Importancia de las competencias laborales como generadores de productividad en las empresas colombianas.Importance of labor skills as generators of productivity in Colombian companies.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze supply chain practices, and supply chain food quality performance indicator in the Australian beef processing industry. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model was developed to test how supply chain practices: strategic alliance, customer focus, information sharing, information quality, Lean system and antecedent cooperative behavior: trust and commitment impact on food quality. A survey questionnaire to 600 Australian beef processors was conducted to collect the empirical data for testing of the formulated hypotheses. The stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings – Strategic alliance, information quality and trust and commitment are significantly related to food quality. In particular, the standardized coefficient shows that information quality has a significant positive relationship with food quality. Research limitations/implications – As Lean principles have been widely adopted in the red meat industry, strategic alliance becomes even critical for maintaining cost and operation effectiveness in the beef supply chain. A various approaches in terms of innovative technologies can improve information quality and promote information sharing in the beef supply chain. To build trust and commitment among supply chain partners requires perception of mutual long-term goals. Practical implications – Australian Meat Manufacturers face greater regulatory challenges and restraints (product labeling, food safety and carbon tax) over the next five years. Therefore, to tackle the challenges, the findings of this research have significant practical implications. Originality/value – This study intends to fill the research gap and explore how advanced supply chain systems have a potential to provide contributions to Australian beef processing industry performance. Vertical integration between livestock producers, meat processors, wholesalers and retailers provides the opportunities for greater economies of scale in production and distribution.

This article presents findings on immigrant entrepreneurship in Australia. The relationship between the entrepreneurial start‐up motivation, co‐ethnic preferences and entrepreneurial capabilities of established immigrant businesses are explored. We analyse data collected with a self‐administered survey questionnaire from 157 immigrant entrepreneurs in Melbourne's suburbs. Our findings show that immigrant entrepreneurs who report a high level of individual achievement as their start‐up motivation also report high levels of entrepreneurial capabilities in terms of opportunity recognition, managerial innovativeness and proactiveness. Immigrant entrepreneurs who are highly influenced by co‐ethnic preferences on staff employment and customer targeting report higher opportunity recognition than those who have a co‐ethnic preference on suppliers. We provide important insights and explanations for these findings and their implications for Australian immigrant entrepreneurs and policymakers.

PurposeThough resource based view (RBV) has been applied extensively in supply chain studies to examine how firms utilize logistics resources to attain superior performance, relatively little attention has been directed to exploring the effects of operational routines on logistics and supply chain (L&SC) competencies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal linkages between operational routines and L&SC competencies of Chinese logistics service providers (LSPs).Design/methodology/approachA conceptual model on the relationships between operational routines and L&SC competencies was developed based on RBV. In total, 76 valid responses from a survey of Chinese LSPs provided the empirical data for the testing of the formulated hypotheses. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to develop the constructs for the model and hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsNot all operational routines were drivers of L&SC competencies in the Chinese logistics market. Processes for increasing responsiveness are most important in contributing to building positioning, distribution support and agility competencies. Processes for increasing flexibility are only effective in developing positioning competency, while performance benchmarking has little contribution to competency building in the Chinese market. ICT support strengthens the relationship between performance benchmarking and distribution support, but weakens that between processes for increasing flexibility and distribution support as well as that between processes for increasing responsiveness and agility.Research limitations/implicationsThis study raises more questions than it attempts to answer, opening up a number of horizons for further research into the logistics market of China. Several follow‐up studies have been suggested, including a multiple case study on how Chinese LSPs contrive their operational routines to respond to the exigencies of market situations.Practical implicationsFindings from this study have significant managerial implications in resource investment and competency building to generate competitive advantage in the Chinese logistics market.Originality/valueThis research sheds new insights on the routine‐capability‐competency building chain in China's fragmentary logistics industry. It indicates that despite over three decades of economic reform, and ascension to the World Trade Organization, China remains a distinctively unique market environment with ingredients for operation success vastly different from those of the developed economies.

No abstract