**FIRST DISCUSSION TO REPLY TO IS(PHILIP):

Key Term
For this module’s key term, I chose total quality management. When I was working on
my graduate degree I interned with the state of Oregon. The manager I worked with
introduced me to the process improvement lean/six sigma. Six sigma is a management
style under the total quality management umbrella. Six sigma is a method of process
control that uses statistics with an end goal of reducing errors to 3.4 defects per million
events. Throughout my working career I had noticed ways that process could be
improved. This total quality management/ six sigma method of process improvement is
a viable way to control process and make them more efficient.
 
Explanation of Key Term
Total quality management (TQM) is the continuous process of assessing the outcome of
events and making changes to minimize errors (Satterlee, 2018). This error reducing
initiative is used to ensure customers are trained, manage the flow of a supply chain
and improve customer service. The origin of total quality management as a continuous
product improvement methodology is unknown but has been attributed to two sources.
An American physicist named Walter Shewart was said to have applied his extensive
knowledge of statistics to process waste reduction and quality control in the early
20  century. The second origin has been traced back to an American and Romanian
th

engineer and advocate for quality, Josheph Juran, who wrote about the quality of work
coming out of Japan in the mid 20  century. TQM is an effective tool for process control
th

mainly because it empowers all members to own a part of the process. If all employees
feel like they are an integral part of the process, they will strive to create the best
possible outcome.
 
Major Article Summary
Chen, Lee and Wang (2020) discuss total quality management (TQM) and how it
performs as a multiplier to competitive advantage. The article starts out with the history
of TQM. According to Chen, Lee and Wang (2020) TQM took hold as a management
process in the early 1980’s in Japan.  The authors of this article examine how TQM is
viewed as an input in an input-process-output model.
                The authors formulated a series of hypotheses as to the effect that TQM has
on several business metrics. Hypothesis one was that TQM positively affects
sustainable competitive advantage. Hypothesis two was TQM positively affects
transformational leadership. Hypothesis three was how total quality management
positively affects Executive ability. Hypothesis four studied how transformational
leadership positively affects sustainable competitive advantage. Hypothesis five was
how executive ability positively affects sustainable competitive advantage.
Surveys were distributed to various businesses in the southern Taiwan Science Park in
Tainan City. These surveys asked questions pertaining to the relationships between
total quality management, as the independent variable and business metrics such as
transformational leadership, executive ability. The data analysis showed that TQM had
a positive effect on both sustainable competitive advantage and transformational
leadership.
 
Discussion
 
                4A. Chen, Lee and Wang (2020) relates to the discussion from the reading in
many ways. The article first defines what total quality management is and how relates to
popular business metrics. The study goes further into depth by defining the popular
business metrics and how they all interact together to form an optimal business
environment. The authors take time to explain each of their hypotheses and explain
their data gathering methodologies. The use of total quality management as it is used in
the business environment directly relates to the reading as assigned. Chen, Lee and
Wang do a great job explaining how each metric is affected by the total quality
management technique.
 
                4B. The major article Chen, Lee and Wang (2020) relates to the other articles
in the following ways. Anil & Satish (2019) discusses how customer satisfaction as a
business metric can be maximized with the use of total quality management.  Machiori
& Mendes describe how employee morale can be improved through total quality
management, but the article describes how there has been pushback and apathy
towards employee happiness.  Ali, Hilman & Gorondutse (2020) uses question
responses from 393 surveys. Using a partial least square regression the authors find
the correlation between their dependent and independent variables.
 
References
 
 
Ali, G. A., Hilman, H., & Gorondutse, A. H. (2020). Effect of entrepreneurial orientation,
market orientation and total quality management on performance: Evidence from saudi
SMEs. Benchmarking : An International Journal, 27(4), 1503-1531.
https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-08-2019-0391
 
Anil, A. P., & Satish, K. P. (2019). Enhancing customer satisfaction through total quality
management practices - an empirical examination. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence, 30(13-14), 1528-1548.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2017.1378572
 
Chen, R., Lee, Y., & Wang, C. (2020). Total quality management and sustainable
competitive advantage: Serial mediation of transformational leadership and executive
ability. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 31(5-6), 451-
468. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2018.1476132 Links to an external site.
 
Marchiori, D., & Mendes, L. (2020). Knowledge management and total quality
management: Foundations, intellectual structures, insights regarding evolution of the
literature. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 31(9-10), 1135-
1169. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2018.1468247 Links to an external site.
 
Satterlee, B. (2018). International Business with Biblical Worldview, McGraw Hill.
https://prod.reader-ui.prod.mheducation.com/epub/sn_ceee9/data-uuid-
c5071462f4ee4aa1bee5670c6ffa357a

THE SECOND DISCUSSION TO REPLY TO IS(JACOB Y.):

1. Key Term and Why You Are Interested in It 
 
For this week’s discussion I have decided to research e-commerce. The reason for my
more in-depth research is my academic interest in e-commerce and connection the
concept has to my current career in logistics. E-commerce has been a popular term in
retail and business the past several years so more research into why e-commerce has
become so popular. There must be postive and negative attributes to the growing e-
commerce world so I am curious what those are. In my logistics career we do business
with many large e-commerce retailers and for many logistics companies they have
become reliant on this type of business to be successful. 
 
 

2. Explanation of the Key Term  

The basic definition of e-commerce is making a financial transaction online. This can be
done between a business and customer or a business-to-business transaction. This is
done only but provides a large amount of flexibility for a business and opens the market
to worldwide consumers.  E-commerce really began in the 1990’s with the invention of
the internet. As the internet has become faster, more reliable, and more available to
consumers worldwide e-commerce has only grown. The functions of the concept have
also developed drastically (Santos et al., 2017). Originally, e-commerce was simply
consumer purchasing items and the products being shipped to them. Now, services
have entered the space and even most companies have some type of online invoicing
that can be paid online.  
 
 
 

3. Major Article Summary 

 One of the reasons I chose to research e-commerce further was to study the effect that
the coronavirus pandemic had on e-commerce. From my profession I knew that the
global even had an effect, but curious to what extent. The Coronavirus is a global even
that is still affecting people’s lives today. Late in 2019, the virus began in Wuhan, China
and quickly spread across the world. Many countries had citizens infected which lead to
having a global lockdown of people in their homes and having their borders closed.
Stores and businesses closed for a time period and economies were struggling globally
during the pandemic.  
One highlight for economies was the expansion of e-commerce for companies across
the world. Retail companies saw a major boom in business since the start of the
pandemic. People were locked in their home and traditional brick and mortar stores
were closed forcing people to rely more heavily on e-commerce to make purchases.
Amazon, Walmart, and other major online retailers saw major increases in purchases
and revenue (Akram & Khan, 2020). E-commerce also expanded with restaurants as
online ordering became more common. This also resulted in food delivery services such
as Uber Eats also performing well financially during the pandemic. For my company
specifically we saw an increase in business from retailers and the demand for logistics
companies expanded rapidly.  
 
 
4A. Discussion.   
The research I have done shows how important e-commerce has become to the world
economy. As the article discussed, e-commerce quickly became a valuable tool for
companies across the world. This shows just how willing the world’s population is to
accept e-commerce to do business.  E-commerce allows companies to engage in global
markets easier than ever before with minimal expense. The world's economies are now
more connected, and e-commerce is only proving to become the accepted way of doing
transactions with a business. E-commerce has even taken over many companies'
marketing strategies to attract customers (Rosário & Raimundo, 2021). Companies that
want to perform across borders will have to understand the concept and learn to
execute e-commerce in their business model. 
 
 
4B Discussion 
The key to all the articles that I have read is the acceptance of e-commerce for
consumers and businesses. Consumers are realizing the ease of e-commerce to
purchase goods. Goods can be purchased online and shipped to a consumer’s home
within a very short time period. Companies realize the markets that exist with e-
commerce and how the ease of business-to-business transactions can occur.
Consumers and businesses are also learning the wide variety of transactions that can
occur through e-commerce. Membership clubs, online retailers, and even investments
can be made through e-commerce and maintain a high level of customer
satisfaction (Ingaldi & Ulewicz, 2018). The world is digital, and more transactions are
being made through electronic means.  
 
 
 
References 
Akram, H., & Khan, A. (2020, June). E-commerce trends during COVID-19 pandemic -
researchgate. ResearchGate. Retrieved December 10, 2022,
from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahmed-Khan-67/publication/342736799_E-
commerce_trends_during_COVID-19_Pandemic/links/5f04603c458515505091c291/E-
commerce-trends-during-COVID-19-Pandemic.pdf Links to an external site. 
Ingaldi, M., & Ulewicz, R. (2018). Evaluation of quality of the e-commerce service.
International Journal of Ambient Computing and Intelligence, 9(2), 55–
66. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijaci.2018040105  Links to an external site. 
Rosário, A., & Raimundo, R. (2021, November 1). Consumer marketing strategy and e-
commerce in the last decade: A literature review. MDPI. Retrieved December 10, 2022,
from https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/7/164 Links to an external site. 
Santos, V., Sabrino, L., & Goncalves, R. (2017, November 20). E-commerce: A short
history follow-up on possible trends - researchgate. ReseachGate. Retrieved December
10, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valdeci-Santos-5/publication/
321176869_E-Commerce_A_Short_History_Follow-up_on_Possible_Trends/links/
5bb22af192851ca9ed339917/E-Commerce-A-Short-History-Follow-up-on-Possible-
Trends.pdf Links to an external site. 
Satterlee, B. (2018). International Business with Biblical Worldview. Brian Satterlee.

THE THIRD DISCUSSION TO REPLY TO IS(RYAN):

Key Term and Why You are Interested in It
            The key term of focus for the last two chapters in the book for this discussion
post will be intermediaries and how they impact managing global operations. I am most
interested in intermediaries because I have been an ordering officer in a foreign country
and had to rely on my local intermediaries, or I would not have been successful. In my
area of work, we refer to intermediaries as ten percenters because they are in the
business of getting you things but not having any of the items. Then they take a ten
percent cut of the price negotiated. Intermediaries are a critical aspect of global markets
for new companies that still need to build relationships or will not be there long enough
to care either. This interests me, besides my experience, because I worked with them
on a small scale. I am interested in learning how their role changes or develops at a
larger scale for a company trying to establish its products in a global market.
Explanation of the Key Term
            Intermediaries can be used in many ways; this discussion post will focus on their
impact on managing global market operations. Intermediaries are organizations or
businesses that coordinate between suppliers and consumers that can assist in
providing expertise for unfamiliar countries or overseas markets (Satterlee, 2019).
Intermediaries use their knowledge of a local market to liaison with new companies
trying to establish themselves and find consumers or suppliers. Intermediaries can work
with or for any service or supply. They are most commonly seen in overseas markets
where relationships are the most crucial aspect of a business. Intermediaries then help
make the connections, provide exposure, find reliable options, and find hard-to-find
suppliers all in one. In my past international experience, they can provide anything I
need or ask for, or they know someone who can provide it.
Major Article Summary
            The major article examines the role of global regulatory intermediaries and how
they can assist operation management by utilizing harmonization. The major article
explains intermediaries as mediators between regulators and a regulatory target for this
study, whereas I explained earlier that my experience is with tangible items. This is
more about regulations and assisting companies. The study starts by looking at the
efforts made in the global retail sector to harmonize labor through the introduction of
intermediaries (Marques, 2019). The study wants to examine the impact and role
intermediaries pose to labor in retail sectors since their introduction and inclusion to
harmonize and standardize the processes. They looked at a few global companies,
such as Walmart, Metro AG, and Tesco PLC (Marques, 2019). They chose these
companies as a baseline of well-known and established companies which would be
easier to collect data than on a small intermediary company in Thailand, for example.
The study started by grouping decisions made by intermediaries into two categories,
compliance and commitment approaches (Marques, 2019). The compliance approach
focuses on risk management practices within the factories, whereas the commitment
approach has more rigorous standards which focus on detailed knowledge of factory
conditions and workers' conditions (Marques, 2019). With these two categories, they
then looked at which companies used which approach more throughout their entire
global operations. The study results are unsurprising, where standardization across all
factories is a critical element of global operations. They help limit issues within the
supply chains because they hold higher sustainability standards, and harmonization
helps project issues in an easier-to-read digestible manner (Marques, 2019).
Discussion
How the Cited Work Relates to My Explanation and Assigned Module
            This assigned module is about entering global markets and managing global
operations. Intermediaries have a direct flow into both of those. The major article is an
excellent example of managing global operations from a different perspective than my
previous explanation. The article took a deep dive into the role of intermediaries in
harmonization, the impacts of standardization in global markets, and how that helps
stabilize supply chains and operations globally (Marques, 2019). By intermediaries
stepping into the role of harmonizing and standardizing best business practices within
factories and creating and enforcing sustainability standards, they stabilize a global
operation. The stabilization implicitly aids in managing and succeeding in global
operations.
How the Cited Work Relates to Other Research
            The major article compares four other cited articles with different aspects of
what intermediaries are used for in the global market. The major article was focused on
working conditions; in the first article, the focus was on the labor market of Japan and
Vietnam. The article looked at a comparison of the employees from a tactical
perspective. How the influence of an intermediary can change the outcome of landing a
job, the result shows more success with workers using the connections of the third party
(Muranaka, 2021). This article showed the value of intermediaries, just like in the major
article; they can be used to protect businesses and support workers when entering new
working locations. The second article takes a different approach, where the focus is on
regulatory standards in the global market and how there are so many different ones that
it is hard to keep them all straight; the value of using an intermediary is that they can
assist in a more accessible entry to the market (Moloney, 2008). The second article
shows that intermediaries can be helpful when entering a new global market, while the
major article is focused on managing once already in. The connection remains that aid
from an intermediary; regardless of the years a foreign company has been in that
market, it is always helpful to use local assistance. The third article is similar to the
second but newer and explicitly focuses on financial markets in technology. The
research was conducted to show that the use of intermediaries in the financial aspects
of technology development is even more critical than before. With new regulations,
laws, and standards being created daily, it is essential to have someone within the
market locally to help businesses and banks invest in the global market (Niyazbekova et
al., 2021). Not only are intermediaries helping standardize factory and workplace
environments, but they aid in navigating updated and created regulations as fast as the
technology is growing. The last cited article is older than the other, but it is valuable to
understand how valuable intermediaries can be global. The article studied how positive
the impact of using intermediaries was in the fruit export markets in Chile as small-scale
growers were able to utilize a free market with the connections and expertise that
intermediaries have (Murray, 2005).
 
References
Marques, J. C. (2019). Private regulatory capture via harmonization: An analysis of
global retailer regulatory intermediaries. Regulation & Governance. 13(2), 157-
176. https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1111/rego.12252.
Molony, N. (2008). Regulation of the Market and Intermediaries: Global Comparison
and Contrast – What is best practice?: Recent developments in UK and European
Union Market and Intermediary Regulation. Macquarie Journal of Business Law. 5(1), 1-
42. https://search-informit-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/doi/10.3316/
informit.379826840121438.
Muranaka, A. (2021). Beyond blue ocean? The roles of intermediaries in the cross-
border labor market between Japan and Vietnam. Global Networks a Journal of
Transnational Affairs. 22(3), 514-
529. https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1111/glob.12356.
Murray, W. (2005). Competitive Global Fruit Export Markets: Marketing Intermediaries
and Impacts on Small-Scale Growers in Chile. Bulletin of Latin American Research;
Journal of the Society for Latin American Studies. 16(1), 43-55. https://doi-
org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1111/j.1470-9856.1997.tb00158.x.
Niyazbekova, S., Yessymkhanova, Z., Troyanskaya, M., Yuliya, T., Annenskaya, N.
(2021). Features of Intermediary Activity of Banks in the Global Financial Services
Market Industry. Academy of Strategic Management Journal. 20(6), 1-
9. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/liberty.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/
scholarly-journals/features-intermediary-activity-banks-global/docview/2599947834/se-2  
Links to an external site..
Satterlee, B. (2019). International Business with Biblical Worldview. McGraw-Hill.