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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the role of supply chain management in enabling manufacturers' mass customization capabilities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based upon survey data from 262 manufacturing plants, spanning nine countries and three industries. Responses from multiple employees were aggregated for each item. Hypothesized relationships between variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results generally indicate that plant mass customization capabilities are driven by customer‐focused product design and reduced supplier lead times. In turn, these factors are driven by management's emphasis on supply chain planning. Post hoc tests show that the effects of supply chain planning on mass customization capabilities are fully mediated by customer‐focused product design and reduced supplier lead time.Originality/valueWhile the literature suggests that mass customization depends upon a dynamic extended enterprise, extant empirical work has focused on internal firm characteristics. The paper is among the first to examine the significance of supply chain management upon the development of mass customization capabilities.

ABSTRACTThis paper reports findings from a research study on adoption in South Africa conducted in 2009. The research included secondary data analysis of the South African National Adoption Register to establish trends and patterns of adoption in South Africa between 2004 and 2009, and primary data collection through qualitative interviews with key informants in public and private social welfare services to explore attitudes, knowledge and experiences of social work practice related to adoption. The quantitative findings report the number of national and international adoptions along with trends and socio‐demographic patterns of national adoptions. Qualitative findings report on social work practice, systemic barriers and social worker attitudes as barriers to improved social work practice around national adoptions. The paper highlights comparisons to adoption literature in the USA, a country with a similar legislative framework and cultural complexities, but significantly more resources for implementation. Recommendations are offered for social work practice, national data collection and policy implementation efforts to support efforts to increase adoption.

We review a large formal literature on economic models of voting and electoral politics. We discuss two broad classes of model: those focusing on preference aggregation and those that look at elections as mechanisms of information aggregation. We also explore the role of elections in situations of asymmetric information, where politicians take hidden actions or are otherwise better informed about policy than voters are, and examine the role of elections in selection and as incentive mechanisms. In the section on models of preference aggregation, we focus on the themes of exogenous candidacy, policy commitment, and the role of valence attributes. For information aggregation, we analyze how different aspects of the institutional environment affect aggregation, focusing on the structure of elections—whether simultaneous or sequential—and the number of choices, as well as the motivations of voters. Finally, in considering models of asymmetric information, we describe how these models shed new light on incumbency effects, campaign spending, and the policy choices of politicians.

PurposeThe study attempts to chart out the role of switching costs in the interrelationships between perceived value, perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. The mediating role of switching costs as well as its direct impact is explored among customers of mobile telephone service providers in India.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual model is developed based on the existing literature and then the model is validated through the analysis of data collected from customers of mobile services in India.FindingsThe mediating role of switching costs is found to have adequate statistical support and the other direct linkages are also found to be valid. The findings suggest that service firms may benefit from pursuing a combined strategy of increasing customer satisfaction and switching costs both independently and in tandem, depending upon the product‐market characteristics.Originality/valueThe study extends the knowledge about customer retention by bringing in switching costs as a part of the network of relationship involving perceived value, perceived service quality, and customer satisfaction.

Following the footsteps of emotional, social, cultural and other types of intelligence, systems intelligence offers a new perspective on how individuals act with a lesser or greater degree of intelligence within physical and social systems. First appearing in the published literature in 2004, systems intelligence has resonated with the related fields of decision making, communication and leadership, among others. However, to date, a taxonomy for considering systems intelligence has yet to be described. Building off Kegan's framework for human development and Hämäläinen and Saarinen's recent levels, we offer a new taxonomy of systems intelligence and describe its stages and dimensions. We focus on the three stages of attentive, active and inspired systems intelligence, incorporating three, four and eight dimensions, respectively. This taxonomy serves as a useful conceptualization for the future development of measurement tools for systems intelligence and as a basis for understanding how individuals might transition between stages. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The ethnography of Christianity has only one area where a sort of Khunian "normal science" has been achieved: Christian Language practices has been agreed on as a topic of vital and sustained ethnographic interest, and is usually understood analytically as being shaped by a referentially oriented, individuating "Christian [or, at times, Protestant] Language Ideology." Relying on a review of the ethnographic literature regarding Christian Language use, and on an impromptu deliverance from demons observed during fieldwork with "The Vineyard," a Southern California originated but now world-wide Church Planting movement, this article argues that such an understanding is not wrong, but only partially apprehends the relevant dynamics of language use. This piece posits that Christian language use can be understood by delineating two sharply contrasting, but both valued, forms of speech—"centripetal" and "centrifugal"—each of which has different implicit concerns about the importance of self-identity and the sorts of boundaries that comprise the ethical subject.

Can groups become effective simply by assembling high-status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks. Examining Wall Street sell-side equity research analysts who work in an industry in which individuals strive for status, we find that groups benefited—up to a point—from having high-status members, controlling for individual performance. With higher proportions of individual stars, however, the marginal benefit decreased before the slope of this curvilinear pattern became negative. This curvilinear pattern was especially strong when stars were concentrated in a small number of sectors, likely reflecting suboptimal integration among analysts with similar areas of expertise. Control variables ensured that these effects were not the spurious result of individual performance, department size or specialization, or firm prestige. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results for the literatures on status and groups, along with practical implications for strategic human resource management.

Two contradictory perspectives of family business conduct and performance are prominent in the literature. The stewardship perspective argues that family business owners and managers will act as farsighted stewards of their companies, investing generously in the business to enhance value for all stakeholders. By contrast, the agency and behavioral agency perspectives maintain that major family owners, in catering to family self-interest, will underinvest in the firm, avoid risk, and extract resources. This paper argues that both these views have application but under different circumstances, determined in part by the degree to which the firm and its executive actors are embedded within the family and thus identify with its interests. Stewardship behavior will be less common, and agency behavior will be more common the greater the number of family directors, officers, generations, and votes, and the more executives are susceptible to family influence. These findings are supported among Fortune 1000 firms, as well as among the subsample of those firms that are family businesses.

Although research is scant, there is a growing interest in the manifestation of the racial and cultural context on the schooling of biracial students. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the schooling experiences of 10 Black–White biracial students. Specifically, the goals of the study were to (a) identify the factors Black–White biracial students, ages 16 to 22, perceive as influential in their schooling; and (b) identify the factors the students' parents perceive as influential in their children's schooling. This study includes a brief review of the literature related to the schooling experiences of Black–White Biracial students. A qualitative phenomenological methodology was used to guide the design, implementation, and analysis of the study. The findings from the interviews with the biracial youth and their parents resulted in five themes, which were (a) region and school diversity; (b) peers; (c) teachers; (d) curriculum; and (e) socioeconomic status. Implications for researchers, policy makers, and teachers are outlined.

Recent work in economic geography suggests the emergence of a distinctive relational and practice-centred set of perspectives on knowledge, based around concepts including communities of practice and relational proximity. This paper will argue that, despite the significant advances in understanding this work contributes, it does not yet provide a complete account of knowing-in-practice, and proposes a stronger focus on work activity as a first step in addressing this gap. The first half critically reviews this economic geography literature, focusing on how it articulates a view of practice in relation to knowledge, organisation, and space. The second half develops an alternative conceptualisation of knowing as work practice, particularly drawing on cultural–historical activity theory. This is organised around the dual spatially inflected concepts of situated and distributed knowledge. The paper concludes by arguing that, far from being mutually exclusive, the situated and distributed parts of knowing coexist in a dialectical relationship, and their interaction in work practice leads to the production of spaces of collective knowing.

The pursuit of happiness has a long history as a primary political end in Western political thought. Along with traditional economic indicators, policy makers are increasingly concerned with the subjective well-being of a society as a measure for its success. It is important to understand the nature of happiness and ask what can be done to improve it. This article builds upon existing literature that consistently identifies health, wealth, and social connectedness as key predictors of happiness. We find that the design and conditions of cities are associated with the happiness of residents in 10 urban areas. Cities that provide easy access to convenient public transportation and to cultural and leisure amenities promote happiness. Cities that are affordable and serve as good places to raise children also have happier residents. We suggest that such places foster the types of social connections that can improve happiness and ultimately enhance the attractiveness of living in the city.

ABSTRACTThe extant literature states that firms 'go green' in response to one or a combination of three factors: regulation, stakeholder pressure or 'because it pays', with each being tempered by managerial attitudes and perceptions. In this paper, we test the relevance of these factors in the empirical setting of Russia. Data collected from firms in three industrialised regions indicates that Russia's 'coercive' approach to regulatory enforcement has resulted in firms seeking to limit their environmental punishment, rather than improve their environmental management. Similarly, weak civil society in Russia has meant that stakeholders such as environmental non‐governmental organisations fail to influence greening activity. We find that only 'because it pays' motives were persuasive. The paper concludes that, in settings such as the Russian Federation, market mechanisms are the only method by which to facilitate corporate greening and that steps should be taken to strengthen instruments like ISO 14001 to facilitate greening of this type. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Most research looking at the role of adopters in the adoption, search and reunion process has tended to focus on the experiences of either the adoptive mother or both adoptive parents as a unit. As a result, the role of the adoptive father has had a much lower profile in the literature and research available to practitioners and professionals. Julia Feast, Fiona Kyle and John Triseliotis seek to redress the balance by analysing data from a previous study by Triseliotis et al (2005) from adoptive fathers' point of view. That study examined the experiences of a large cohort of adoptive parents whose son or daughter had searched or been sought. Most adoptive parents expressed overall satisfaction with the outcome of contact, but there were inevitable strains. By exploring whether or not the anxieties, stress levels and experiences of adoptive fathers differ significantly from those of adoptive mothers, we hope to provide a greater understanding of how adoptive fathers manage the search and reunion process.

AbstractThis study examined the understanding of children's rights in 63 (9‐, 11‐, and 13‐year‐olds) mixed‐race South African children and their mothers. In individual semi‐structured interviews participants responded to hypothetical vignettes in which children's nurturance and self‐determination rights conflicted with parental authority in the home. Participants were required to decide whether they should support the story characters' rights and provide justifications for their responses. Findings indicated that both children and mothers were more likely to endorse children's nurturance than self‐determination rights. In contrast to previous research, no significant differences were found between children and mothers in terms of support for either type of right. In terms of reasoning, both children's and mothers' responses revealed distinct patterns of thinking influenced by the type of right under consideration. The findings are discussed with reference to the available western and non‐western literature on children's understanding of rights. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are considered.

AbstractThe Nordic childcare policy model is often reviewed and even recommended internationally for its contribution to gender equality, high female labour force participation and, perhaps more indirectly, to a high fertility rate. Nordic childcare services and parental leave schemes have thus been portrayed in the literature as policies which have managed to facilitate a work–family model of dual earners and dual carers. However, the recent introduction of cash‐for‐care schemes seems to go against the Nordic dual earner/dual carer model and ideals of gender equality, in supporting parental (maternal) care of the child in the home. At the same time, new upcoming trends of political fatherhood and the perspective of lifelong learning for the child are also changing the Nordic childcare model.This article provides an analysis of how new childcare policy goals have been articulated into policies from the late 1990s to the late 2000s and how these may challenge the traditional goals of the Nordic welfare states.