As American firms formulate competitive strategies for the 1990s and beyond they are realising that significant profit opportunities exist outside the United States. As managers deal with globalising their logistics systems to support overseas marketing efforts transportation becomes an...

Compares the processes for decision making during the acquisition of equipment and materials among firms in the USA, Sweden, France and Southeast Asia. Reports the findings from a detailed questionnaire in which 236 firms in the four‐country area participated. The companies provided data on...

China′s foreign trade and investment policies have appeared more attractive to Western marketers in recent years. China presents an opportunity for huge market potential and rapid growth for American multinational firms. However, Western marketers have only limited knowledge about Chinese...

Explores antecedents of individual influence in organizational purchasing decisions made by buying centres. Proposes a two‐step model whereby individual influence is a function of decision‐specific variables such as expertise, interest and personal stake in the decision. The...

Develops a decision‐making framework for the design and operation of a wholesaling system. Considers the new roles of wholesaling and proposes an optimization model to satisfy best the service requirements at the minimum cost. Using this model, a prototype decision‐support system is...

Identifies, via a mail survey of UK marketing executives, who makes the sales packaging (i.e. primary packaging) decision within the company, and the extent to which these individuals perceive trade‐offs between the traditional marketing and logistical functions of a sales package, and...

Presents a design method aimed at supporting managers in decisions regarding the (re)design of international manufacturing and logistics structures. The heart of this method consists of analyses to determine the combined impact of changes in the location and annual capacity of a...

Decision analysis in management science employs concepts from economics such as utility functions and indifference curves. A utility function U models the “satisfaction” that a customer obtains from logistics service. Here U depends on two attributes (lead time, fill rate) whose values more...

This paper describes the Value Stream Analysis Tool (VALSAT) as a rigorous analysis and decision‐making tool in the supply chain or value stream context. The tool can employ both tacit and explicit knowledge for the advantage of the supply chain in which it is used. Although the approach owes...

Describes the analysis of the logistics system of a supplier of anhydrous sodium sulphate to the Australian market. This examination considered the total cost and customer service implications of the present supply of this bulk product from one Canadian and US west coast source, its unloading at...