The pressure of oversight and scrutiny in the business-to-business purchasing process has the potential to cause psychological distress in purchasing professionals, giving rise to apprehensions about ...being ethically inappropriate. Utilizing depth interviews with public sector purchasing professionals in a phenomenological approach, the authors develop the notion of ethical purchasing dissonance to explain the psychological distress. An inductively derived conceptual framework is presented for ethical purchasing dissonance that explores its potential antecedents and consequences; illustrative propositions are presented, and managerial implications are discussed.
This article examines the impact of business-to-business (B2B) buying groups on buyer–supplier relationships. The authors outline two distinct initiatives—monitoring and community building—through ...which buying groups govern buyer–supplier exchange and impact supplier performance toward buyers. Two boundary conditions are identified for the performance efficacy of the buying group's governance efforts: the buyer's own governance of the supplier and the dependence relations among the focal parties. Analyses using two-wave primary data collected from the U.S. health care sector and replications using secondary outcomes indicate support for the proposed framework. The authors conduct a conjoint experiment to further enhance the generalizability of the findings and report that a buying group's monitoring of suppliers enhances supplier performance both by itself and with increasing supplier monitoring by the buyer firm. Further, the supplier's dependence on the buying group and the buyer's dependence on the supplier both sharpen the efficacy of the buying group's monitoring program. However, the performance effects of community building are weakened as the buyer–supplier relationship becomes stronger and as the buyer grows more dependent on the supplier. The authors thus uncover novel interplays between B2B buying groups and B2B dyads and document their consequences for firm performance.
The marketing function of firms continues to evolve into many configurations, including the dispersion of marketing capabilities. This study evaluates the effects on the marketing function’s ...influence when marketing capabilities are dispersed across multiple boundaries. Using a sample of marketing executives, we study the effects of two forms of marketing capabilities dispersion: intra-organizational dispersion and inter-organizational dispersion. We examine the impact of these forms on marketing’s perceived influence within the firm. We also investigate marketing’s influence on customer responsiveness, along with three distal outcomes: marketing strategy implementation success, relationship portfolio effectiveness, and business unit performance. Our findings reveal that marketing’s influence may actually heighten or diminish, depending on the form of marketing capability dispersion. Further, we contribute to findings regarding marketing’s influence on business unit performance. The results provide a new lens for scholars to view and measure marketing dispersion and offer guidance to practitioners.
Yoga is becoming way of life world over to stay fit and agile both physically and mentally. Sutra neti is an ancient yoga practice in which a thread/tube is passed through nostrils and taken out ...through mouth and is then moved back and forth. This technique is believed to clean nasal passages and is considered relatively safe. We report a case of nasopharyngeal stenosis caused due to this ancient practice. People and yoga trainers all over the world should be made aware of this complication of sutra neti as it is difficult to treat and has high recurrence rate.
Increase in life expectancy has led to increased number of octogenarian and nonagenarians population. These old people have increased chances of developing skin tumours like slow growing basal cell ...carcinoma on the sun exposed parts of body. Many a times surgeons all over the world are bit conservative in managing these elderly patients and compromise on cosmetic aspects due to very advanced age of these patients. This report is about an 87-year-old female with BCC of nasal dorsum who underwent a major surgical procedure to maintain facial aesthetics.
Multinational corporations (MNCs) are adopting increasingly diverse and complex marketing channels to sell their products worldwide. They strive to manage channels that confront diverse demands from ...headquarters, foreign subsidiaries, and local partners as well as complex market environments. Because extant research on MNCs' marketing channels is sparse, the authors propose an organizing framework to spur and guide research on MNC channel management. As a meta-theory that integrates economic and social elements of MNC channel management, the political economy perspective is used to propose two testable frameworks pertaining to determinants of (1) MNC marketing channel structures and processes and (2) MNC marketing channel outcomes. Building on these frameworks, the authors advance a research agenda to test substantive relationships, elaborate new constructs, and illustrate new contexts pertaining to MNC marketing channels. A set of propositions illustrates the applicability of these conceptual frameworks.
Tumours of lacrimal drainage system are a rare entity and among these rare tumours lymphomas are a rarity. We report a case of 65 year old male who presented with mass inferior to left lacrimal sac ...region which was diagnosed as Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma on histopathology and immunochemistry. The patient underwent excision biopsy followed by chemotherapy and is disease free till writing of this report.
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effect of different surface treatments on the shear bond strength (SBS) values between zirconia and resin cement compared to untreated ...specimens. The effects of various surface treatments on the bond strength between zirconia and resin cement were investigated by searching relevant articles on PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar databases. A total of 13 studies that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and addressed the research question were selected for statistical analysis. The studies were evaluated for heterogeneity, and a meta-analysis was performed.In total, 13 in vitro studies were included in accordance with the eligibility criteria. All 13 studies consistently demonstrated that silica coating yielded the highest SBS, followed by sandblasting and laser treatments. The meta-analysis using a random-effect model indicated a significant intergroup comparison, except for a few studies.Among the three treatments examined, the silica coating of zirconia was identified as the most effective in enhancing the bond strength between zirconia and resin cement. Further controlled laboratory and clinical studies are necessary to validate these findings and explore additional factors that may influence the effects of these surface treatments.
This research work aims to study small field characteristics of the 60Co source-based teletherapy machine by varying the detector size and source size. Further, the feasibility of clinical use of ...small fields on 60Co source-based teletherapy unit has been studied. In this study, square fields size varying from 1 × 1 cm2 to 10 × 10 cm2 were used. Two different ionization chambers (SNC125c and Pinpoint) having different sensitive volumes were used for experimental measurements, and the tool for particle simulation (TOPAS) version 3.5 toolkit was used for Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. All the data was measured as per the recommendation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) technical report series-483 (TRS-483). Firstly, MC simulated beam data (beam profiles and percentage depth dose) was validated against the experimentally measured beam data and found to be agreed within 2%/2 mm gamma criteria. The SNC125c underestimate the output factors (OFs) by 7% and 5% when compared to MC calculated OFs for small beams of 1 × 1 cm2 and 1.5 × 1.5 cm2, respectively. The full-width half-maxima (FWHM) of all field sizes agreed with the set geometric field size other than 1 × 1 cm2 and 1.5 × 1.5 cm2, for which it was found most deviated, and it shows significant dependency on the size of the source. The present study showed that chamber size significantly impacts the measurement of small fields characteristics, mainly OFs. Further, source size is another parameter that significantly affects the beam profiles that limits the use of 60Co teletherapy machine for field sizes smaller than 3 × 3 cm2.
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