Development of a purchasing portfolio model: an empirical study in a Brazilian hospital

This study was motivated by the complexity of managing hospital purchases. This area of activity is characterised as having a great diversity of items to be purchased, classes and suppliers, which impacts the business, costs and health risks for patients in many ways. Our paper presents the development of an approach to managing a purchasing portfolio for a large Brazilian hospital, using Kraljic’s model, the Fuzzy-TOPSIS method and decision rules as methodological resources. We discuss the results and summarise a set of managerial implications for our case study, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposal. This study also contributes to expanding the application domain of Kraljic’s model, in which the Fuzzy-TOPSIS method has proved a flexible tool, and supports solving sorting problems.     

Managing crowdsourced software testing: a case study based insight on the challenges of a crowdsourcing intermediary

Crowdsourcing has gained much attention in practice over the last years. Numerous companies have drawn on this concept for performing different tasks and value creation activities. Nevertheless, despite its popularity, there is still comparatively little well-founded knowledge on crowdsourcing, particularly with regard to crowdsourcing intermediaries. Crowdsourcing intermediaries play a key role in crowdsourcing initiatives as they assure the connection between the crowdsourcing companies and the crowd. However, the issue of how crowdsourcing intermediaries manage crowdsourcing initiatives and the associated challenges has not been addresses by research yet. We address these issues by conducting a case study with a German start-up crowdsourcing intermediary called testCloud that offers software testing services for companies intending to partly or fully outsource their testing activities to a certain crowd. The case study shows that testCloud faces three main challenges, these are: managing the process, managing the crowd and managing the technology. For each dimension, we outline mechanisms that testCloud applies for facing the challenges associated with crowdsourcing projects.     

经理人市场失灵与家族企业治理

经理人市场是一个特殊的人力资本市场 ,在一定意义上 ,这是一个“职业”企业家的雇佣市场。家族企业的高速成长带来对于职业经理人的需求增长 ,但在不少情况下 ,经理人的引入是不成功的。企业和经理人双方的家族主义取向导致双方缺乏相互信任 ,家族企业在某种程度上的“隐私”经营给企业从外部引入经理人带来风险。同时 ,经理人的非职业性 ,或在自己创业与作为经理人之间转移的成本很低 ,导致经理人市场的不稳定性。但在竞争和国际化中 ,对传统家族企业的改造势在必行 ,但在经理人引入上是谨慎的 ,较为普遍的模式是家族和经理人共同分割企业的控制权 ,这一模式在这里被称之为“折中治理”。     

Strategic planning for endgame

This article is based on the author's study of 61 firms managing businesses in environments of declining demand. It suggests ways in which firms might better prepare for this problem by managing their own exit barriers and by making strategic investments to affect the level of their competitors' exit barriers.     

Managing business portfolios in German companies

This study analyzes the behavior of top managers in managing their firms' business portfolios. A review of the existing literature provides a conceptual framework for a research design combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. Data were collected through interviews with 35 top managers of well-known German business firms and the findings of this study translated into guidelines for managers. The results suggest that successful top managers should be concerned with the social relationships and management processes within the corporate office, as well as with their use of management concepts in managing the business portfolio.     

测试实数编码遗传算法的困难度

分析了遗传算法困难度测试在遗传算法研究中的重要意义. 鉴于当前这方面的研究集 中于二进制编码遗传算法,对实数编码遗传算法的困难度测试进行了分析. 探讨了实数编码遗 传算法困难度分析的适应值与距离相关系数测试法与基于随机游走模型的相关函数测试法, 提出了最佳一阶函数逼近测试法,做了大量实验,并根据实证分析结果对三种方法进行了比较 与评价.     

Changes in the Factors Influencing Public Acceptance of Nuclear Power Generation in Japan Since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Public support for nuclear power generation has decreased in Japan since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in March 2011. This study examines how the factors influencing public acceptance of nuclear power changed after this event. The influence factors examined are perceived benefit, perceived risk, trust in the managing bodies, and pro‐environmental orientation (i.e., new ecological paradigm). This study is based on cross‐sectional data collected from two online nationwide surveys: one conducted in November 2009, before the nuclear accident, and the other in October 2011, after the accident. This study's target respondents were residents of Aomori, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures in the Tohoku region of Japan, as these areas were the epicenters of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the locations of nuclear power stations. After the accident, trust in the managing bodies was found to have a stronger influence on perceived risk, and pro‐environmental orientation was found to have a stronger influence on trust in the managing bodies; however, perceived benefit had a weaker positive influence on public acceptance. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Aggregate production planning with workforce transferring plan for multiple product types

This paper presents the aggregate production planning for multiple product types where the worker resource can be transferred among the production lines. A mathematical model was formulated in spreadsheet format. Then the spreadsheet-solver technique was used as a tool to solve the model. A real situation of a manufacturing company was selected as a case study. The actual data was used to test and validate the proposed model. The optimal aggregate production plan provides the information on managing the available production capacity together with the useful workforce transferring plan. The obtained solutions were compared to those of another approach where the workers cannot be transferred among the production lines. The total cost is significantly reduced when the workers are allowed to transfer among the production lines.     

An Integrated Approach for Modeling Sustainability Risks in Freight Transportation Systems

Integrating sustainability into freight transportation systems (FTSs) is a complex and challenging task due to the sheer number of inherent sustainability risks. Sustainability risks disrupt the economic, social and environmental objectives of freight operations and act as impediments in the development of sustainable freight transportation systems. The area of sustainability risk management is still unexplored and immature in the operational research domain. This study addresses these research gaps and contributes in a threefold manner. First, a total of 36 potential sustainability risks related to FTSs are identified and uniquely classified into seven categories using a rigourous approach. Second, the research proposes two prominent perspectives, namely, ontological and epistemological perspectives to understand risks and develops a novel framework for managing sustainability risks in FTSs. Third, a novel approach by integrating fuzzy evidential reasoning algorithm (FERA) with expected utility theory is developed to quantitatively model and profile sustainability risk for different risk preferences, namely, risk-averse, risk-neutral, and risk-taking scenarios. The proposed FERA is a flexible and robust approach, which transforms the experts’ inputs into belief structures and aggregates them using the evidence combination rule proposed in Dempster–Shafer theory to overcome the problem of imprecise results caused by average scoring in existing models. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed model. Unlike conventional perception, our study suggests that most of the high priority sustainability risks are behaviorally and socially induced rather than financially driven. The results provide significant managerial implications including a focus on skills development, and on social and behavioral dimensions while managing risks in FTSs.     

Reexamining a Model for Evaluating Information Center Success Using a Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Structural equation modeling is a technique that has been widely used for instrument validation and model testing in research in marketing and organizational behavior. The technique has also been introduced to MIS researchers and used in several studies recently reported in the literature. This article offers an example of how the technique can be used for instrument validation and model testing. The illustration is made through a reexamination of a model for evaluating information center (IC) success. With the growth of end-user computing, the success of an IC is more important than ever. Obtaining a valid model for measuring IC success is thus crucial to organizations with ICs. The results of this study highlight the importance of a strong theoretical base in developing such a valid model, and management should be cautious when using these models to assess the performance of their ICs.     

Does Security Impact E‐procurement Performance? Testing a Model of Direct and Moderated Effects

Despite the widespread adoption of e‐procurement and the critical role of information security in these situations, academic research examining the relationship between information security and e‐procurement performance has been surprisingly minimal. This study represents an interdisciplinary approach to present and test a theoretical model that links security in e‐procurement processes to e‐procurement performance. E‐procurement performance is measured as a combination of cost savings, order quality, and satisfaction of fulfillment as perceived by buyers. The model also posits that two aspects of the procurement process will enhance the value of security in e‐procurement, namely, process complexity and process interdependence. We empirically examine these relationships using data collected from procurement managers. Our results have important implications for managing the e‐procurement process.     

多元长记忆SV模型及其在沪深股市的应用

对多元长记忆随机波动进行建模,并给出了相应的谱似然估计方法以及在多元随机波动模 型框架下分数维协整的检验步骤. 最后用上海和深圳的数据对所给的模型与方法进行了实证检验.     

Managing Quality in the E‐Service System: Development and Application of a Process Model

In this paper, we develop a process model for assessing and managing e‐service quality based on the underlying components of the e‐service system and, in turn, address the growing need to look in more detail at the system component level for sources of poor quality. The proposed process model is comprised of a set of entities representing the e‐service system, a network defining the linking between all pairs of entities via transactions and product flows, and a set of outcomes of the processes in terms of quality dimensions. The process model is developed using Unified Modeling Language (UML), a pictorial language for specifying service designs that has achieved widespread acceptance among e‐service designers. Examples of applications of the process model are presented to illustrate how the model can be use to identify operational levers for managing and improving e‐service quality.     

Managing leaks: Shoplifting in US grocery retailing 1922—1969

The purpose of this paper is to further develop the general program of managing overflows by attending to the managing of leaks. Specifically, the paper explores efforts to manage the problem of shoplifting in US grocery retailing during the period 1922–1969. The study identifies three different yet interrelated ways of managing leaks: identifying, preventing, and caulking leaks. Each of these rests on a combination of skills and devices as well as on efforts to align with the other ways of managing leaks and routinize them as part of ordinary retail operations. By providing an analysis of leaks management the paper proposes a theoretical and empirical complement to the research program on managing overflows, which has previously primarily focused on overflows in the sense of excess, surplus and abundance.     

Understanding the Participation of Critical Task Specialists in Strategic Decision Making*

This paper explores the role of critical task specialists in strategic decision making and presents a theoretical model relating critical task specialist participation in decision making to the organization's overall strategy and the nature of the decision. This exploratory study examines scope and intensity of physician participation in hospital decision making. Intensity of critical task specialist participation is explained by content of the decision and by the organization's strategy, while scope of participation is explained by decision content. The findings suggest the need for more complex models of participation than are normally used in decision-making research. The findings also suggest that executives, in managing strategic decision-making processes, should pay attention to questions of both scope and intensity of participation. The results suggest that critical task specialists play a different role in the decision process, depending on specific decision content and organization strategy.     

Designing effective team-based performance measurement systems: an integrated approach

Measuring the performance of teams and, in particular, designing effective team-based performance measurement systems (TPMS) can be a difficult task. The purpose of this paper is to take the reader through the development and testing of a construct that provides an integrated approach to facilitate the design of TPMS. This construct was developed and tested based on a rigorous set of criteria adopted from constructive research theory as well as from existing performance measurement literature. The construct was tested in a series of workshops described in this paper. The data gathered during these workshops demonstrates the novelty and validity of the construct. The paper should be of interest to managers, team leaders and indeed anyone who is interested in monitoring and managing team performance. The paper will also be of interest to academics working in the fields of performance measurement and team management.     

An Integrated Multitheoretical Perspective of Public Healthcare Services Delivery Organizations

This study seeks to create an integrated multitheoretical model of public healthcare services delivery organizations. A literature review of selected organization theories and their relevance to healthcare was conducted. By illuminating the aspects of control over resources, isomorphism, adaptation to the changing environment and contracts between parties based on the key elements of the resource-dependence theory, institutional theory, population ecology and transaction-cost economics theory, an integrated multitheoretical model of a public healthcare services delivery organization has been presented. There is a need for empirically testing the model proposed by this study.

     

知识的分类及其管理

知识管理是一个寻求数据和信息处理能力与员工的创造和革新能力协作组合的组织过程,其目的是为了提高企业应付外界环境变化的适应、生存和竞争能力。但是,由于知识具有多样性、复杂性和动态性等特征,试图通过一种模式来实施对知识的有效管理是不现实的,也是不可能的。企业要有效地管理知识,应在对企业知识进行分类的基础上,根据企业的经营目标,采取相应的管理策略,因此归纳了5种分类方法显性知识和隐性知识、内部知识和外部知识、个人知识和组织知识、实体知识和过程知识、核心知识和非核心知识,并时各种分类提出了相应的管理策略。     

HRD,the science of the artificial

Innovation is the bedrock of organizational and national competitiveness across the globe. Leaders of research and development (R&D) teams have an especially important role to play given their direct influence on leading, organizing, rallying, and managing the operations of innovative tasks. However, when it comes to how leaders influence R&D innovation in different contexts, researchers' opinions diverge. This study explores leadership characteristics and their contextual contingencies, using the approach of a multiple case study. This paper is situated in the stream of research focusing on the interactions of leadership and contextual factors in innovation. We collected qualitative data from four highly innovative teams residing in two national laboratories in the US. The results suggest that while leadership demonstrates similarities across the four teams – a simultaneous focus on the internal and external domains, it also displays different characteristics in teams that differ on three contextual factors: funding model, nature of tasks, and team structure. Theoretical and practical implications are drawn.     

Modelling and analysis of dynamic capacity complexity in multi-stage production

The uncertainty associated with managing dynamic capacity problem is the main source of its complexity. This article presents a system dynamics approach to model and analyse operational complexity of dynamic capacity in multi-stage production. The unique feature of this approach is that it captures the stochastic nature of three main sources of complexity associated with dynamic capacity. These are the demand, internal manufacturing delay and capacity scalability delay. The developed model was demonstrated by an industrial case study of multi-stage printed circuit board assembly line. The analysis of simulation experiments showed that ignoring complexity sources can lead to wrong decisions concerning both scaling levels and backlog management decisions. In addition, a general trade-off between the controllability and complexity of the dynamic capacity was illustrated. Finally, comparative analysis of the effect of each of these sources on the complexity level revealed that internal delay has the highest impact on dynamic capacity efficiency. Guidelines and recommendations for better capacity management and reduction of its complexity are presented.