Effect of Inventory Information Discrepancy in a Drop‐Shipping Supply Chain

This article investigates the impact of information discrepancy between a drop‐shipper and an online retailer on the drop‐shipping supply chain performance. The inventory information misalignment between them contributes to the failure of order fulfillment and demand satisfaction, and hence the associated penalties are incurred. In this article, we first analyze the penalties of ignoring such information discrepancy on both the drop‐shipper and the online retailer. We then assess the impact of information discrepancy on both parties when the drop‐shipper understands the existence of the information discrepancy but is not able to eliminate the errors. The numerical experiments indicate that both parties can have significant amount of the percentage cost reductions if the information discrepancy can be eliminated, and the potential savings are substantial especially when the errors have large variability. Furthermore, we observe that the online retailer is more vulnerable to information discrepancy than the drop‐shipper, and the drop‐shipper is likely to suffer from the online retailer's underestimation of the physical inventory level more than the problem of its overestimation. Moreover, even if eliminating errors is not possible, both parties could still benefit from taking the possibility of errors into consideration in decision making.     

‘My Parents told us that they will always Treat my Brother Differently Because he is Autistic’ – Are Siblings of Autistic Children the Forgotten Ones?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) does not only affect the child alone, but the family unit as well. This qualitative study explored the impacts of ASD on the relationship between parents and their neuro-typical children and how the neuro-typical children cope with the impacts of having an autistic sibling in the family. Utilising principles of the social relations theory, five Singaporean families (n = 10) consisting of five mothers and five neuro-typical children were interviewed. Both the mothers and the neuro-typical children were seen to be equal agents in influencing the interactions with each other, and contributed in maintaining the close relationship through various strategies. Findings revealed that having an autistic child in the family imposed certain constraints and additional responsibilities for the family members. Despite so, the neuro-typical children coped well with such constraints. The in-depth data highlight the value of considering both the agency of mothers and the neuro-typical children and how they bidirectionally influence each other while sharing the caregiving roles for the autistic child in the family. It is strongly recommended for practitioners to incorporate elements of child's agency when expanding their scope of psychosocial intervention work with the neuro-typical children.     

Malaysia's outward FDI: The effects of market size and government policy

This paper extends the empirical literature of Malaysia's outward FDI (OFDI) by considering the impact of foreign market size and home international reserves using multivariate cointegration and error-correction modeling techniques. The empirical results reveal that there is a positive long-run relationship between Malaysia's OFDI and its key determinants, viz. foreign market size, real effective exchange rate, international reserves and trade openness. The main findings suggest that apart from the market-seeking incentive and the adoption of outward-oriented policies, the Malaysian government could also encourage OFDI by implementing liberal policy on capital outflows. On the basis of these findings, we draw some policy implications for the country's economic development and the internationalization of Malaysian firms in the era of globalization.     

A pragmatic approach to experimental design in industry

The importance of statistically designed experiments in industry has been well recognized. However, the use of 'design of experiments' is still not pervasive, owing in part to the inefficient learning process experienced by many non-statisticians. In this paper, the nature of design of experiments, in contrast to the usual statistical process control techniques, is discussed. It is then pointed out that for design of experiments to be appreciated and applied, appropriate approaches should be taken in training, learning and application. Perspectives based on the concepts of objective setting and design under constraints can be used to facilitate the experimenters' formulation of plans for collection, analysis and interpretation of empirical information. A review is made of the expanding role of design of experiments in the past several decades, with comparisons made of the various formats and contexts of experimental design applications, such as Taguchi methods and Six Sigma. The trend of development shows that, from the realm of scientific research to business improvement, the competitive advantage offered by design of experiments is being increasingly felt.     

Vegetation on and around large-scale buildings positively influences native tropical bird abundance and bird species richness

High population growth in the tropics is driving urbanisation, removing diverse natural ecosystems. This is causing native species to suffer while introduced synanthropes flourish. City planners are developing urban greenspace networks, in part trying to address this issue. Architects contribute to these greenspace networks by designing elevated and ground level green spaces on large-scale buildings. However, little evidence is available on whether building green spaces support native fauna. This is true for birds in tropical Singapore that support important ecosystem services and have existence value. Therefore, in this study, we conducted bird surveys and statistical analyses to determine, if and how vegetation on three building green space types (ground gardens, roof gardens and green walls) have a positive impact on native or introduced bird species. We found that elevated greenery (roof gardens and green walls) on large-scale buildings supported a higher richness of birds and abundance of urban native birds than control roofs and walls without vegetation. Ground gardens supported similar levels of native species as roof gardens but also a larger proportion of generalist synanthropes. However, we found no tropical forest habitat specialists across any space type. Therefore, we recommend roof gardens and ground gardens as a potential space for urban natives outside of a less competitive ground-level urban environment. Our study also found certain building design elements (height of elevated space, presence of specific plants) supported different species groups. Therefore, we suggest that these ecological requirements for different species groups are considered when designing a building’s green space.

     

State carnivals and the subvention of multiculturalism in Singapore

Increasing attention is being paid to the specificities of Asian multiculturalism in relation to ethnic pluralism, citizenship and developmental state formation. This article examines these relationships by analysing three carnival events in colonial and postcolonial Singapore that were organized by the state to promote its official multiculturalism. Through its cultural logics of horizontal racial segmentation, cascading symbolic authority from the state to co-opted communal representatives and multi-modal ritual iteration, the 1937 King George VI coronation celebrations proffered an imperial multiculturalism based on mediating plural groups and procedural norms. Adopting the same cultural logics in the 1970s, the newly-independent nation-state revived and transformed Chingay, a creole Chinese religious procession, into an annual parade celebrating the nation as comprising racially plural groups bound together by the modern ethos of progress the developmental state exemplified. In the 2000s, Chingay has been turned into an international spectacle celebrating Singapore as a cosmopolitan global city of hybridizing multiculturalism. But indicative of new racial-class segmentation, the old nation-building pluralism is promoted by Racial Harmony Day carnivals held in suburban public housing neighborhoods. This bifurcated multiculturalism reflects the developmental state's attempts to deal with new citizenship trends as they grind against the old ethnic pluralism. While faced with the same issues globalization brings, this postcolonial multiculturalism is distinctively different from liberal multiculturalism, not least because the subvention of multiculturalism is achieved through the state appropriation of vernacular cultural practices through its carnivals.     

A new two-party bargaining mechanism

If resources and facilities from different partners need to be engaged for a large-scale project with a huge number of tasks, any of which is indivisible, decision on the number of tasks assigned to any collaborating partner often requires a certain amount of coordination and bargaining among these partners so that the ultimate task allocation can be accepted by any partner in a business union for the project. In the current global financial crisis, such cases may appear frequently. In this paper, we first investigate the behavior of such a discrete bargaining model often faced by service-based organizations. In particular, we address the general situation of two partners, where the finite Pareto efficient (profit allocation) set does not possess any convenient assumption for deriving a bargaining solution, namely a final profit allocation (corresponding to a task assignment) acceptable to both partners. We show that it is not appropriate for our discrete bargaining model to offer the union only one profit allocation. Modifying the original optimization problem used to derive the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS), we develop a bargaining mechanism and define a related bargaining solution set to fulfil one type of needs on balance between profit-earning efficiency and profit-earning fairness. We then show that our mechanism can also suit both Nash’s original concave bargaining model and its continuous extension without the concavity of Pareto efficient frontier on profit allocation.     

Asymptotic Properties of Marginal Least-Square Estimator for Ultrahigh-Dimensional Linear Regression Models with Correlated Errors

In this article, we discuss asymptotic properties of marginal least-square estimator for ultrahigh-dimensional linear regression models. We are specifically interested in probabilistic consistency of the marginal least-square estimator in the presence of correlated errors. We show that under a partial orthogonality condition, the marginal least-square estimator can achieve variable selection consistency. In addition, we demonstrate that if a mutual orthogonality holds, the marginal least-square estimator satisfies estimation consistency. The discussed theories are exemplified through extensive simulation studies.