How do policy levers shape the quality of a national health system?

Poor quality of care may have a detrimental effect on access and take-up and can become a serious barrier to the universality of health services. This consideration is of particular interest in view of the fact that health systems in many countries must address a growing public-sector deficit and respond to increasing pressures due to COVID-19 and aging population, among other factors. In line with a rapidly emerging literature, we focus on patient satisfaction as a proxy for quality of health care. Drawing on rich longitudinal and cross-sectional data for Spain and multilevel estimation techniques, we show that in addition to individual level differences, policy levers (such as public health spending and the patient-doctor ratio, in particular) exert a considerable influence on the quality of a health care system. Our results suggest that policymakers seeking to enhance the quality of care should be cautious when compromising the level of health resources, and in particular, health personnel, as a response to economic downturns in a sector that traditionally had insufficient human resources in many countries, which have become even more evident in the light of the current health crisis. Additionally, we provide evidence that the increasing reliance on the private health sector may be indicative of inefficiencies in the public system and/or the existence of features of private insurance which are deemed important by patients.     

Consolidation and fragmentation in environmental scanning: A review and research agenda

Environmental scanning is a broadly defined concept, having first received attention from scholars in the late 1960s. Over the years a number of similar and overlapping constructs have emerged in management literature. The aim of this study, via a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical research, is to consolidate foundation environmental scanning knowledge, demonstrate how scanning research has developed and fragmented over time, and propose an agenda for future research. The first contribution of our review is a new typology of environmental scanning research made up of five discrete research views, which provides a more comprehensive and contemporary overview of the field than previous studies. The second is a proposed agenda for future research that explicitly acknowledges the role of technology, an area that is presently underdeveloped in foundation scanning literature. The third contribution is to signpost future directions for research on scanning and organisational performance using a number of theoretical perspectives. The overall outcome of our review is to move scanning research on from increasingly incremental contributions concerned with context to a place where the changing role of technology and the mechanisms through which environmental scanning contributes to competitive advantage can be more thoroughly understood.     

Information search,coherence effects,and their interplay in legal decision making

Legal judgments require one to make sense of a complex set of typically contradicting pieces of information that can easily be interpreted in a biased manner. This systematic judgment bias can be caused by biased information search (i.e., confirmatory search) as well as biased information processing (i.e., coherence effects) in which the interpretation of information is changed to fit the emerging favored option. In four studies, we investigate the complex interplay between both kinds of influences. Participants completed three legal cases in which they could freely search for information. We manipulated between subjects whether systematic search was possible or not and measured the assessment of each selected piece of information. In line with previous studies, we observe strong coherence effects in each study, in that the evidence interpretation strongly depended on the current tendency towards acquittal or conviction. In contrast to our expectation, however, people searched for information that was contrary to their current belief in the given case (i.e., disconfirmatory information search). We also observed a trend towards an interaction between both factors, in that coherence effects were slightly stronger for neutral and pro-guilty evidence when systematic information search was possible. Our results underline an unconscious striving for coherence when making complex judgments that is not easily corrected.     

互联网深化、信息不确定性与企业出口平稳性

互联网作为信息搜寻和传播的重要渠道,有利于缓解国际市场不确定性对企业出口决策的影响,从而有助于稳定企业出口预期,保障出口企业的持续生存。本文首先基于Fernandes 和 Tang(2014)的研究框架将互联网深化程度和出口集聚同时纳入到异质性贸易企业模型,在剥离出口集聚对企业出口行为影响的基础上,从理论视角揭示了互联网深化程度提高影响企业出口行为特别是出口持续生存的内在机理与方向。研究发现,不同于出口集聚会同时影响企业的需求冲击和成本冲击,互联网深化带来的信息溢出效应会通过贝叶斯法则(Bayesian Rule)使得企业修正其对国际市场不确定性的预期,提高其对目的国市场成本冲击的估计精度,从而在互联网深化程度较高的城市,企业进入出口市场的临界生产率较低,有利于其出口参与度和出口稳定性的提高。然而互联网深化程度提高不影响企业在目的国市场产品出口的集约边际。本文使用2000-2013 年中国工业企业数据库、中国海关数据库和中国城市统计年鉴数据库的匹配数据从企业-目的国-产品层面实证检验了本文的理论命题。研究表明,我国政府应充分发挥互联网发展降低信息不确定性的微观机制,以推动外贸的平稳增长。     

地方高校推行教师学术休假制度的现实意义与实施策略

教师学术休假是促进教师专业发展的重要形式，是教师自我完善的需要，是提升教师理论水平、科研能力和教学技能的主要手段，是提高教学质量的有效途径。探讨地方高校推行学术休假制的必要性，提出地方高校推行学术休假的建议，对地方高校教师队伍建设具有重要的现实意义。在实施策略上，应注重4个方面：（1）明确参加学术休假的对象主要是教师和教学科研人员；（2）根据教师职业发展的阶段性确定学术休假的时间；（3）合理设置学术休假人员遴选条件，首先应考虑为工作满5年以上的青年教师提供学术休假，其次应考虑为高级职称教师提供学术休假；（4）明确学术休假期间的教师待遇，并加强对学术休假人员的管理。     

基于质量意识的复杂产品质量控制激励策略

激励在复杂产品供应链中对主供协同合作关系及质量控制发挥了重要作用。本文研究基于主制造商在复杂产品生产研发前按照客户要求形成的质量意识的激励策略是否可以实现复杂产品质量控制问题。考虑具有质量意识的主制造商和其系统供应商组成的两级供应链，建立以主制造商为领导者的Stackelberg博弈模型，分别讨论无激励和存在激励时的主供生产最优决策。基于激励方式的不同，将激励策略分为根据供应商产品质量水平激励以及根据主制造商质量意识水平激励两种方式。研究结果表明激励是供应商加强协同合作、改进产品质量的内在动力，主制造商根据质量意识激励供应商可以进一步促使双方协同合作，提高产品质量，使双方获得更高的利润从而实现供应链整体利润最大化。此外用灵敏度分析发现提高主制造商质量意识水平可以增加双方协同合作努力程度，有效提升产品质量水平并实现帕累托改进。     

医疗信息共享对患者转移数量和服务质量水平影响研究

当前我国医院间存在严重的"信息孤岛"，医院参与医疗信息共享意愿不高，患者的诊疗信息被静态碎片化储存而无法充分有效地利用。考虑到医院进行医疗信息共享将降低患者转移成本，本文构建一个多阶段双寡头动态博弈模型研究医疗信息共享对医院竞争过程中患者转移数量和服务质量水平决策的影响。首先，根据是否存在转移成本，将患者分为新患者和经验性患者，借助Hotelling模型刻画患者的效用函数，分析患者就诊决策。然后，在政府价格规制和不考虑医院利他性情景下，构建了医院累积期望收益目标函数，使用动态规划方法，求解实现医院累积期望收益最大化的服务质量水平，获得了实现患者相互转移且医院在市场中共存的马尔可夫完美均衡。最后，根据医院参与医疗信息共享后患者转移成本降为零，分析与比较信息共享前后患者转移数量和服务质量水平变化。研究发现：在不同医院间本身存在患者转移背景下，医院参与信息共享后，患者转移数量增加但存在一个上限，增加的转移量与患者在医院间的转移成本呈正相关，与初始感知效用的差值范围呈负相关；医院参与信息共享后，均衡状态下的医院服务质量水平高于信息共享前的服务质量水平。因此，在不改变当前医保支付方式下，要加快推进医疗信息共享，政府部门可以根据医院的患者数量和服务质量水平变化对其进行定期补贴，以激励医院积极参与医疗信息共享，本文给出了这个补贴的量化表达。     

面向服务的复杂成形装备产品架构设计与优化

复杂成形装备作为高端制造产业的基础装备，是各产业转型升级和技术进步的重要保障。同时快速发展的互联网与大数据等新兴信息技术已经成为装备制造业创新不可或缺的组成部分，极其深刻地影响着复杂成形装备产业的制造模式、发展战略以及产品的开发方式。本文研究了面向服务的复杂成形装备产品架构设计与优化方法。采用公理化设计的域结构思想，建立需求域、功能域和架构域之间的映射关系；提出了基于QFD的功能生成方法以及功能模型约简方法；利用DMM建立产品架构和服务架构之间的关联关系；利用模块化理论方法，并考虑成本因素对产品架构进行优化。     

民办幼儿园教师专业素养培训方式实验研究

随着现代教育的发展，提升幼儿园教师专业素养已成为促进学前教育发展的必然要求。以探究民办幼儿园教师专业素养为视角，提出通过干预行为提升教师专业素养水平的构想。实验随机选取成都市某民办幼儿园的20名教师为实验组，再选取与其办园环境、办园背景相似的另一所民办幼儿园的20名教师为对照组，对实验园教师的专业理念与师德、专业知识、专业能力3个维度进行干预。实验结果表明：与对照园相比，实验园教师的专业能力提升显著；与实验园实验前后相比，教师在专业知识、专业能力维度及专业素养总体水平方面均有提升。对教师培训的具体建议为：（1）单一与混合相结合的培训方式对提升民办幼儿园教师专业素养总体水平有现实意义；（2）民办幼儿园教师专业知识的提升需理论培训与自主学习相结合；（3）专家"现场诊断-指导式"培训方式对提升民办幼儿园教师专业能力有显著作用。综上，建议民办幼儿园在了解本园教师专业素养水平的基础上，针对教师专业素养的不同方面，分别采取不同的有效培训方式。