Means-end relations are generally assumed to be hierarchical, and, by implication, asymmetrical. That is, if A is a means to achieve B, B is not at the same time also a means to achieve A. Literature casting doubt on this directedness of means-end relations is reviewed, and the hypothesis of...

Account managers invest in two distinct, compensatory social ties to achieve social capital, namely peripheral knowledge ties and implementation support ties. The first ties require communal investments, which consist of organizational citizenship behaviors and peripheral information sharing....

This paper offers a new data set and window to empirically test Leviathan theory in the sense of China's transition economy. By combining time series and cross-section regression analysis and various variables used by previous empirical studies, we test the Leviathan hypothesis for vertical...

We ask various experts, who produce sales forecasts that can differ from earlier received model-based forecasts, what they do and why they do so. A questionnaire with a range of questions was completed by no less than forty-two such experts who are located in twenty different countries. We...

This chapter focuses on the gap between the speed of proliferation of theoretical and empirical contributions and the speed of accumulation of the acquired scientific knowledge regarding absorptive capacity. To contribute to narrowing this gap, we will in particular review the conceptual...

We examine the relationship between exchange-rate changes and stock returns for a sample of Dutch firms over 1994-1998. We find that over 50% of the firms are significantly exposed to exchange-rate risk. Furthermore, all firms with significant exchange-rate exposure benefit from a depreciation...

Inventory policies for joint remanufacturing and manufacturing have recently received much attention. Most efforts, though, were related to (optimal) policy structures and numerical optimization, rather than closed form expressions for calculating near optimal policy parameters. The focus of...

This chapter offers a theory and method for the analysis of the dynamics, i.e. the development, of clusters for innovation. It employs an analysis of three types of embedding: institutional embedding, which is often localized, structural embedding (network structure), and relational embedding...

The relationship between the financial structure of a marketing cooperative (MC) and the requirement of the domination of control by the members is analysed from a transaction costs perspective. A MC receives less favorable terms on outside equity than a conventional firm because the decision...

Co-operatives play a major role in the agricultural and food industry. Co-operatives, by the very nature, are producer-oriented firms. As market conditions for food products have changed in recent decades, the question is raised whether co-operatives are still efficient organisations for...