AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN TERMS OF DECISION THEORY1

The paper presents an extension of decision theory to the analysis of social power. The power of a person, A, over another person, B, is viewed in terms of the effect A has on B's decision. The analysis is based on the idea that B's decision regarding the performance of alternative behaviors is a function of 1) B's utility for the consequences of the behaviors and 2) B's subjective probabilities that the behaviors will lead to these consequences. In these terms, A's power over B lies in A's ability to mediate various consequences for B, contingent upon B's compliance or noncompliance. Subjects were asked to consider eight situations in which hypothetical individuals had to make a choice between two courses of action. In each situation another person (A) was attempting to induce the hypothetical individual (B) to choose one of the alternatives, while various situational factors were influencing B to choose the other alternative. The subjects were asked to consider B's utilities and subjective probabilities in each situation and to indicate whether or not B should comply with A and to make ratings of A's power. The decision theory analysis did well in predicting whether or not subjects would indicate that B should comply with A. Also, subjects generally were able to correctly specify whether A or the situational factors had more influence over B's decision. Finally, the subjects' ratings of A's power in the eight situations were highly related to the decision theoretic measure of power.     

Just-in-time purchasing: an empirical investigation

The just-in-time (JIT) literature suggests that, for JIT to be successful, a manufacturing firm has to make changes in its purchasing operations. However, empirical examination of the JIT purchasing related issues is limited. For example, a literature search identified 49 JIT purchasing articles. Of these, only 14 are empirical studies; two dealing with statistical testing of a few JIT purchasing issues. This comprehensive empirical study is undertaken to investigate (a) changes in the purchasing attributes since JIT implementation, (b) supplier evaluation cri-teria, and (c) problems with JIT purchasing implementation. Statistically significant changes are observed in 28 out of 32 attributes identified in the literature, suggesting that the manufacturing firms are successfully implementing JIT purchasing programmes. Of the 14 supplier evaluation criteria, the empirical investigation shows nine of them being important. Erratic demand for the product and customized product are found to be problematic (but not very problematic as suggested in the JIT literature( in JIT purchasing implementation.     

Algorithms for storage allocation based on client preferences

We consider a packing problem arising in storage management of Video on Demand (VoD) systems. The system consists of a set of video files (movies) and several servers (disks), each having a limited storage capacity, C, and a limited bandwidth (load capacity), L. The goal in the storage allocation problem is to assign the video files to the servers and the bandwidth to the clients. The induced class-constrained packing problem was studied in the past assuming each client provides a single request for a single movie. This paper considers a more general and realistic model—in which each client ranks all the movies in the system. Specifically, for each client j and movie i, it is known how much client j is willing to pay in order to watch movie i. The goal is to maximize the system’s profit. Alternatively, the client might provide a ranking of the movies and the goal is to maximize the lexicographic profile of the solution.     

Radio Frequency Identification: A Panacea for Governments?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) has been used to improve business supply chain management for over 35 years. As often happens, private sector technology migrates to the public sector where it is adapted for use. RFID use in governments is spreading far and wide at the federal and state levels with virtually no debate or performance analyses to inform adoption decisions. Implementation of RFID technology impacts government efficiency and effectiveness in many areas. Data show that most RFID applications promise enhanced effectiveness but also pose increased costs. A model is constructed to assist state and local managers in choosing to adopt RFID and to discern the status and impacts of this bold new innovation.

Estimating Health Risks from Natural Hazards Using Risk Assessment and Epidemiology

Risk assessment is the process of estimating the likelihood that an adverse effect may result from exposure to a specific health hazard. The process traditionally involves hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk characterization to answer “How many excess cases of disease A will occur in a population of size B due to exposure to agent C at dose level D?” For natural hazards, however, we modify the risk assessment paradigm to answer “How many excess cases of outcome Y will occur in a population of size B due to natural hazard event E of severity D?” Using a modified version involving hazard identification, risk factor characterization, exposure characterization, and risk characterization, we demonstrate that epidemiologic modeling and measures of risk can quantify the risks from natural hazard events. We further extend the paradigm to address mitigation, the equivalent of risk management, to answer “What is the risk for outcome Y in the presence of prevention intervention X relative to the risk for Y in the absence of X?” We use the preventable fraction to estimate the efficacy of mitigation, or reduction in adverse health outcomes as a result of a prevention strategy under ideal circumstances, and further estimate the effectiveness of mitigation, or reduction in adverse health outcomes under typical community-based settings. By relating socioeconomic costs of mitigation to measures of risk, we illustrate that prevention effectiveness is useful for developing cost-effective risk management options.     

LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power

It is widely known that when there are errors with a moving‐average root close to −1, a high order augmented autoregression is necessary for unit root tests to have good size, but that information criteria such as the AIC and the BIC tend to select a truncation lag (k) that is very small. We consider a class of Modified Information Criteria (MIC) with a penalty factor that is sample dependent. It takes into account the fact that the bias in the sum of the autoregressive coefficients is highly dependent on k and adapts to the type of deterministic components present. We use a local asymptotic framework in which the moving‐average root is local to −1 to document how the MIC performs better in selecting appropriate values of k. In Monte‐Carlo experiments, the MIC is found to yield huge size improvements to the DF^GLS and the feasible point optimal P_T test developed in Elliott, Rothenberg, and Stock (1996). We also extend the M tests developed in Perron and Ng (1996) to allow for GLS detrending of the data. The MIC along with GLS detrended data yield a set of tests with desirable size and power properties.     

From Bureaucracy to Debureaucratization?

More than previous mild recessions, the current global crisis calls into question the merits of a model that held sway for almost three decades. Celebrated in the nineties in a “National Bestseller”, which even President Clinton considered to be a “blueprint” “for all officials to read”, the book—Reinventing Government—preached the reform of government in private sector ways. In stark contrast to Bureaucracy, which they considered “Bankrupt”. Authors Osborne and Gaebler (1993) promoted Debureaucratization, which they summed up as decentralization, deregulation, downsizing and outsourcing. It is time to revisit the assumptions of the Osborne-Gaebler model that has demonstrably failed. More than the model, however, the ways of its promotion in the market of ideas invites a word of caution. It prompted simplistic distortions, which typically followed from superficial analyses of Weber’s seminal opus (Timsit 2008:864–875). This paper reconsiders these two contrasting models, though not in “black” and “white”. Rather, the two are explored in dialectical terms, as outcomes of shifting ideologies, often taken to extremes.     

Tractable Consideration Set Structures for Assortment Optimization and Network Revenue Management

Discrete‐choice models are widely used to model consumer purchase behavior in assortment optimization and revenue management. In many applications, each customer segment is associated with a consideration set that represents the set of products that customers in this segment consider for purchase. The firm has to make a decision on what assortment to offer at each point in time without the ability to identify the customer's segment. A linear program called the Choice‐based Deterministic Linear Program (CDLP) has been proposed to determine these offer sets. Unfortunately, its size grows exponentially in the number of products and it is NP‐hard to solve when the consideration sets of the segments overlap. The Segment‐based Deterministic Concave Program with some additional consistency equalities (SDCP+) is an approximation of CDLP that provides an upper bound on CDLP's optimal objective value. SDCP+ can be solved in a fraction of the time required to solve CDLP and often achieves the same optimal objective value. This raises the question under what conditions can one guarantee equivalence of CDLP and SDCP+. In this study, we obtain a structural result to this end, namely that if the segment consideration sets overlap with a certain tree structure or if they are fully nested, CDLP can be equivalently replaced with SDCP+. We give a number of examples from the literature where this tree structure arises naturally in modeling customer behavior.     

Effect of Climate Change on the Concentration and Associated Risks of Vibrio Spp. in Dutch Recreational Waters

Currently, the number of reported cases of recreational‐ water‐related Vibrio illness in the Netherlands is low. However, a notable higher incidence of Vibrio infections has been observed in warm summers. In the future, such warm summers are expected to occur more often, resulting in enhanced water temperatures favoring Vibrio growth. Quantitative information on the increase in concentration of Vibrio spp. in recreational water under climate change scenarios is lacking. In this study, data on occurrence of Vibrio spp. at six different bathing sites in the Netherlands (2009–2012) were used to derive an empirical formula to predict the Vibrio concentration as a function of temperature, salinity, and pH. This formula was used to predict the effects of increased temperatures in climate change scenarios on Vibrio concentrations. For Vibrio parahaemolyticus, changes in illness risks associated with the changed concentrations were calculated as well. For an average temperature increase of 3.7 °C, these illness risks were calculated to be two to three times higher than in the current situation. Current illness risks were, varying per location, on average between 10^?4 and 10^?2 per person for an entire summer. In situations where water temperatures reached maximum values, illness risks are estimated to be up to 10^?2 and 10^?1. If such extreme situations occur more often during future summers, increased numbers of ill bathers or bathing‐water‐related illness outbreaks may be expected.     

中国债券市场时变风险溢价——远期利率潜在信息

 近年来,中国债券市场发展迅速,在全球债券市场排行中紧跟美国和日本债券市场,已跃居世界第三。与此同时,中国债券市场亟需得到更多的关注和研究。        在2005年之前,中国债券市场被认为符合预期假说,即长短期债券间不存在风险溢价。 由于预期假说假设投资者偏好为风险中性,而实际市场中的投资者偏好往往存在较大差异,因而债券市场风险溢价应长期存在。为研究该问题,直接关注零息债券持有期超额收益,力求捕捉风险溢价的时变特性。在Fama-Bliss和Cochrane-Piazzesi溢价预测模型的研究框架下,利用中国远期利率特性,构建远期利率差和远期利率组合两种预测因子。采用两种因子分别对中国债券市场风险溢价进行预测,探讨中国债券风险溢价的时变性。选取2006年至2015年中国零息国债即期利率数据,该区间能够完整覆盖中国债券市场的发展期,并涵盖金融危机时期或货币政策松、紧期。在此基础上,将宏观经济和货币政策代理变量引入预测模型,与远期利率组合进行多元预测对比,揭示远期利率所暗含的经济信息。此外,为充分验证预测结果的鲁棒性,进行多重共线性分析和样本外检验。        研究结果表明,预期假说在中国债券市场不成立,即中国债券市场存在明显的时变风险溢价,并且风险溢价随着期限的增加而升高。研究还发现远期利率组合的预测能力来源于两方面,一方面,自身蕴含了大量的宏观经济和货币政策信息,能够反映出经济状况对风险溢价的影响;另一方面,该组合属于水平型因子,能够很好地解释风险溢价中占比最高的成分,因此占优于远期利率差这种斜率型因子,更好地刻画风险溢价中的系统性部分。        准确刻画时变风险溢价不仅可以辅助投资者进行交易决策,而且有利于更精确地构建中国债券理论期限结构。一个合适的利率期限结构能够指导中国政府制定正确的货币政策,有助于促进中国债券市场的发展以及完善中国债券市场结构。     

A simulation tool for modeling the influence of anatomy on information flow using discrete integrate and fire neurons

There are theories on brain functionality that can only be tested in very large models. In this work, a simulation model appropriate for working with large number of neurons was developed, and Information Theory measuring tools were designed to monitor the flow of information in such large networks. The model’s simulator can handle up to one million neurons in its current implementation by using a discretized version of the Lapicque integrate and fire neuron instead of interacting differential equations. A modular structure facilitates the setting of parameters of the neurons, networks, time and most importantly, architectural changes. Applications of this research are demonstrated by testing architectures in terms of mutual information. We present some preliminary architectural results showing that adding a virtual analogue to white matter called “jumps” to a simple representation of cortex results in: (1) an increase in the rate of mutual information flow, corresponding to the “bias” or “priming” hypothesis; thereby giving a possible explanation of the high speed response to stimuli in complex networks. (2) An increase in the stability of response of the network; i.e. a system with “jumps” is a more reliable machine. This also has an effect on the potential speed of response.     

Reducing delivery times for OKP products

The management of the manufacture of ‘one-of-a-kind’ products (OKP) is a neglected field in production management. The key to an improvement in productivity and profitability in this field appears to depend mainly on a reduction in the delivery times for products, which in turn requires a reduction in material throughput times, and in design and production planning lead times. This paper looks at some of the ways which can be used to reduce OKP delivery times.     

Managing dependency in China outsourcing relationships

Abstract

This paper examines manufacturing firms’ use of guanxi and formal control to address dependence on suppliers and achieve desired outsourcing performance in China. Using survey data collected from manufacturing firms operating in China, a structural equation model is used to test the research model. The results suggest that manufacturing firms with high dependence on suppliers build Chinese guanxi with those suppliers to overcome the dependence and enhance outsourcing performance. In addition, Chinese guanxi also appears to facilitate the use of formal control, which was also found to have a positive relationship with outsourcing performance. This paper contributes to the literature by illustrating the importance of guanxi in achieving desired outsourcing performance in the China context, particularly in the case where a manufacturer perceives high dependency on its major supplier.     

Global change in agrifood grades and standards: agribusiness strategic responses in developing countries

The role of G&S has shifted from a technical instrument to reduce transaction costs in homogeneous commodity markets to a strategic instrument of competition in differentiated product markets. The nature of G&S has shifted from performance (realized characteristics of the product) to process standards. In developing countries, these changes have tended to exclude small firms and farms from participating in market growth, because of the implied investments. The three strategic responses to G&S change by agribusiness firms and farms include: (1) by large firms and multinationals, to create private G&S and private certification, labeling, and branding systems; (2) by medium-large domestic firms, to lobby governments to adopt public G&S similar to those in export markets in developed regions; (3) by small firms and farms, to ally with public and nonprofit sectors to form G&S and certification systems to access export markets and to bring institutional change to nontradable product markets. Governments should build the capacity of the poor to invest to “make the grade” implied by the new G&S.     

A comment on: A note on the EOQ-JIT relationship

In a recently published note in this journal the need for independent control of the production rate (R) and production time (L) was established in order to adapt the economic production quantity (EPQ) model in JIT settings. In this comment we aim to improve the relevance of EPQ in a JIT environment. We focus on two issues, namely, modelling the production rate as a decision variable and also deriving an expession for the optimal number of batches (n* ) for the raw materials and/or subcomponents needed.     

A review of quantitative approaches in just-in-time manufacturing

The objectives of this survey are four-fold: (1) to describe the principle of just-in-time production, (2) to provide an overview of the problems and research issues in scheduling, lot sizing and determining the number of kanbans, (3) to describe prior studies which use quantitative approaches to study JIT production and its variant systems including simulation, stochastic process, and mathematical programming, and (4) to identify fertile opportunities for further research in the quantitative analysis of JIT production.     

Governance strategy: a property right approach turning governance into action

Corporate governance (CG) needs to acknowledge the intentional part of governance, where an actor of governance uses the set of corporate governance mechanisms in order to influence the agent to create a performance that will satisfy the interest of the principal. This paper offers a conception of this activity through the concept of governance strategy. The concept is based on a property right approach and derived within the context of agency theory, stressing the interest and the capacity of the principal. It is applied to two empirical organisations seldom investigated in CG research: the organisation of multinational corporations in a business group and the organisation of a riding school in a democratic not-for-profit association, thereby extending the relevance of the concept from corporate governance to organizational governance. The empirical analysis indicates the relevance of the conception and suggests further extension through hypotheses of governance strategy related to environmental influence, accessibility of governance mechanisms and momentum of mechanisms.

Emerging organizational forms: Work and organization in the 21st century

This article begins with the premise that there is continuous and accelerating change in the Western World in the nature of work and how it is organized. An important contributory force is information technology — itself changing rapidly.When the dynamics of the external environment of organizations are added to changes in IT, we will see new forms of organizations evolving in the business world, such as the ‘starburst’ and ‘internal market’ structures.Michael Scott Morton supplies a diagram to illustrate the framework of research which the ‘1990s’ program at MIT is following — how to balance the dynamic tension between external forces and the internal dimensions of organizations to reward shareholders adequately. He refers to one of Peter Senge's ideas in The Fifth Dimension which is central in creating an organization which learns how to innovate constantly: System Thinking — the search for systemic patterns. It reinforces Scott Morton's argument, and seems a particularly appropriate discipline in a continuously turbulent business environment.     

Responsive Public Officials and Engaged Citizens: Myth or Reality? A Case Study of Water Rights Policy in Colorado

In the past decade nearly 20 Colorado communities have constructed kayak courses to provide recreational amenities and attract tourists. These projects were followed in some cases by applications for a new form of recreational water rights, which differs dramatically from traditional forms of water rights in Colorado. This paper investigates the role that citizens played in the legal and legislative battles that resulted in this policy change. Findings indicate that citizens demanded the construction of kayak courses across Colorado, to which local officials responded. Citizens generally were indifferent to water rights applications once kayak facilities were constructed, however. Government officials sought the water rights to protect their economic investment and their newfound tourist revenue.