As innovation has been outsourced globally, it has joined manufacturing organizations consisting of diverse cultures, geographies, and partnerships. The use of third-party resources to manage design and innovation has resulted in a new system of knowledge management. As the industry’s organizational and financial boundaries have attenuated, a new type of leadership challenge has emerged, creating the research question: Are there leadership practices or styles that effectively guide organizations that rely on the outsourcing of innovation and manufacturing to Taiwan and China in the computing industry? A qualitative case study method was used to investigate the differing leadership practices applied within a dialectic global production network in which a system of innovation and manufacturing has emerged. The analysis considers a full range of leadership behaviours used when facing the challenges of outsourcing R&D.

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) is the highly demanded fruit for export commodity from Indonesia. The biggest mangosteen production center in Indonesia is West Java Province. The development of the mangosteen supply chain in Indonesia, particularly in West Java Province is heavily affected by uncertain potential risks for the chain. This paper identifies potential risks of the supply chain and studies the interrelationships between strategies for mitigating those risks. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was utilized to identify the main risks then Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) was used to illustrate the interrelationship of those risks mitigations. Data were gathered through questionaires guided interviewing the experts of mangosteen business. Results show that the main risks of the chain to reach its goal are business relationships between partners and return on investment uncertainty. Horizontal coordination and trust building between partners should be considered to mitigate those risks as these strategies are found to have a strong driving power to influence others risks mitigation strategies. Improved coordination and trust building may advocate the Indonesian government to facilitate the provision of soft loans to agricultural businesses, which enables the farmers’ cooperative to buy mangosteen in cash therewith improving their return on investment.

Taiwan’s automotive industry has undergone tremendous changes during the past decades as a result of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002. This membership has affected the operating costs and the competitive advantage of automotive companies. The selection of an effective logistics service provider is a key strategy to reinforce competitiveness. This type of selection is a multi-attributes decision-making problem that includes both qualitative and quantitative attributes. This study presents a comprehensive methodology for evaluating a lead logistics provider (LLP). The evaluation of an LLP is the precondition and foundation of logistics operation; it is the important task of choosing the best logistics service provider for logistics management. The proposed methodology consists of 2 parts: (a) using a decision-making analysis framework to structure the objective hierarchy and to identify the evaluation attributes; and (b) applying the simple multi-attribute rating technique-rank order centric (SMART-ROC) method to drive the weights by ranking and rating. After they are identified, the evaluation attributes are used to construct a SMART model. This SMART model is subsequently applied for the final evaluation of a provider, as demonstrated in the case study presented here. The results of this case study indicate that quality is the most important criterion for the user and the provider companies because this factor influences the final evaluation process. The proposed method also enables decision makers to understand the complex relationships between relevant attributes, thereby improving the reliability of their decisions.

The aim of this article is threefold, firstly to investigate the extent of supply chain management (SCM) practices implementation in Iranian manufacturing organizations, secondly, given contextual factors of the country to identify benefits and barriers of SCM implementation and thirdly, to survey if there is any relationship between SCM practices and organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing organizations, mainly based on a descriptive analysis. Based on the review of literature main practices and also benefits and barriers of SCM implementation was identified. A self administered questionnaire was designed and distributed among 127 logistics and manufacturing managers of Iranian manufacturing organizations, of which 97 complete questionnaires returned, yielding a response rate of about 76 percent. Through descriptive statistical analysis the extent of SCM practices, main benefits and barriers in the surveyed organizations and their ranking orders were determined. Results revealed that holding safety stock is the most implemented practice of SCM. Also, increased customer satisfaction and inadequate information sharing in the chain were ranked as the major benefit and barrier of SCM implementation respectively. The result of chi-square test showed that the implementation of SCM practices is positively and significantly related to organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing companies.