Searching for self in a world of labels

Searching for Self is a performance poetry piece that demonstrates the difficulties of identity construction in contemporary life. The author challenges the ‘self’ and ‘other’ dichotomy, and in so doing she attempts to reduce the distance between the ‘client’ and ‘expert’; the researcher and researched; the service provider and service user; and theory and practice. The poems are linked to the authors’ experiences of being labeled with a disability.     

Optimal Ordering Policies for Stochastic Inventory Problems with Observed Information Delays

Information delays exist in an inventory system when it takes time to collect, process, validate, and transmit inventory/demand data. A general framework is developed in this paper to describe information flows in an inventory system with information delays. We characterize the sufficient statistics for making optimal decisions. When the ordering cost is linear, the optimality of a state‐dependent base‐stock policy is established even when information flows are allowed to cross over time. Additional insights into the problem are obtained via a comparison between our models and the models with stochastic order lead times. We also show that inventory can substitute for information and vice versa.     

Open Source Development with a Commercial Complementary Product or Service

We examine optimal control decisions regarding pricing, network size, and hiring strategy in the context of open source software development. Opening the source code to a software product often implies that consumers would not pay for the software product itself. However, revenues may be generated from complementary products. A software firm may be willing to open the source code to its software if it stands to build a network for its complementary products. The rapid network growth is doubly crucial in open source development, in which the users of the firm's products are also contributors of code that translates to future quality improvements. To determine whether or not to open the source, a software firm must jointly optimize prices for its various products while simultaneously managing its product quality, network size, and employment strategy. Whether or not potential gains in product quality, network size, and labor savings are sufficient to justify opening the source code depends on product and demand characteristics of both the software and the complementary product, as well as on the cost and productivity of in‐house developers relative to open source contributors. This paper investigates these crucial elements to allow firms to reach the optimal decision in choosing between the open and closed source models.     

GROUP INEQUALITY

We explore the combined effect of segregation in social networks, peer effects, and the relative size of a historically disadvantaged group on the incentives to invest in market‐rewarded skills and the dynamics of inequality between social groups. We identify conditions under which group inequality will persist in the absence of differences in ability, credit constraints, or labor market discrimination. Under these conditions, group inequality may be amplified even if initial group differences are negligible. Increases in social integration may destabilize an unequal state and make group equality possible, but the distributional and human capital effects of this depend on the demographic composition of the population. When the size of the initially disadvantaged group is sufficiently small, integration can lower the long‐run costs of human capital investment in both groups and result in an increase the aggregate skill share. In contrast, when the initially disadvantaged group is large, integration can induce a fall in the aggregate skill share as the costs of human capital investment rise in both groups. We consider applications to concrete cases and policy implications.     

A Supply Chain with a Service Requirement for Each Market Signal

We study a single‐period two‐stage service‐constrained supply chain with an information update. The buyer has two procurement opportunities with the second one after observing a market signal, which updates the demand forecast. He also commits to a service level after observing the market signal. We derive his optimal ordering decisions and show that the critical market signal, the optimal first‐stage order quantity, and the optimal expected profit are monotone with respect to the target service level. We also discuss the impact of the forecast quality on the optimal decisions. We show that the optimal first‐stage order quantity may not be monotone with respect to information accuracy, as is in the case without the service constraint. In addition, we extend our analysis to the situation when an order cancellation is allowed upon the observation of the market signal. We also compare the results obtained for the problems with and without an order cancelation. Finally, we discuss the supply chain coordination issue and find that a buyback contract can also coordinate the supply chain in the presence of the service constraint.     

Developing Measures for Assessing the Organizational Impact of Information Technology: A Comment on Mahmood and Soon's Paper

In a recent study, Mahmood and Soon [26] identified and operationalized a set of variables that can be potentially impacted by information technology. The lack of factor analysis to verify the dimensionality of different variables is a notable omission in the study. This paper describes and employs the limited-information factor analysis approach and the minimum average partial criterion for testing the unidimensionality of different variables in the Mahmood and Soon study. While reconfirming the construct validity of eight variables, our results question the unidimensionality of two original variables. Further testimony is provided in favor of our results by citing previous research studies.     

Internal Migration and Rural Inequalities in India

Population Research and Policy Review - The study examines the effects of seasonal and permanent migration on rural inequalities in India. We apply the counterfactual method to estimate income...     

Can technology be managed strategically?

The purpose of this article is to investigate techniques for inserting strategic management of technology into the overall business planning process. The method developed here begins with defining the technological profile of a company and then proceeds to expand the method to incorporate analytical procedure for technology futuring, and finally combining these long-range forecasts with the company's policies and plans into an integrated planning model. An illustrative case study of the NCR Corporation is appended to demonstrate the application.