基于顾客不公平规避的服务定价研究

设计合理的服务机制和定价策略对于企业运营至关重要。由于顾客异质性（等待时间成本不同）企业通常对顾客进行分类服务,然而分类服务会引发顾客的不公平心理,并带来负效用,从而引起顾客流动与转移,进而影响企业收益与社会成本。本文针对垄断型服务系统中,顾客不公平规避心理（用参数α表示）对于企业优化目标的影响进行分析,在此基础之上,研究企业是否对顾客采取分类服务以及如何合理定价。结果表明,当顾客不公平规避偏好心理较弱时,从社会成本最小化和企业收益最大化的角度都应该对顾客进行分类服务并收取优先服务费用。当顾客不公规避心理较强时,从企业收益最大化的角度应仅保留优先权顾客并收取优先服务费用,从社会成本最小化的角度则应取消优先服务费用仅保留普通顾客。最后,通过数值模拟和理论分析对上述结论进行验证。     

Integration of Critical Infrastructure and Societal Consequence Models: Impact on Swedish Power System Mitigation Decisions

Critical infrastructures provide society with services essential to its functioning, and extensive disruptions give rise to large societal consequences. Risk and vulnerability analyses of critical infrastructures generally focus narrowly on the infrastructure of interest and describe the consequences as nonsupplied commodities or the cost of unsupplied commodities; they rarely holistically consider the larger impact with respect to higher‐order consequences for the society. From a societal perspective, this narrow focus may lead to severe underestimation of the negative effects of infrastructure disruptions. To explore this theory, an integrated modeling approach, combining models of critical infrastructures and economic input–output models, is proposed and applied in a case study. In the case study, a representative model of the Swedish power transmission system and a regionalized economic input–output model are utilized. This enables exploration of how a narrow infrastructure or a more holistic societal consequence perspective affects vulnerability‐related mitigation decisions regarding critical infrastructures. Two decision contexts related to prioritization of different vulnerability‐reducing measures are considered—identifying critical components and adding system components to increase robustness. It is concluded that higher‐order societal consequences due to power supply disruptions can be up to twice as large as first‐order consequences, which in turn has a significant effect on the identification of which critical components are to be protected or strengthened and a smaller effect on the ranking of improvement measures in terms of adding system components to increase system redundancy.     

Socio-political processes in international management in post-socialist contexts: Knowledge,learning and transnational institution building

This paper contributes to the recent debates and emerging concepts in the international business literature by applying a social–institutionalist perspective that focuses on the processes of institution building in ventures between Western multinational corporations and post-socialist enterprises. It is argued that the knowledge and learning processes within these transnational sites are constitutive of the actual management and organizational practices that emerge in these social microcosms of transformation. In transition and other emerging economic contexts, international ventures are typically based on asymmetrical relationships, in which the balance of power is structurally weighted in favor of the MNC. Notwithstanding this dominance structure, constructing new practices within the transnational social space is a socio-political process involving power-holders such as senior managers representing the Western MNC and the local enterprise. The paper argues that the strategic orientations of these key power-holders are critical variables in explaining the diversity of concrete patterns of institution building on transnational sites.     

Global Multisourcing Strategy: The Emergence of a Supplier Portfolio in Services Offshoring

In today's global services outsourcing arena, increasing numbers of companies adopt “multisourcing,” that is, they select and combine information technology (IT) and business services from multiple providers. The literature on IT outsourcing and supply chain management has identified critical tradeoffs involved in increasing the number of suppliers and has strongly recommended focusing on a handful of strategic partners to balance these tradeoffs. Committing to a few strategic partners, however, may prevent a firm from discovering new suppliers, or even supply regions. Such missed opportunities may be particularly limiting in the context of offshoring professional services, which has exhibited rapid changes in supplier markets in the last decade. Thus, firms may want to engage in a more intensive multisourcing in services. If they do so, their success will depend on a global sourcing process that effectively addresses the critical tradeoffs involved. To explore how a global sourcing process can support multisourcing, we conducted a qualitative longitudinal case study of a large financial services institution that developed a varied global supply base to obtain offshore professional services. Our analysis results in a theory that emphasizes (i) advantages of a multiple provider strategy in rapidly changing global supply markets; (ii) the critical role of middle managers in enabling continuous innovation in the supplier structure; and (iii) the importance of the global sourcing process combining top–down and bottom–up decision making in multisourcing.     

Joint strategic planning between health and local authorities

This paper describes an approach to joint consideration of strategic planning problems between Health Authorities and Local Authorities. It is currently being pilot tested in the UK by two Area Health Authorities and their corresponding County Councils. The approach is most effective in planning the provision of health and social services for periods between three and ten years ahead and has been particularly designed for planning the non-acute services. These are the services for which joint planning between the health and social services is most important. Depending on local needs and planning priorities the approach may be used for one or more ‘client groups’ (the Elderly, Mentally Ill, Mentally Handicapped, Physically Handicapped etc.). In the pilot applications the approach is being used in planning for the Elderly client group only. The model now used relies on very simple assumptions, arithmetic calculations, and a heuristic optimisation algorithm, in place of a previous mathematical programming model originally aimed at national planning needs and then adapted to local planning. The revised model has achieved these simplifications, while extending the power of the model to fit local needs, by separating out different parts of the problem corresponding to different stages in the planning process, and developing techniques appropriate to each. In a companion paper² in this issue authors from the participating Authorities put their views on the pilot applications of the approach.     

The impact of social power and influence on the implementation of innovation strategies: A case study of a UK mega infrastructure construction project

Influence plays a key role in reaching consensus among multiple actors involved in project-based decision-making processes. While prior literature devotes considerable attention to describing influence, little attention has been paid to influence at the individual level of the strategic project manager within the context of megaprojects. This research intended to fill this knowledge gap by identifying and describing the influence strategies that a strategic project manager applies when implementing innovation strategies on megaprojects. A qualitative case study was used to examine the complex social processes involved in a major UK capital investment programme. The findings underline a critical subset of influence strategies, notably higher-management support, inspirational appeal and bargaining. The study proposes a utilitarian structure of social power comprising selective, supportive and executory power bases.     

Is a powerful rival a right partner?

This paper explores why powerless firms are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to collaborate with other powerful firms. Two natures of power, competitive and cooperative natures, are compared to study such an imbalance between firms in market power and social power. Testing the syndicated underwritings in the U.S. from 1998 to 2009, we find that egos of low market power are less likely to partner with alters of high market power. In contrast, egos of low social power are more likely to collaborate with alters of high social power. Moreover, the results show that collaborations with powerful partners are not necessarily beneficial or detrimental for the performance of powerless focal firms; only when the high power partners possess a high network constraint which constrains opportunism and facilitates trust, do collaborations with such partners help the performance of powerless focal firms.     

Leadership in the Plural

This paper reviews the literature on forms of leadership that in one way or other imply plurality: that is, the combined influence of multiple leaders in specific organizational situations. We identify four streams of scholarship on plural leadership, each focusing on somewhat different phenomena and adopting different epistemological and methodological assumptions. Specifically, these streams focus on sharing leadership in teams, on pooling leadership at the top of organizations, on spreading leadership across boundaries over time, and on producing leadership through interaction. The streams of research vary according to their representations of plural leadership as structured or emergent and as mutual or coalitional. We note tensions between perspectives that advocate pluralizing leadership in settings of concentrated authority and those concerned with channeling the forms of plurality naturally found in diffuse power settings such as professional organizations or inter-organizational partnerships. It is suggested that future research might pay more attention to social network perspectives, to the dynamics of plural leadership, to the role of power, and to critical perspectives on leadership discourse.     

The impact of gendered power relations in HRD

This study examined how gender and power influence the interpersonal relationships among human resource development (HRD) managers. Specifically, the study focused on the workplace experiences of HRD managers and the strategies they used to negotiate their day-to-day interactions. A qualitative approach was used to examine respondents' experiences as well as the social contexts that framed their workplace relationships. Five female and five male HRD managers were interviewed using critical incident techniques to explore specific workplace interactions. Two major conclusions of the study indicated that the experiences of female and male respondents regarding the exercise of power were profoundly different and that the strategies used by respondents generally reflected the gendered contexts of power.     

The functions and dysfunctions of hierarchy

Functionalist accounts of hierarchy, longstanding in the social sciences, have gained recent prominence in studies of leadership, power, and status. This chapter takes a critical look at a core implication of the functionalist perspective – namely, that steeper hierarchies help groups and organizations perform better than do flatter structures. We review previous research relevant to this question, ranging from studies of communication structures in small groups to studies of compensation systems in large corporations. This review finds that in contrast to strong functionalist assertions, the effects of steeper hierarchies are highly mixed. Sometimes steeper hierarchies benefit groups and sometimes they harm groups. We thus propose five conditions that moderate the effects of hierarchy steepness: (1) the kinds of tasks on which the group is working; (2) whether the right individuals have been selected as leaders; (3) how the possession of power modifies leaders’ psychology; (4) whether the hierarchy facilitates or hampers intra-group coordination; and (5) whether the hierarchy affects group members’ motivation in positive or deleterious ways.     

Diabolical dictators or capable commanders? An investigation of the differential effects of autocratic leadership on team performance

Autocratic leader behavior is often seen as negative for team morale and performance. However, theories on social hierarchy suggest that autocratic leadership may also positively affect morale and performance through the creation of a psychologically appealing, hierarchically-ordered environment of predictability and security. We propose that autocratic leadership can foster team psychological safety when team members accept the hierarchy within the team. In contrast, when members challenge the hierarchy and engage in intrateam power struggles, autocratic leaders' centralizing power behaviors will clash with team members' competition for power and frustrate members, impairing psychological safety and performance. We find support for these ideas in a study of 60 retail outlets (225 employees and their managers) in the financial services industry. As expected, when team power struggles were low, autocratic leadership was positively related to team psychological safety, and thereby indirectly positively related to team performance. When team power struggles were high, autocratic leadership was negatively related to team psychological safety and thereby indirectly negatively related to team performance. These effects were also found when controlling for leader consideration.     

Developing strategic alliances: A conceptual framework for successful co-operation

Due to dramatically increasing global competition and in the light of Europe '92, companies have to concentrate on their particular competitive advantages and on those business activities they know well. The market, however, asks for an ever increasing range of products and services. ‘System deals’ include — along with a product — attractive sideline services, like project management, system implementation or supply of related products. In many cases, entering these markets or achieving technological breakthroughs is only possible with a strong partner.These recent developments forced corporations to consider alternative company structures. The failure of many strategic alliances, however, has clearly shown that understanding the development process of the alliance is critical for success. Christoph Bronder and Rudolf Pritzl present a structured procedure for developing strategic alliances that outlines four critical phases: strategic decision for an alliance, alliance configuration, partner selection, and alliance management.     

Social accounting as stakeholder knowledge appropriation

Heeding the call for socio-political explorations of the social accounting project, we use the analytical lens of knowledge appropriation to explore power and contest in social auditing. We develop a knowledge appropriation model comprising three stages: knowledge creation, knowledge generation and outcome distribution, which we then use to analyze an exemplar case. We argue that, despite asymmetries of power and managerial prerogative, deficient stakeholder involvement in the creation and distribution stages renders social auditing ineffective for governance as either a stakeholder account or a strategic management system. We conclude that embedded stakeholder involvement in knowledge creation processes is essential for social auditing to be effective as corporate governance.     

Reflexion als Herausforderung in der Organisationsberatung Ein kritisch-organisationspädagogischer Blick auf die Professionalisierung

Reflection of the consultants advances to a central attribute of professional organizational consulting. Particularly the systemic and process consulting render outstanding services to this strategy of professionalization. This strategy bases on the assumption, that especially reflection enables to structure experiences und the role of the consultants in consultation projects in order to learn from them, i. e. to professionalize. A (self-)critical view to practical experiences, as the article focusses on, points up the challenges, which accompany reflection: Consultants – as well as their clients – have the problem, that they are not able to disclose influences of power, instrumentalization and projection. A confrontation of practical experiences with educational perceptions promises further impulses.     

Key social issues for European business

European businessmen find themselves at the centre of a political debate which questions the existence of capitalism as we know it. Its critics would replace it or reform it by establishing a higher degree of state control or union control, by building protective trade barriers on a national or European level, and by arranging for a greater involvement of community interests in management decision-making.How should business leaders respond? Increasingly, business is becoming more ‘politicized’ and businessmen are putting their case personally, through industry and employer associations, and with the aid of external consultants and staff specialists in ‘Public Affairs’. The structures of business organizations are being changed to include representation by employees, consumers and other interests. And businesses are becoming involved in ‘social’ tasks like job creation and the provision of social services such as refuse collection, postal services, private education and private medicine. In this article, the authors trace the major social and political trends which have affected European business in the post-war period and identify the key social issues for businessmen in the 1980s.     

New perspectives on the governance of executive compensation: an examination of the role and effect of compensation consultants

We develop a multi-theoretic approach, drawing on economic, institutional, managerial power and social comparison literatures to explain the role of the external compensation consultant in the top management pay setting institutional field. Taking advantage of recent disclosure requirements in the UK, we collect data on compensation consultant use in 232 large companies. We show that consultants are a prevalent part of the CEO pay setting scene, and document evidence of all advisor use. Our econometric results show that consultant use is associated with firm size and the equity pay mix. We also show that CEO pay is positively associated with peer firms that share consultants, with higher board and consultant interlocks, and some evidence that where firms supply other business services to the firm, CEO pay is greater.     

How a System Backfires: Dynamics of Redundancy Problems in Security

Increasing attention is being paid to reliability, safety, and security issues in social systems. Scott Sagan examined why more security forces (a redundancy solution) may lead to less security.⁽ 1 ⁾ He discussed how such a solution can backfire due to three major issues (i.e., “common‐mode error,”“social shirking,” and “overcompensation”). In this article, using Sagan's hypotheses, we simulate and analyze a simple and generic security system as more guards are added to the system. Simulation results support two of Sagan's hypotheses. More specifically, the results show that “common‐mode error” causes the system to backfire, and “social shirking” leads to an inefficient system while exacerbating the common‐mode error's effect. Simulation results show that “overcompensation” has no effect of backfiring, but it leads the system to a critical state in which it can easily be affected by the common‐mode error. Furthermore, the simulation results make us question the importance of the initial power of adversaries (e.g., terrorists) as the results show that, for any exogenous level of adversary power, the system endogenously overcompensates to a level that makes the system more susceptible to being attacked.     

Power planning in ICT infrastructure: A multi-criteria operational performance evaluation approach

It is critical for information and communications technology (ICT) companies to carry our effective power planning, in order to support the growing number of services they provide, and this traditionally relies on the tacit knowledge and experience of senior staff. The loss of such domain knowledge resulting from the retirement of staff is an important issue for organizations such as Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), the largest ICT operator in Taiwan. This study thus develops a systematic power planning model using a multi-criteria operational performance evaluation. A group version of the fuzzy repertory grid and fuzzy TOPSIS approaches is applied to elicit a set of evaluation criteria that senior staff agree on, and then the priorities of the telecom rooms are evaluated against this. In addition, a new factor, reflecting the attitudes of the decision makers with respect to the degree of strictness, is defined to determine the superiority and inferiority of each alternative compared to the others. Furthermore, a novel decision aggregation strategy regarding the degree of variation among decision makers is proposed, and a quantitative assessment is carried out to analyze its impact on the ranking results in an objective manner. The proposed model may help ICT organizations to more effectively manage their power resources, and thus obtain competitive advantages.     

Work–Life,Diversity and Intersectionality: A Critical Review and Research Agenda

Work–life issues have important implications at both organizational and individual levels. This paper provides a critical review of the work–life literature from 1990 onwards through the lens of diversity, with a particular focus on disparities of power induced by methodological and conceptual framings of work and life. The review seeks to answer the following questions: What are the gaps and omissions in the work–life research? How may they be overcome? To answer these questions, the review scrutinizes blind spots in the treatment of life, diversity and power in work–life research in both positivist and critical scholarship. In order to transcend the blind spots in positivist and critical work–life research, the review argues the case for an intersectional approach which captures the changing realities of family and workforce through the lens of diversity and intersectionality. The theoretical contribution is threefold: first, the review demonstrates that contemporary framing of life in the work–life literature should be expanded to cover aspects of life beyond domestic life. Second, the review explains why and how other strands of diversity than gender also manifest as salient causes of difference in experiences of the work–life interface. Third, the review reveals that social and historical context has more explanatory power in work–life dynamics than the micro‐individual level of explanations. Work–life literature should capture the dynamism in these contexts. The paper also provides a set of useful recommendations to capture and operationalize methodological and theoretical changes required in the work–life literature.     

Local Management Response to Corporative Restructuring: A Case Study of a Company Town

This is a case study of top management in a Swedish pulp industry at Skutskär. After decades of proactive response to change, starting in 1976 the pulp industry experienced a rapid and significant restructuring. In 1992, and after a prolonged hold on local investments, came a large‐scale investment with major labor reductions, which created a local crisis. The aim of this study is to analyze how top managers of a local business plant perceive and explain their citizenship relationship to the community of the company town during a transition period from 1976 to 2007. Our study shows that too much reliance on top management cost reduction requirements and not caring, or underscoring, local social concerns created gaps and local stakeholder distrust. We discuss how prolonged distrust of the company to bear social responsibility ended up in a broken relationship between the company and the local community. Our case indicates at least two problems that must be handled for successful corporate citizenship. First, the traditional control‐oriented management view is too narrow and not adjusted to today's citizenship reality, including how to handle corporate social responsibility. Second, we can see a possibility where the conceived needs on a global corporate level may lead to situations to obscure local needs and consequences.