Dr. Yumiao Tian's Paper Published in Top Journal

Recently, Dr Yumiao Tian, Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Organisation at International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), and her doctoral student, Yu Han, wrote an academic paper titled "Navigating Supply Chain Disruptions: A Purchasing Portfolio Matrix Analysis of Chinese Manufacturing SMEs in the context of COVID-19", published in the top international journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM) in the field of operations and supply chain management. This study focuses on SMEs in emerging markets under the background of COVID-19 and proposes a new Purchasing Portfolio Matrix (PPM) model suitable for global procurement, aiming to provide practical inspiration and assistance for SMEs to go global and survive in the increasingly difficult and complex international market situation.

With the increasing globalization of supply chains, global procurement has played a crucial role in improving supply chain performance for manufacturing enterprises. However, in recent years, the risks and natural disasters faced by businesses worldwide have become more diverse and intense. Especially the outbreak of COVID-19, compared to other natural disasters, has a larger scale and longer duration, sparking debates about globalization strategies, and forcing manufacturing companies to constantly reflect on their position in the international market and re-examine their procurement activities.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, SMEs generally adopted a "basic segmentation and demand and purchase strategy". Their organizational structure was relatively simple, relying on relatively simple and basic decision-making procedures, and usually, only one or two people agreed to communicate procurement decisions. During the epidemic, due to the spread of market panic and control measures in various countries, the global supply chain system has been greatly impacted, and enterprises are facing problems such as labor shortages, cash flow shortages, and raw material shortages, which further affect the delivery and contract performance capabilities of SMEs.

Dr Yumiao Tian

Dr Yumiao Tian is currently an associate professor at International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xi'an Jiaotong- Liverpool University (XJTLU). Before this, she obtained her doctoral degree from Teesside University in the UK with a full scholarship and worked at Sheffield Hallam University's Sheffield Business School. Her doctoral paper has been awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Northern Leadership Academy, with less than 30 recipients across the UK.

She has published academic papers in leading journals and various international conferences, including Human Resource Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, International Marketing Review, and The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. At the same time, she also serves as an editorial board member for the International Journal of Family Business and Management, as well as a reviewer for the International Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, and Thunderbird International Business Review.

Dr. Tian has been working with British government and organizations such as UKTI, NECC and LEP to assist local SMEs explore and maintain business and markets widely in Europe and Asia. She has also successfully attracted around £100K research fund across UK and China. Her work of consultancy has guided a major Chinese national railway and locomotive company successfully develop subsidiaries in oversea markets.Yu Han

Yu Han is a doctoral graduate of IBSS in 2022 and currently serves as an assistant professor at Nanjing University of Finance and Economics. She has also collaborated with her supervisor and won the Best Paper award at the 2021 Regional Conference on Marketing and International Business, Understanding the Global Marketplace.

JOURNAL

The International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM) is a top peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of operations and supply chain management, listed as a ABS 4 journal with an impact factor of 9.36 in 2023. The scope of the journal covers various aspects of the field, such as manufacturing and service industries, for-profit organizations, and non-profit organizations. Its mission is to publish cutting-edge innovative research results that can greatly promote the development of operations and supply chain management in both theory and practice.

IBSS Research

Over the past year, IBSS scholars have published a number of papers in leading international academic journals at the UTD-24, FT-50, and ABS 4/4* levels, including Management Science, Journal of Finance, Journal of Operations Management, Information System Research, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Research Policy, Journal of World Business, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Retailing, Human Resource Management, etc., and have been awarded important research project grants by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education. XJTLU IBSS is well on its way to becoming a top-quality research-oriented business school.