Power Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this study is to compare experience of customers making decisions in teams and individually during the process of purchasing IT software supporting management processes in their organization. The research sample consisted of 114 companies from all over Poland that purchased management-supporting software in the last 3 years. Quantitative research method was used to achieve the adopted research objective. A questionnaire was applied as a research tool, while Manna-Whitney U test - was used to determine differences in experiment levels. This article refers to the models of organizational behavior, paying special attention to group and individual factors that business customer experience. The research results show that the experience of people who decide to purchase software as a team is better at all stages of the decision-making process compared to the experience of people making decisions individually. The collected research material, and, above all, the conclusions drawn from it, contribute to the knowledge about the quality of business customer experience in the IT sector, and outline the differences in the quality of such experience between those making decisions in the organization in a team and in an individual manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In joint economic lot-sizing problem for a two-echelon supply chain, the vendor delivers the entire production lot to the buyer by dividing it into a number of sub-batches, and ships each batch as soon as the buyer's inventory reduces to zero. On the contrary, in a consignment stocking policy, the vendor ships each sub-batch as soon as it is produced. These two generalised situations are modelled in this paper considering warehouse space limitations for the channel members (i.e. vendor and buyer) under both n-shipment and consignment stock policies where the items suffer from deterioration. Optimal results obtained by Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are compared through numerical examples to establish the superiority of one model over the other. The situations are also identified when one of the strategies would outperform another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling for factors affecting the participation in the procurement market, this article attempts to identify the main determinants of firms' propensity to undertake innovative activities as part of public procurement contracts. The empirical analysis is carried out by using micro-data from two Community Innovation Surveys for Italian and Norwegian firms. We find that small- and medium-sized firms, as opposed to larger companies, have a lower capability to enter into the procurement market; however, once they succeed, they are equally capable of offering innovative solutions to public buyers. Another major result regards firms' cooperation with universities and public research institutes, which seems to play a key role in order to facilitate firms' involvement in public procurement for innovation. Although there are some differences in the estimated coefficients of explanatory variables, these results are consistent between Italy and Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiations today are less likely to be characterized by information asymmetry—the notion that buyers are less informed than sellers—due to the amount of information available to buyers. A number of industries have reacted to this change by shifting their attention to earning profits in aftermarkets: products and services that augment the main purchase (e.g., add-ons, insurance, financing, service and maintenance). In these aftermarkets, firms often retain an information advantage, even if information asymmetries are eliminated from the main purchase. This has given rise to an interesting setting untapped by prior research: information "symmetry" in the front end (main purchase) and information "asymmetry" in the back end (aftermarket). The authors argue that symmetry in the front end provides an opportunity to build trust, as the knowledgeable customer can verify the information disclosed by the seller. In an observational study in the automotive industry, the authors find that customers to whom the salesperson revealed the cost of a car at the beginning of the negotiation spent significantly more in the back end than others. As corroborated in subsequent studies, this effect holds only when cost is disclosed at the beginning of the negotiation and when customers can verify the cost information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the focus on the effectiveness of salespeople has increased, we concentrate on the fact that selling involves broad sets of actors and investigate the approaches and behaviors of salespeople from the perspective of the purchasing agent to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of the effectiveness of salesperson strategies. Our focus is on the purchasing function that is increasingly involved in the buying process, and we examine a central research question—how does the purchasing function view salespeople's strategies and behaviors? We describe the results of in-depth interviews with 35 purchasing executives that focused on how the purchasing function views salespeople's strategies and behaviors. The findings suggest that salespeople, in general, do not focus enough on the needs of the purchasing function. Salespeople are not meeting the purchasing function needs, and purchase-centered sales strategies may need to be developed. These findings have theoretical and managerial implications and offer directions for future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the historical context of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli's art collection in Milan, highlighting the city's role as a hub for the international art market in the 19th century. It discusses the impact of political events, such as the suppression of Italian religious orders, on the dispersal and acquisition of artworks in Milan and beyond. The text also delves into the evolving dynamics of art collecting in Milan, from the aristocratic to the bourgeois, and emphasizes the importance of studying the market and collecting practices in understanding the development of art history as an academic discipline. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the concept of "machine customers" and their potential impact on the future of shopping. Machine customers are intelligent software or hardware that can make purchasing decisions without human intervention. They have the ability to analyze data, compare prices, and negotiate for better deals. The article suggests that companies will need to adjust their marketing strategies to cater to machine customers by providing extensive data and focusing on product quality, price, and delivery terms. It also highlights the potential risks and challenges associated with machine customers, such as policy loopholes and cybersecurity concerns. Overall, the emergence of machine customers is expected to bring significant efficiencies and change the way we make purchasing decisions. [Extracted from the article]

Over time, markets evolve into particular structures, with clearly defined roles in terms of who does what in the industry. When a firm ventures beyond these established roles, it often gets punished by its exchange partners. Our interviews in the Champagne grape market, however, suggest that some buyers are penalized more than others in such circumstances. Quantitative analysis confirms that nontraditional buyers receive price penalties for role deviations—through diversification, vertical integration, or disintegration—whereas traditional firms are treated more leniently. A subsequent interpretivist study, using interview data from 78 market participants to explore the exact mechanisms underlying this effect, reveals that sellers blame less traditional buyers when they cross the boundaries of their usual roles because they are thought to act out of volition and bad faith, whereas the same transgressions by more traditional firms are believed to have been necessitated by external circumstances. We conclude that the sanctioning behavior of actors in response to role transgressions by their exchange partners is driven by their interpretation of the motives underlying these transgressions, rather than by the actions themselves. As a result, nontraditional firms may find it difficult to deviate from the traditional roles in their industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a monopolist seller with n heterogeneous items, facing a single buyer. The buyer has a value for each item drawn independently according to (non-identical) distributions, and her value for a set of items is additive. The seller aims to maximize his revenue. We suggest using the a priori better of two simple pricing methods: selling the items separately, each at its optimal price, and bundling together, in which the entire set of items is sold as one bundle at its optimal price. We show that for any distribution, this mechanism achieves a constant-factor approximation to the optimal revenue. Beyond its simplicity, this is the first computationally tractable mechanism to obtain a constantfactor approximation for this multi-parameter problem. We additionally discuss extensions tomultiple buyers and to valuations that are correlated across items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, coordination between a single vendor (or manufacturer) and a buyer (or retailer) via the delivery schedule in a production and distribution system is presented. A continuous deterministic model with centralised decision process is developed. To satisfy the buyer's demands, the product is delivered in discrete batches from the vendor's stock to the buyer's stock subject to consignee's warehouse space capacity constraint. A more general type of consignment stock (CS) policies is analysed. The inventory patterns and the cost structure of production distribution cycles (PDC) are described under the constraint – when the ratio α of the sizes of delayed to just in time (JIT) for the vendor deliveries is given. Also, an analysis how an upper buyer's warehouse space limit can act as a key factor for implementing the generalised CS-policies successfully. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the performance of model and the results. A comparative study of the results shows that the generalised CS-policies performs better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the impact of debt misvaluation on merger and acquisition activity. We show the potential for debt misvaluation to help explain the shifting dominance of financial acquirers (private equity firms) relative to strategic acquirers (operating companies). Fundamental differences in governance and project coinsurance between the two types of acquirer would interact with debt misvaluation, resulting in variation in how assets are owned that depends on debt market conditions. We find support for our theory in merger data using a novel measure of debt misvaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational buyers are increasingly employing competitive tenders with objective buying criteria to mitigate the influence of personal relationships with suppliers and reduce the overall cost of buying. This paper investigates the role of salespeople's relationships with buyers (i.e., purchasing managers) and how they affect supplier selection in such contexts. Drawing on data from 428 tenders across different buying organizations, this study shows that the quality of the salesperson's relationship with the buyer influences the buyer's evaluation of the tender proposal, which, in turn, affects supplier selection. Thus, the results support an indirect effect of salesperson relationship on supplier selection even in a tender context. In addition, the results indicate that the effect of a salesperson's relationship on buyer's proposal evaluation is contingent on the comprehensibility of suppliers' proposals and buyer's product knowledge. These results have significant theoretical and managerial implications for both buyers and suppliers in business-to-business (B2B) tender contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on redefining quality in terms of customer experience, emphasizing that quality performance should exceed customer needs, creating delight. Topics discussed include expanding quality metrics to include delight, addressing emotional and expectational dimensions, and collaborating with other functions to enhance customer satisfaction. INSET: Same Process: Delight or Pain Point?.

Anaesthetic agents have various financial and environmental impacts. Climate change is one of the biggest threats to human health, and anaesthetic gases contribute to global heating by acting as greenhouse gases. The primary aim of this study was to quantify the financial and environmental impacts of anaesthesia maintenance agents used during surgery in an Australian university teaching hospital. The volume of desflurane, sevoflurane, isoflurane and propofol purchased by a university teaching hospital between 2010 and 2020 was analysed and described in terms of financial and environmental impact. Estimated carbon emissions and financial costs of each agent per annum were calculated using the volumes purchased for each agent. A model of ideal anaesthetic agent usage was used to hypothesise the financial and environmental impact of replacing desflurane (the most environmentally damaging and expensive agent) with alternative agents. Using 2019 as an example year at our health service, replacing desflurane with low flow sevoflurane would save greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving over 1.4 million kilometres in an average petrol car. Removing desflurane from machines at our institution could save an estimated A$14,630 per annum through reduced machine testing alone. Our findings and calculations indicate that reducing the use of desflurane would have both financial and environmental benefits for healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Drawing on the organizational buying decision-making framework, the purpose of this study is to investigate how sales orientation (SOCO) affects buyers' conflict, salesperson-owned loyalty and buyers' propensity to end a supply relationship when selling firms use a single versus multiple salesforce go-to-market strategy. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data was analyzed with a sample of organizational buyers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. Findings: Findings reveal that a selling firm's go-to-market salesforce strategy moderates certain relational aspects of the buyer–salesperson relationship, consequently influencing a buyer's decision to end a supply relationship. Research limitations/implications: Empirically, these findings indicate that the effects of selling orientation on conflict, salesperson-owned loyalty and exit intentions are not only based on the salesperson's efforts but are conditional on the selling firm's go-to-market strategy, particularly with the implementation of multiple salespeople selling to a particular industrial buyer. Practical implications: These results suggest that a salesforce go-to-market strategy conveys serious consequences on buying decisions. Given that a go-to-market strategy involving multiple salespeople impacts the buyer's relationship with the selling firm to a greater degree, managerial oversight must remain present when selling firms decide to pursue such a go-to-market strategy. Originality/value: The empirical investigation of a salesforce go-to-market strategy is an original pursuit. Specifically, this study shows that while it is critical that buying and selling firms monitor buyer–salesperson relationships as the basis for supply partnerships, these exchanges are largely contingent on the selling firm's go-to-market strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the impact of an organizational buyer's product involvement on the customer firm's and supplier's financial outcomes. The results suggest that highly involved organizational buyers are willing to pay more, which benefits the supplier, but they are also perceived by the supplier as having greater expertise in negotiations, which benefits the customer. In Study 1, the authors examine the effects of buyer product involvement using a survey of organizational buyers matched with profit data from their supplier. The findings suggest that the prevailing mechanism that drives the effects of buyer product involvement is contingent upon different customer and supplier levers. Study 2 examines the theorized mechanisms via a second survey and an experiment. This research contributes to literatures on buying and negotiations by revealing the importance of considering the potential effects of a buyer's product involvement. Suppliers can leverage a more highly involved buyer by developing strong connections with the focal product; customers should encourage their buyers to be highly involved and leverage their knowledge of the market but limit their influence within the customer firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban Quality of Life (UQoL) is the main objective of sustainable development in the urban context. It is now widely recognised as a multidimensional concept. The satisfaction provided by the elements related to accommodation, such as housing and land, greatly contributes to the satisfaction with quality of life. Meanwhile, the UQoL also contributes to housing and land prices in cities. Our review shows that most current studies on this interrelationship are limited to several dimensions of UQoL and their impact on housing or land prices. This article will fill the gap by using the land price as an input for calculating a UQoL index from the viewpoint of the Status-Quality Trade-Off theory and ecosystem services. A case study was conducted in Cau Giay District, Hanoi, Vietnam, to create a map of the UQoL index and investigate the interrelationship UQoL - land price. In an ideal condition, this interrelationship should be positive (high/low UQoL index - high/low land price). However, this research revealed two other negative scenarios: "high UQoL index - low land price", and "low UQoL index - high land price". These negative scenarios can bring many business opportunities and therefore be interesting for stakeholders in the real estate market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]