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This column topic was originally discussed in my November 2013 Insights column. 'Demand-shaping with supply in mind' dealt with activities that are primarily the responsibility of marketing and sales management. [...]

The Villages is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. How much larger will it get? Turn south at the Meggison Road roundabout in The Villages, past Sawgrass Grove [...]

This is my annual update on oil that began with my first Insights column: 'Is your supply chain addicted to oil?' (Jan./Feb. 2007). Since, I've focused on the price of [...]

Some 2.7 million households led by working Floridians above the poverty level are struggling to pay for housing, food, insurance and other necessities. Can the Florida Legislature--which begins its regular [...]

The global flexible dies market was sized at $109.5 million in 2022 and is projected to reach $198 million by 2031, showing a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period, […]

In 2023, the labor markets in the South Bend-Mishawaka and Elkhart-Goshen MSAs exhibited a modest degree of loosening. The size of the labor force either remained stable or experienced a [...]

Economic activity After the U.S. posts expected real GDP growth of 2.0% in 2023, growth is predicted to be slightly lower at 1.6% in 2024. The same numbers are 0.5% [...]

Affordability concerns took a toll on Indiana's market for single-family homes in 2023. Both existing home sales and new construction were down more than 15% year-over-year through the third quarter [...]

Recession or no recession? That was the question we posed last year and the answer was: maybe. Our forecast was split due to many factors, not the least of which [...]

Residential While it was a challenging year for housing, with housebuilders' profits falling and the rental sector beset by government U-turns, later living got its own taskforce and PBSA performed [...]

The MIT Supply Chain 2020 project that I managed the launch of in 2004 focused on understanding possible futures for six macro factors: 1) changing demographics; 2) rising oil prices; [...]

One could use a playful pun and say that Brevard County, aka the Space Coast, is in the midst of takeoff--launching a new era of economic growth, out-of-this-world Innovation and [...]

Drawing on the international relations literature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and when diplomatic relations between countries have an influence on firm internationalization speed. We discover that the friendlier bilateral diplomatic relations between home and host countries, the more beneficial it is to enhance firm internationalization speed. In addition, the higher trade openness of the host country, the smaller contribution of bilateral diplomatic relations for firm internationalization speed in the host country and friendly bilateral diplomatic relations have a stronger positive impact on internationalization speed when the internationalizing home enterprise is a state-owned enterprise (SOE). Our findings not only contribute to both the firm internationalization speed literature and the international relations literature, but also have managerial significance for how enterprises can use the friendly diplomatic relations between countries to improve firm internationalization speed. Keywords Diplomatic relations * Trade openness * Nature of firm ownership * Internationalization speed * International relations JEL Classification F23 * F55, 1 Introduction Internationalization speed, defined as the average internationalization state achieved by a firm over a specific period (Casillas & Acedo, 2013; Chetty et al., 2014), has become a core [...]

A wide range of employees with different backgrounds and experiences, lead to improved recruiting and retention along with stronger relationships with clients. Diversity leaders at organizations across North Carolina share [...]

Purpose: This paper aims to examine celebrity endorsement using bibliometric analysis. This paper also analyzes publication sources, authorship, citations and distributions publication, and other bibliometric indicators. Design/methodology/approach: The study focused on 573 articles published from 1984 to 2022. These papers were obtained automatically from the Scopus database and analyzed afterwards with the use of Publish or Perish and bibliometric indicators analysis. Findings: The research identified 573 articles from a variety of published sources. Starting in 1976, most scholars actively produced articles pertinent to this topic. English is the primary language of research and published in journals. The United States is the leading country in contributing publications. Meanwhile, the most significant fields in which the sources were produced were business, management and accounting, social sciences, economics, econometrics, and finance. Research limitations/implications: However, some limitations have been found. It is suggested for future research to lengthen this work to other databases and bibliometric analyses of celebrity endorsement by adding new keywords such as public figure, famous person, and influencer marketing. Originality/value: This paper aims to assess recent trends in expanding academic literature on celebrity endorsement using bibliometric analysis. Bibliometric indicators are used in this paper to present the results. Keywords: Celebrity endorsement, influencer, bibliometric analysis, marketing strategy, Introduction In the contemporary marketing landscape, using celebrities as endorsers has emerged as a pervasive strategy to promote brands and products. Celebrity endorsement has garnered substantial attention as a pivotal [...]

By presenting an investigation of the impact of international trade protectionism on the reconfigurations of the global value chains (GVCs), this paper challenges the perceived assumption of ongoing globalization and the free flow of goods and services. Building on the de-globalization and GVCs' literature, we performed a historical content analysis on 174 articles from 2016 to 2020 published in leading and major national and international newspapers. Our findings suggest that international trade protectionism has altered the landscape of GVCs by causing widespread disruption to their functioning, thus making them prone to future external policy risks. Such disruption is having a varying impact on various industries, whereby it is causing greater harm to those industries that are more global in nature and thus rely on global suppliers. We draw implications of our findings for research and practice. Keywords De-globalization * Protectionism * Global value chains * Trade war * United States * China * Historical content analysis, 1 Introduction There has been an increasing interest in understanding the impact of international trade protectionism on the global organization and adaptive reconfigurations of value chain activities (e.g., Evenett, 2019; [...]

There is growing interest in the nature and possible extent of de-globalization. This paper explores the impact that protectionist measures have on multinational enterprise (MNE) reshoring back to the UK. Besides taking into account the global trends indicating a return to protectionism, the existing literature highlights various firm-level and structural country-level determinants of reshoring decisions. We test a conceptual model with parent-subsidiary firm-level data for the period 2009 to 2017. We conclude that firms that are more sensitive to wage costs in their overseas subsidiaries were more likely to reshore. We did not find that more capital-intensive firms had a higher propensity to reshore. We find that our results are mostly driven from UK MNEs with subsidiaries in EU. This result has clear implications for a potential Brexit effect. Theoretically, we base our findings in transactional cost economics to help explain why different types of firms behave in the way they do, and why different types of firms may respond in quite different ways to the same mix of institutions. Keywords Multinational Enterprises * Reshoring * Protectionism * UK, 1 Introduction The last decade has witnessed significant political and economic uncertainty on the back of events such as the election of Donald Trump in the US as well as [...]

Protectionist economies impede the free flow of capital and labor across national and corporate borders, which limits the production, access, and diffusion of knowledge required to create novel solutions. However, further investigation is needed into the knowledge and innovation pathways/mechanisms to stop or at least reduce protectionist trade policies in order to stimulate the innovation ecosystem and develop a diverse workforce. Through a sequential mediation of venture capital and collaborations, our study investigates the relationship between trade openness and workforce diversity by adopting the knowledge-based view and building on the four pillars of the knowledge-based economy. Utilizing archived data, our analysis verified this connection. The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. Keywords Trade openness * Workforce diversity * Innovation ecosystem * Knowledge-based view, 1 Introduction Protectionism does not generally work as a weapon for macroeconomic stimulation (Barattieri et al., 2021), and as a result, international business research should pay more attention to it [...]