Business Commons^™

Urban Consolidation Center Or Peer-To-Peer Platform? The Solution To Urban Last-Mile Delivery, Qiyuan Deng, Xin Fang, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Booming e-commerce activities further increase this demand, exerting intense pressure on the cities' well-being. To build a city with congestion and pollution under control, a consolidator can operate an urban consolidation center (UCC) to bundle shipments from multiple carriers before the last-mile delivery. Alternatively, the consolidator can operate a peer-to-peer platform for the carriers to share their delivery capacity. Our objective is to compare the performance of these two business models. Under each business model, we study the interactions between a consolidator and multiple carriers using a two-period game-theoretical model. In each period, the consolidator first chooses a delivery fee …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Training Programme To Improve Decision Making In Insurance Risk Underwriting, Gavin Raj Maistry

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies the effectiveness of a training programme to improve decision making in insurance risk underwriting. A key component of insurance risk underwriting decisions is qualitative judgement, in addition to quantitative analytical modelling. In the training of insurance underwriters, great strides have been made on the analytical side. However, the training of judgement, both intuitive and deliberate, has largely been ignored. The aim of this research proposal is to design and test a training programme to improve judgement in insurance underwriting.

Our research extends the script training concept, used extensively in medical training, to the domain of insurance underwriting …

Change Management Can Be Simple And Complex, Lalit Jagtiani

Asian Management Insights

The success of any intervention is achieved by winning over the support of staff and aligning team members who are driven by different professional agendas.

Transformational Leadership And Follower Risk-Taking: Examining The Effects Of Psychological Safety And Power Distance Orientation, Josephine Poh Tin Kang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Risk-taking is a necessary part of business, yet little is known about how leaders might impact follower risk-taking. A theoretical model is developed in which transformational leaders are hypothesized to indirectly affect follower risk-taking through follower psychological safety. Additionally, this partially mediated effect is theorised to be moderated by follower power distance orientation. Data were collected over two time periods from followers (N = 331) to test the hypothesized model. Results provided limited support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, results indicated that transformational leadership positively affected psychological safety, but psychological safety did not predict follower risk-taking. Power distance orientation did …

Redefining Corporate Strategies And Functions, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

Traditional corporate planning—marked by a march towards a series of deliverables, detailed spreadsheets that project costs and revenue into the future, and review meetings according to an annual calendar—is not enough to succeed in today’s business environment. Ken Favaro, Senior Partner at Booz & Company, warned leaders of the common trap of confusing vision, mission, purpose, plans or goals for the real work of strategy. He explained that if these five are the cart and strategy is the horse, leaders who put the cart ahead of the horse often end up with no horse at all.

Successful Venture Building: What Matters! An Empirical Examination Of Effective Incubation Practices, Patrick Thng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Incubator models have evolved since the first known US incubator in 1959. From the first generation of a facilities-focused incubator model in the 1960s to the fourth generation of emerging models, commonly referred to as, the “Accelerator” model and the “Venture Builder” model.
Since 2006, there has been a significant increase in the number of venture builders and accelerators. Yet very little is known about a) their performance and the antecedents; b) the key differences between venture builders and accelerators; c) the factors and practices that characterise highly successful venture builders and d) their (venture builders)comparative advantages or disadvantages compared …

Three Useful Things To Know About Customer Value Propositions, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Business performance will be boosted for firms that get it right

Responsible And Sustainable Business, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The Tanoto Foundation builds on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for a win-win solution

Why Not All Failing Teams Are Equal, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

New research identifies five team archetypes and an understanding of their trajectories can help managers foster a more effective collaboration

Battling Counterfeits In A Massive Market: Designing And Evaluating An Id-Tag Based Solution For Electronic Product Monitoring And Controlling, Xiao Ying Chen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The problem of counterfeit and shoddy goods in China has been rampant and persistent one. The complexity of the Chinese market makes solving this problem extremely difficult. Three government agencies have tried to combat this problem extensively, from market entrance permission for prior-processing, sampling and inspection for in-processing, and punishment for post-processing. The responsibility division among agencies, however, created the cracks and holes in dealing with the problem. The existing government solution is too slow in response and too sparse in coverage to be effective and efficient. Anti-counterfeit labels and their derivatives are employed for counterfeit identification and prevention. Their …

The Multidimensionality Of Business Risk: A Managerial Perspective Implications For Its Classification, Interpretation & Management, Prakash Bagri

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Business risk has been a critical area of managerial attention and the topic of extensive academic research. Despite the intense focus, there is little convergence around its understanding and limited insights on how managers deal with it. Extant literature provides an ex post model of business risk, focusing on the behavioural context of risk-taking driving a linear expression of risk action.

We conducted in-depth interviews of 16 C-suite executives to find that managers (1) view business risk as a multi-dimensional construct involving different facets of risk, (2) emphasize the importance of people across these facets, (3) differ in their prioritization …

A Recipe For Success: Asia's F&B Franchising, Kek Sin Koh

Asian Management Insights

Asian food and beverage (F&B) brands are exploding in popularity all over the world. Since 1999, Asian fast food restaurants have grown by 500 percent globally, making it the single fastest-growing food category, outstripping the growth of the next four, i.e. Middle Eastern, Chicken, Pizza, and Latin.1 At the same time, there is a huge opportunity for F&B franchising in Asia Pacific—over the past decade, the sector has flourished with the entry and expansion of both international and Asian brands, and in 2016, the restaurant industry in this region was estimated to be worth some US$1.5 trillion.2 Going forward, there …

Selling Off-Grid Light To Liquidity Constrained Consumers, Bhavani Shanker Uppari, Ioana Popescu, Serguei Netessine

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: A large proportion of the world’s population has no access to electricity and so relies on noxious kerosene for their lighting needs. Solar-based solutions require a large up-front investment and are often unaffordable in this market owing to consumers’ tight liquidity constraints. As an alternative, there are business models relying on rechargeable light bulbs that are sold at a subsidized price (which renders them affordable) and require regular micropayments for recharges (which eases liquidity constraints). These bulbs provide a cheaper and healthier light source than kerosene, yet their adoption is lower than expected, and some consumers continue …