Since the early 1990s international - or even global - outsourcing of intermediate products from suppliers has been propagated as a key means to improve the performance of firms. It is argued that becoming more lean and internationally focused is beneficial for the buyer as well as for the...

To fully understand the relationship between human resource management and performance in different contexts, we are in need of a synthesis between resource-based theory and new institutionalism. We argue that differences in institutional settings (between for example countries or branches of...

Human resource management (HRM) does matter! Prior empirical research, summarized and classified in the work of Delery and Doty (1996), Guest (1997) and Boselie et al. (2000), suggests significant impact of HRM on the competitive advantage of organizations. The mainstream research on this topic...

The relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and performance of the firm has been a hot debated topic in the field of HRM/IR for the last decade. Most scientific research on this topic originates from the USA. In our paper we will give an overview of recent USA-based research...

The relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and firm performance has been a hotly debated topic over the last decade, especially in the United States (e.g. Osterman, 1994; Huselid, 1995; MacDuffie, 1995). The question arises whether the domination of USA oriented models, however appropriate...

On-line vehicles dispatching rules are widely used in many facilities such as warehouses to control vehicles' movements. Single-attribute dispatching rules, which dispatch vehicles based on only one parameter, are used commonly. However, multi-attribute dispatching rules prove to be better in...

Learning is a vital issue for small business starters, contributing to short term and long term business performance, as well as to personal development. This study investigates when and how small business starters learn. It specifies the situations that offer learning opportunities, as well as...

Understanding technological change is of critical importance to marketers, as it bears new markets, new brands, new customers, and new market leaders. This paper examines the deviation among reviews of a technology’s performance and its consequences for inferences on technology evolution...