Despite the concern that has been expressed about potential method biases, and the pervasiveness of research settings with the potential to produce them, there is disagreement about whether they really are a problem for researchers in the behavioral sciences. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to explore the current state of knowledge about method biases. First, we explore the meaning of the terms “method” and “method bias” and then we examine whether method biases influence all measures equally. Next, we review the evidence of the effects that method biases have on individual measures and on the covariation between different constructs. Following this, we evaluate the procedural and statistical remedies that have been used to control method biases and provide recommendations for minimizing method bias.

Sources of Method Bias in Social Science Research and Recommendations on How to Control It

How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

This paper examines the progressive development of the new institutional economics over the past quarter century. It begins by distinguishing four levels of social analysis, with special emphasis on the institutional environment and the institutions of governance. It then turns to some of the good ideas out of which the NIE works: the description of human actors, feasibility, firms as governance structures, and operationalization. Applications, including privatization, are briefly discussed. Its empirical successes, public policy applications, and other accomplishments notwithstanding, there is a vast amount of unfinished business.

The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead

Purpose – The authors perform a large‐scale literature review and use conceptual theory building to introduce the concept of sustainability to the field of supply chain management and demonstrate the relationships among environmental, social, and economic performance within a supply chain management context.Design/methodology/approach – Conceptual theory building is used to develop a framework and propositions representing a middle theory of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM).Findings – The authors introduce the concept of sustainability – the integration of environmental, social, and economic criteria that allow an organization to achieve long‐term economic viability – to the logistics literature, and position sustainability within the broader rubric of SSCM. They then present a framework of SSCM and develop research propositions based on resource dependence theory, transaction cost economics, population ecology, and the resource‐based view of the firm. The authors conclude by discussing manageri...

A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory

http://ivl.cns.iu.edu/km/pres/2009-zoss-links/2009-zoss-links-research-design/references/borgattifoster.pdf

The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology

Marketing in a Digital World consists of nine essays on how the digital revolution has affected marketing theory and practice. Leading marketing scholars, including several editors of premier academic journals, provide fresh insights for both scholars and managers seeking to enhance their understanding of marketing in a digital world.

Marketing in a Digital World

In this commentary, we explain how desktop manufacturing was able to solve supply shortages in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic and discuss this technology’s potential to serve as an alternative to global manufacturing By the end of April 2020, this dangerous virus had already infected over 3 million people and resulted in >200,000 deaths Due to its virulent nature and rapid diffusion, COVID-19 severely strained the capabilities of our health care system and resulted in a shortage of life-saving devices (e g , ventilators) and personal protective equipment (e g , masks) Although ventilators and masks are commonplace in most hospitals, their in-stock supply was inadequate for the surge in demand To make matters worse, existing manufacturing and supply chain systems were unable to ramp up quickly enough to replenish their stock in a timely manner (Culver and Westcott 2020) In the words of Choi, Rogers, and Vakil (2020), COVID-19 was a “wake-up call ”

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0743915620930694

Solving Global Crises via Desktop Manufacturing

Enhancing Innovation Via the Digital Twin

Enhancing customer centricity via 3D printing

EXTENDED ABSTRACT Consumers across many parts of the globe place considerable value on the acquisition of material objects. Over the past two decades, researchers have sought to establish how materialism is formed and how this value influences individual and collective well-being (see Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002 for a review). While these studies contribute to our understanding of psychological functioning, they do not generally consider the impact of this value upon consumption behavior. Our research seeks to address this gap by examining the relationship between materialism and brand connections. Drawing insights from research on material values, cognitive needs, and branding, we suggest that individuals with high levels of materialism will exhibit strong ties to the brands they consume as a means of coping with uncertainty. We assessed the relationship between materialism and brand connections by employing two survey studies. The first study was a nationwide mail survey in the United States (n=363), while the second study was a mall intercept survey in Singapore (n=300). The response rate for these two studies was 20% and 26%, respectively, and the demographic profile for both surveys closely mirrored the general population for each country. Two product categories were the focus of each study. In the US, respondents were asked to record the make of automobile they currently own as well as the brand of jeans they last purchased for themselves. In Singapore, respondents were asked to record the brand of cell phone they currently own, as well as the brand of wristwatch that they last purchased for themselves. Our brand connection measures were assessed in relation to these brands. We assessed three different manifestations of brand connections, brand loyalty (Chadhuri and Holbrook 2001), self-brand connection (Escalas and Bettman 2003), and brand community (Keller 2003). We assessed materialism using the updated (Richins 2004) 15-item Material Values Scale (MVS). Our conceptual framework argues that materialism is positively related to brand connections because materialists use brands to fulfill their fundamental need for certainty. To assess the influence of this cognitive need, our Singapore survey included two specific measures from the need for cognitive closure (NFCC) scale (Webster and Kruglanski 1994). Conceptually, NFCC is defined as, “the desire for a definite answer on some topic...as opposed to confusion and ambiguity” (Kruglanski 1989, p. 14). Specifically, we focused on need for order and need for predictability as our key dimensions. All measures displayed good psychometric properties. We tested the relationship between material values and brand connection through a series of multiple regression analyses using our three brand connection measures (i.e., loyalty, connection, and community) as dependent variables and material values as the key predictor variable. These regressions revealed that materialism exerts a negligible influence on brand loyalty for all four product categories: automobiles (b=-.01, ns), jeans (b=.04, ns), watches (b=.07, ns), cell phones (b=.06, ns). In contrast, materialism has a significant effect on both self-brand connection (SBC) and brand community (BC), for automobiles (SBC: b=.19, p<.01; BC: b = .26, p<.01), jeans (SBC: b=.22, p<.01;BC: b=.23, p<.01), watches (SBC: b=.18, p<.01; BC: b=.20, p<.01), and cell phones (SBC: b = .23, p<.01; BC: b=.21, p<.01). In sum, materialism exhibits a positive influence on two out of the three measures of brand connections for all four product categories, providing general support for our claim that materialists attempt to manage uncertainty by establishing strong individual and communal relationships with their brands. In order to probe more deeply into the nature of the relationship between materialism and brand connections, we investigated the cognitive motives that may underlie this relationship, namely the need for order (NFO) and the need for predictability (NFP). Because our tests of the effect of materialism on brand connections indicate that materialism has no influence on brand loyalty, this additional analysis focuses on materialism’s potential role as a mediator between NFO and/or NFP upon self-brand connection and brand community. In order to assess this potential influence, we conducted a series of mediated regression analyses. These analyses indicate that among our two indicants of the need for certainty, only NFP is significantly related to materialism (b=.38, p<.01). Thus, materialism’s role as a potential mediator of the link between need for certainty and brand connections appears to be related to its ability to provide a sense of predictability rather than a sense of order. In addition, these analyses show that materialism fully mediates the effect of NFP on both self-brand connections and brand community for both watches (SBC: b=.09, ns, BC: b=.07, ns) and cell phones (SBC: b=.11, ns, BC: b=.06, ns), as the inclusion of this variable reduces the effect of NFP on these outcomes to nonsignificance. In order to give shape to the ephemeral constructs upon which we ply our trade, academic researchers often employ cognitive archetypes (Lakoff 1987). Thus far, the dominant archetype among materialism researchers is an image of materialists as selfish status seekers. For example, Belk’s (1985) seminal article portrays materialists as greedy, envious, and possessive. This image appears to hold a considerable degree of verisimilitude, as materialism has been shown to be negatively related to concerns for family, community, and religion (Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002). However, our research suggests that this archetype may not fully capture why materialists form strong connections to their brands. Thus, in order to understand the relationship between materialists and branded objects, there appears to be a need for a new archetype. Based on our findings, one potential perspective would be to cast materialists (at least in terms of their brand relationships) as communal meaning seekers rather than selfish status seekers. This image appears to be quite congruent with prior findings that materialism is a means to manage uncertainty (Kasser 2002), and may also stimulate new insights regarding how and why materialists engage in consumption.

/pdf/the-safety-of-objects-an-examination-of-materialism-and-4eoleq3ndv.pdf

Aric Rindfleisch

Papers

Marketing in a Digital World

Solving Global Crises via Desktop Manufacturing

Enhancing Innovation Via the Digital Twin

Enhancing customer centricity via 3D printing

The Safety of Objects: an Examination of Materialism and Brand Connections