The aim of this study is to determine the role of logistics service quality (LSQ) in its functional and operational dimensions on marketing flexibility in diary factories working in Duhok governorate/Kurdistan region. The research problem arises through the research question which states: Do logistics service quality dimensions contribute in achieving marketing flexibility? The primary data used in this study was attained from a structured questionnaire distributed to managers in examined factories. 34 valid questionnaires have been collected and analyzed. The findings of the research show that there was a significant correlation and effect between logistics service quality in its functional and operational dimensions on marketing flexibility. The research presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: focusing and attention to all dimensions of the (LSQ) in the researched factories, especially the functional dimension of its greater contribution in achieving marketing flexibility.

This study aims to examine the indirect impact of supply chain management (SCM) in its three dimensions (relationship with suppliers, relationship with intermediaries and distributors, relationship with customers) on the competitive advantage (CA) in its five dimensions (Cost, Quality, Delivery Time, flexibility, and Creativity commitment) with the presence of information technology (IT) as a mediator. Furthermore, 250 questionnaires were distributed in Halawani Industrial Company. The questionnaires analyzed were 226. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to test the hypotheses. The results of the partial analysis show that both relationships with the suppliers and customers contributed to the impact on IT, while the relationship with intermediaries and distributors did not contribute to the impact, but it was supportive of SCM to indirectly influence CA. The most important result of the study was the necessity to evaluate the fundamental competencies; periodically then continuously in order to alter the imperative assets which are the pillars of core competencies including the requirements and conditions regarding strategic thinking and leadership competencies. Also, the study provides an inventory of knowledge about the reality of SCM and its role in achieving CA through IT, which contributes to enriching the library in overall and Jordanian in specific in this subject.

The paper investigates the impact of corporate performance on supply chain finance with the data collected from logistics sector in Vietnam. Particularly, supply chain finance is measured by cash conversion cycle (CCC). By using the generalized method of moment (GMM), the results show that corporate performance (CP) exerts a negative impact on cash conversion cycle (CCC). Alternatively, corporate performance positively affects supply chain finance, which is an interesting finding of this paper. Further, supply chain finance is also significantly influenced by some control variables, namely capital structure (CS), firm size (FS) and firm growth (FG). The results are essential for the management of supply chain, especially those working in logistics sector.

The aim of this paper is to provide a practical approach by using an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach to prioritize the most critical success factors that influence the supply chain output in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis of MICMAC was also considered for the identification of factors having a high power of influence. The findings show that the most significant factors with the highest driving power are associated with innovation and communication tools. Such findings can assist policy makers, administrators, and practitioners in formulating supply chain effectiveness strategies and policies.

Customer focus strategy has shifted the way the businesses shape their customer satisfaction. Service oriented companies in general have been given a great emphasis and a significance care to both customer satisfaction and customer delight lately. However, the management decision of what to offer to gain customer happiness is still a challenge issue. To test such issue, this study develops and tests a set of new factors which shapes both customer satisfaction and delight within the UAE setting. The factors include perceived service value, perceived service quality, perceived price fairness in addition to perceived service recovery. Data were collected through survey using a structured questionnaire distributed to 420 customers over all 28 branches of Etisalat Company in Dubai. 350 valid questionnaires were analyzed using factor analysis along with correlation and regression. The results of the study indicate that perceived service value, perceived service quality, perceived price fairness and perceived service recovery could be considered as the critical success factors that can be used to shape and measure customer satisfaction and delight. The findings can be used as guidelines to retain customers and to enhance the business value especially when organizations service providers focusing more on what customer perceive rather than focusing on what to offer from products and/or services. Moreover, some managerial implications and a set of theoretical recommendations are suggested in the final part of this study.

The study aims to test the impact of social responsibility toward employees on the business performance. The sample selected includes 667 employees in the enterprises. The research results show that the social responsibility factor had direct and indirect impacts on the business performance of enterprises through two intermediaries: cohesion and opportunistic workers’ behavior. Based on the research results, we propose a number of recommendations to increase the efficiency of business operations of the enterprises through improving corporate social responsibility toward employees in countries with emerging economies, including Vietnam.

Loyalty programs are widely used by organizations as a structured customer relationship management (CRM) tool to build and extend customer-supplier relationship. Although a large number of benefits are offered through them to both companies and consumers, loyalty programs face a set of planning and implementation pitfalls. Scholars or practitioners rarely discuss such pitfalls. Thus, this paper intends to add further values to the current literature by exploring/investigating the main loyalty scheme pitfalls, both theoretically and practically. The study explores a set of loyalty program planning problems and some of the execution’s drawbacks, including clear aim need, loyalty program design, budgeting and experienced employee involvement. In addition to loyalty programs benefits and rewards offered, loyalty programs target customer selection problems using loyalty program promotional tools. For the study, 161 managers and employees who were involved in loyalty program planning and execution were surveyed. Smart-PLS was used to test the developed model and hypotheses. The study found that all studied loyalty program elements identified affected their planning and implementation. However, some of these elements where seen important to be considered when planning loyalty schemes, such schemes’ benefits and rewards offered were still not planned properly and did not meet customer needs or even expectations and, in most cases, the loyalty programs’ aims were not clear to all their stakeholders. The paper also provides additional discussion about additional issues of loyalty schemes planning and execution problems and proposes a set of solutions and recommendations, which might highlight some of the future venues with this regard.

In today’s complex and competitive environment, supply function becomes more a strategic differentiator and a core competency. This function is strongly related to relationship between buyer and supplier. In addition, buyer supplier relationships (BSR) have undertaken considerable changes during the last decade. Although previous empirical research has found the importance of identifying factors that influence BSR, the present paper analyses the factors influencing the successful relationship between buyer and seller. Based on the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), the complex interrelationships between the established factors are inspected. Classification of factors has been carried out based on dependence and driving power by using MICMAC analysis. The present study highlights “Innovation and technology” and “Information exchange” as the most significant factors with high influential power for the BSR. This study aims to aid the decision makers (buyer or supplier) in evolving effective business strategies.

The paper analyzes factors which exert significant impact on supply chain finance (SCF) of real estate sector in Vietnam. Since this interesting topic has not been commonly investigated in empirical research, its results will be meaningful not only on Vietnam but also on other economies. By employing generalized method of moment (GMM) in estimation, the authors report the negative impact of firm profitability (ROA), financial leverage (LEV), firm size (SIZE) and economic growth (GDP) on supply chain finance (SCF). These valuable findings are essential for consideration by the management in improving supply chain finance, especially that of real estate sector.

This paper studies the bending behavior of honeycomb structures by varying their weight through the introduction of glass microspheres. For this purpose, four different types of syntactic foam specimens were manufactured, varying the percentage by volume of glass microspheres between 20%, 30% and 40%. Afterwards, three-point bending tests were performed on each of these groups of specimens based on ASTM D7264/D7264M-15, thus obtaining data that allowed determining mechanical behavior and comparing it with material without glass microspheres. The optimum positive influence of microspheres over specific flexural strength was found at 30% of addition of glass bubbles. Additionally, results of the structures under impact gravity test confirm that 30% is a good proportion for these structures.