Risk,Ambiguity, and Decision Choice: Some Additional Evidence*

This paper extends prior research by jointly assessing the roles of risk attitude and tolerance for ambiguity in predicting choice. An experiment examined the effects of these variables on decisions made in four different scenarios. The four scenarios (treatment combinations) were generated by manipulating risk and ambiguity into two levels (high and low). The context was defined in terms of a sample size selection problem. The second issue explored was the effect of attitudes toward risk and ambiguity on decision confidence. The results indicate that (1) both risk attitude and ambiguity intolerance determined choice behavior, (2) the roles of these individual attitudes depend on the levels of the two treatment variables of risk and ambiguity, (3) the presence of ambiguity accentuates the perception of risk in individual subjects, and (4) decision makers who are less risk averse, and have more tolerance for ambiguity, display greater confidence in their choice. The paper discusses some of the managerial implications of the results.     

A Strategic Approach on Organizing Accounts Receivable Management: Some Empirical Evidence

In this paper, the organizational behavior in managing accounts receivable is studied. It is based on the recent surge of interest in trade credit management from both academics and practitioners emphasizing 1) the rather permanent character of these short-term but continuously renewed investments and 2) their strategic potential due to the existence of financial, tax-based, operating, transaction and pricing motives. The paper focuses on a search for sources of such a strategic value and for the determinants of its risk. More specifically this potential strategic value is said to create a need for flexibility and control in managing accounts receivable. It will therefore induce a need for internalization of its management. The resulting risks, however, favor its externalization. This results in a revision of the existing decision-making processes since, the extension of trade credit becoming a strategic asset, investments in accounts receivable cannot be judged by the financial needs incurred as measured by the traditional DSO-rate anymore. More specifically, a transaction cost theoretic approach is used to explain the decision whether or not to internalize the firm's accounts receivable management and its risk, resulting in a set of hypotheses to be tested on a sample of both large and medium-sized Belgian companies.     

Why Total Quality Management Programs Do Not Persist: The Role of Management Quality and Implications for Leading a TQM Transformation*

Top‐down total quality management (TQM) programs often fail to create deep and sustained change in organizations. They become a fad soon replaced by another fad. Failure to institutionalize TQM can be attributed to a gap between top management's rhetoric about their intentions for TQM and the reality of implementation in various subunits of the organization. The gap varies from subunit to subunit due to the quality of management in each. By quality of management is meant the capacity of senior team to (1) develop commitment to the new TQM direction and behave and make decisions that are consistent with it, (2) develop the cross‐functional mechanisms, leadership skills, and team culture needed for TQM implementation, and (3) create a climate of open dialogues about progress in the TQM transformation that will enable learning and further change. The TQM transformations will persist only if top management requires and ultimately institutionalizes an honest organizational‐wide conversation that surfaces valid data about the quality of management in each subunit of the firm and leads to changes in management quality or replacement of managers.     

基金排名与主动性水平:理论与实证

基金排名广泛发表在各种媒体上,对资金流有重要影响,而主动性管理是共同基金最重要的特征。本文首次从理论和实证两方面对基金中期排名与后期主动性水平之间的关系进行了研究。在理论上,基于基金主动性管理的内在特征,本文建立了一个两期的锦标赛博弈模型。模型的纳什混合均衡策略显示,相对于中期排名靠后的输家基金,中期排名靠前的赢家基金会以更大的概率在后期提升其主动性水平。在实证上,基于2006年至2011年间开放式基金的历史数据,本文采用列联表检验与非平衡面板回归分析相结合的方法,从数据上证实了本文的理论分析结果。     

Approaches to Manufacturing Regeneration: Some Empirical Data1

The study examined the efforts of 11 manufacturing companies to regenerate competitiveness through implementing improvement programmes. Data were collected about the activities seen to constitute improvement programmes as well as the reasons and intentions given for their implementation. Companies were found to have shared a common set of strategic intentions whilst having used differently constituted improvement programmes to achieve them. This similarity in strategic intent was seen as evidence of companies using improvement programmes to facilitate movement from mass to lean production paradigms. AU of the 11 companies studied exhibited widespread use of improvement activities. However, significant differences in individual company choice was interpreted as contra-evidence of improvements being driven solely by manufacturing fashions. This together with their similarities in strategic intent was seen as evidence that companies tailored their regenerative efforts to suit individual circumstances in pursuit of a generic strategic recipe. Some companies had discovered they had developed new capabilities through their regenerative efforts and these were seen as providing a distinctive competitive advantage. All of the companies set out with strategic intentions which centred on catching up with or imitating the best of their competitors – over a half discovered en route a means for changing the rules of the game.     

The Usage of Opportunity Cost to Maximize Performance in Revenue Management*

To meet customer requirements efficiently, a manager needs to supply adequate quantities of products, capacity, or services at the right time with the right prices. Revenue management (RM) techniques can help firms use differential pricing strategies and capacity allocation tactics to maximize revenue. In this article, we propose a marginal revenue‐based capacity management (MRBCM) model to manage stochastic demand in order to create improved revenue opportunities. The new heuristic employs opportunity cost estimation logic that is unique and is the reason for the increased performance. The MRBCM model generates order acceptance policies that allocate available capacity to higher revenue generating market segments in both service and manufacturing environments. To evaluate these models, we design and conduct simulation experiments for 64 scenarios using a wide range of operating conditions. The experimental results show that the MRBCM model generates significantly higher revenues over the first come, first served rule when capacity is tight. In addition, we also show that the MRBCM model generally performs better than a recent RM model published in the literature.     

A Comparison of Linear Programming and Parametric Approaches to the Two-Group Discriminant Problem*

Recent simulation-based studies of linear programming models for discriminant analysis have used the Fisher linear discriminant function as the benchmark for parametric methods. This article reports experimental evidence which suggests that, while some linear programming models may match or even exceed the Fisher approach in classification accuracy, none of the fifteen models tested is as accurate on normally distributed data as the Smith quadratic discriminant function. At the minimum, further testing is warranted with an emphasis on data sets that arise from significantly non-Gaussian populations.     

TQM管理技术和管理模式案例研究

全面质量管理（Total Quality Management, 简称TQM）是企业管理的重要内容,但很多企业在运用时流于形式。TQM是一项系统工程,不仅需要强烈的“问题”、“改善”意识,更需要的是要“改革”、“实践”、“应用”。随着新经济时代的到来,企业管理对其高效性、竞争力将有更高的要求,而TQM作为企业管理的重要内容,越来越成为管理界的共识,越来越发挥出重要的作用。本论文研究了美国总统轮船公司（American President Lines Co.,Ltd. 简称ＡＰＬ）南京分公司全面质量管理的情况,从理论和实践的结合上深入研究了TQM及其应用。论文首先介绍了APL高效、合理的质量管理体系和公司组织结构,它为实施TQM提供了有效的组织保证。多年实践证明,TQM在APL和顾客中取得了双赢绩效。论文进一步研究了TQM中的质量改进(Quality Improvement, 简称QI)小组的组织形式、组织原则、小组成员、具体任务以及工作阶段和步骤,这是一种合乎逻辑的、极其有效的工作程序,说明实施TQM有规律可循。最后根据QI七个工作步骤,对QI工作过程进行了深入的分析,说明QI是实施TQM,改进、提高工作质量的一个非常重要的环节,不但清晰地找出了TQM过程中的问题,而且分析了产生问题的各种原因,明确提出了解决问题的措施及实施方案     

Classifying Revenue Management: A Taxonomy to Assess Business Practice*

As revenue management (RM) techniques evolve there is a need to take stock of how organizations practice RM and the interactions among techniques. This would help practitioners and researchers better understand how RM practice is influenced by the business setting, including those not traditionally associated with advanced RM techniques. Also, it would facilitate investigations of which practices lead to better outcomes in different contexts. Research to date has focused on individual techniques within individual business settings, with limited attention to the range of environments in which RM practice occurs. This suggests a need for a common framework to classify and assess differences in practice. In this article, we present a taxonomy which comprises (i) seven indicators of practice and (ii) a decision tree to measure RM across diverse businesses. We test the classification system in a survey of 232 businesses. Results show the taxonomy provides a comprehensive view of RM practice, with meaningful discrimination across settings. Findings also offer insight into how practices vary across different settings. Our taxonomy contributes to future research by facilitating systematic comparisons of RM practices, the settings in which it is adopted, and its impact on performance.     

Improving Weight of Evidence Approaches to Chemical Evaluations

Federal and other regulatory agencies often use or claim to use a weight of evidence (WoE) approach in chemical evaluation. Their approaches to the use of WoE, however, differ significantly, rely heavily on subjective professional judgment, and merit improvement. We review uses of WoE approaches in key articles in the peer‐reviewed scientific literature, and find significant variations. We find that a hypothesis‐based WoE approach, developed by Lorenz Rhomberg et al., can provide a stronger scientific basis for chemical assessment while improving transparency and preserving the appropriate scope of professional judgment. Their approach, while still evolving, relies on the explicit specification of the hypothesized basis for using the information at hand to infer the ability of an agent to cause human health impacts or, more broadly, affect other endpoints of concern. We describe and endorse such a hypothesis‐based WoE approach to chemical evaluation.     

International Diversification,Business Group Affiliation and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from India*

We investigate the impact of business group affiliation on the relationship between international diversification and firm performance for emerging economy firms. We develop the theoretical arguments based on an integration of the literature on international diversification with the institutional theory perspective. We argue for a U‐shaped relationship between international diversification and firm performance, and suggest that a firm's affiliation to a business group moderates the relationship between international diversification and firm performance. Based on a sample of Indian firms, we find that firm performance is positively related to the degree of internationalization, while business group affiliation reduces the positive effect of internationalization on firm performance.     

Approaches to Equity Management and their Relationship to Women in Management

Developing equitable practices that provide fair access for all individuals to the benefits and burdens within an organization remains a dilemma for management both in policy and in practice. Research continues to show that the employment status and representation for members of some groups is significantly less than in relation to those of other groups. Addressing the issue of disparity has resulted in a number of different approaches. The main aim of this paper is to explore the ability of a typological theory of equal employment opportunity implementation to account for the differences in the numbers of women in management and in management tiers. This paper identifies and analyses four ideal-typical equity management approaches to achieving workplace parity: traditional (non-compliance), anti-discrimination, affirmative action and equal employment opportunity. While the objective of these approaches may be to ensure equity management in order to encourage equal outcomes the results tell a different story. Results show that an affirmative action approach to equity management predicts increases in women in management across all tiers of management.     

A Variable Selection Criterion in the Linear Programming Approaches to Discriminant Analysis*

There are numerous variable selection rules in classical discriminant analysis. These rules enable a researcher to distinguish significant variables from nonsignificant ones and thus provide a parsimonious classification model based solely on significant variables. Prominent among such rules are the forward and backward stepwise variable selection criteria employed in statistical software packages such as Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and BMDP Statistical Software. No such criterion currently exists for linear programming (LP) approaches to discriminant analysis. In this paper, a criterion is developed to distinguish significant from nonsignificant variables for use in LP models. This criterion is based on the “jackknife” methodology. Examples are presented to illustrate implementation of the proposed criterion.     

Supply Chain Strategy,Product Characteristics,and Performance Impact: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturers*

Supply chain management has become one of the most popular approaches to enhance the global competitiveness of business corporations today. Firms must have clear strategic thinking in order to effectively organize such complicated activities, resources, communications, and processes. An emerging body of literature offers a framework that identifies three kinds of supply chain strategies: lean strategy, agile strategy, and lean/agile strategy based on in‐depth case studies. Extant research also suggests that supply chain strategies must be matched with product characteristics in order for firms to achieve better performance. This article investigates supply chain strategies and empirically tests the supply chain strategy model that posits lean, agile, and lean/agile approaches using data collected from 604 manufacturing firms in China. Cluster analyses of the data indicate that Chinese firms are adopting a variation of lean, agile, and lean/agile supply chain strategies identified in the western literature. However, the data reveal that some firms have a traditional strategy that does not emphasize either lean or agile principles. These firms perform worse than firms that have a strategy focused on lean, agile, or lean/agile supply chain. The strategies are examined with respect to product characteristics and financial and operational performance. The article makes significant contributions to the supply chain management literature by examining the supply chain strategies used by Chinese firms. In addition, this work empirically tests the applicability of supply chain strategy models that have not been rigorously tested empirically or in the fast‐growing Chinese economy.     

Scheduling in a Management Context: Uncertain Processing Times and Non-Regular Performance Measures*

Decision makers often face scheduling problems in which processing times are not known with certainty. Non-regular performance measures, in which both earliness and tardiness are penalized, are also becoming more common in both manufacturing and service operations. We model a managerial environment with task processing times (which include sequenceindependent set-up times) prescribed by three-parameter lognormal distributions. Upon completion, each task derives a reward given by a particular piecewise-linear reward function. The objective is to select a sequence of tasks maximizing the expected total reward. The relative generality of the problem renders many enumerative methods inapplicable or computationally intractable. To overcome such difficulties we develop efficient priorityinduced construction (PIC) heuristics which build up a complete schedule by inserting tasks (singly from a list) into a partial sequence of tasks. In each partial and complete sequence a period of idle time is permitted prior to the first task. Performance on realistic-sized problems is very encouraging, with cost penalties averaging less than one percent.     

一种新的管理范式——基于研究证据的管理

在分析经验、理论的可错性基础上,指出了现行管理的问题;在吸收当代美国学者研究成果的基础上,通过移植溯因推理和双环学习概念,开发了一种将具体组织作为实验对象的新管理范式--基于研究证据的管理;认为基于研究证据的管理是企业做大、做强的基础,是管理者胜任力提高的有效途径.基于管理的本质特征和其所隐含的逻辑机制,论证了新管理范式的有效性;对实施基于研究证据的管理的难点做了较系统的分析,指出加强"元技能"的培养是推广该范式的有效途径.     

绩效治理:基于绩效考评与绩效管理的新范式

绩效考评与绩效管理是公共和私营部门中常见的绩效测量与评价手段,但存在未能有效区分定量指标与定性指标、缺乏对组织战略目标和使命的重视、强调个人绩效而忽视整体绩效等局限。绩效治理是基于绩效考评与绩效管理,结合治理理论,应用于公共部门的绩效指标测量、多向评价、综合管理、系统治理的新范式,对绩效考评与绩效管理存在的局限有较好的回应与解决,其背后是理念与价值取向的变革。     

Top Management Team Heterogeneity,Strategic Change and Operational Performance*

This study examines the role of top management team (TMT) heterogeneity in facilitating strategic change. Based on the upper echelons literature, we argue that heterogeneous management teams are better able to handle the simultaneous and conflicting demands of refocusing the organization strategically and keeping up operational performance. We expect this to be true only for teams that are heterogeneous with respect to factors directly related to job requirements, however. Data were collected from 92 full TMTs of hospitals in Spain that were confronted with institutional pressures that challenged their current strategies. In support of our hypotheses, the results show job‐related TMT heterogeneity moderates the relation between strategic change and operational performance. No moderating effect is found for non‐job‐related TMT heterogeneity.     

Technology Use and Performance: A Field Study of Broker Workstations*

Organizations invest in technology with the expectation that it will contribute to performance, and members of the organization must use technology for it to make a contribution. For this reason, it is important for managers and designers to understand and predict system use. This paper develops a model of workstation use in a field setting where the use of the system is an integral part of the user's job. The model is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which we extended to include social norms, user performance, and two control variables. Brokers and sales assistants in the privateclient group of a major investment bank provided data to test our extended model. The core perception variables in TAM do not predict use in this study. Social norms and one's job requirements are more important in predicting use than workers' perceptions about ease of use and usefulness. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and suggests directions for future research.