An ounce of prevention?

While preventive health care is intuitively attractive, both from a disease morbidity and cost of care aspect, it is most effective when the natural history of a disease can be precisely predicted and when there is effective therapy to modify the risk factor. In contrast, if the natural history is uncertain, perhaps due to its multifactorial nature and treatment not entirely effective, there will inevitably be inefficiency in preventive treatment. In this complicated balancing act, the inefficiencies of preventive therapy may be buried beneath the surface, due in part to the method of reporting and perhaps to the enthusiasm for preventive medicine in general. Until we are able to identify more predictive risk factors, there will always be inefficiencies in preventive medicine, and many must be treated for one to benefit. However, the absolute risk reduction and the number needed to treat are useful measures to highlight what can actually be achieved with preventive therapy.     

Product Chain Responsibility — An Industry Perspective

Traditionally, ecologically conscious product design (EcoDesign) emphasises the systematic environmental improvement of products, with tools derived from life cycle assessment (LCA) being used to record the improvements achieved. The possible integration within a company's environmental management system (EMS), taking Philips as the example, has been described in previously world-wide distributed and publicly available management guidelines called ‘Point of no return’. An operational counterpart was published in 2000 and is called ‘Greening Your Business’, it features an extended method, which includes all milestones in the total sequence from company policy via strategic choices and roadmap planning to the product's creation. This article describes the overall approach.     

Do imaginary companions die? An exploratory study

Adults in this exploratory study usually recalled that their childhood imaginary companions faded away or were dismissed as other options for social interaction became more appealing. However, eight participants reported that their IC had died. Analysis of these deaths offers a glimpse of the child's talent for transitional thought processes that navigate between the emerging constraints of logic and the continuing appeal of fantasy. It is suggested that young children are testing the limits and possibilities of what it means to be "real" at the same time they are trying to puzzle out "alive" and "dead."     

10 Coordination in Organizations: An Integrative Perspective

Abstract

Coordination, the process of interaction that integrates a collective set of interdependent tasks, is a central purpose of organizations. In this review we begin by discussing the origins of interest in coordination, tracing some of the classic perspectives. We present a review of recent literature on coordination in organizations arranged according to the mechanisms that help achieve it. We then go beyond this review to provide a framework to understand what different coordination mechanisms and activities accomplish. We propose that coordination mechanisms (such as routines, meetings, plans, and schedules) impact the work of organizations by creating three integrative conditions for coordinated activity: accountability, predictability, and common understanding. We end by examining the implications of such a perspective for future research on coordination in organizations.     

An economic model of world energy 1900–2020

This report presents a model of the supply and demand for the world's energy during the period from 1900 to 2020. This model leads to the conclusion that even without new kinds of energy sources becoming practical, world energy demand can be met during the next 50 years with only a gradual increase in energy costs. Assumptions with respect to exhaustion of reserves that I regard as mildly conservative lead to a demand that can be satisfied by a 1.5 per cent per year energy price increase. This would raise the percentage of world GNP devoted to primary energy from the present 3–4 per cent in the year 2020. Eliminating per capita economic growth would reduce the required annual price increase only from 1.5 to 1.8 per cent. Eliminating normal technological progress in existing energy technologies would increase the required annual price increase from 1.5 to 2.7 per cent. The model shows oil and gas reaching their maximum share of the energy market during the 1980's. By 2020 approximately 50 per cent of all energy comes from nuclear power.The model provides a framework for the analysis of the world energy market under a wide variety of assumptions. In particular, the model allows explicitly for assumptions about technological progress, economies and diseconomies of scale, and the rate of substitution of cheaper energy sources for more expensive ones.     

An almost four-approximation algorithm for maximum weight triangulation

We consider the following planar maximum weight triangulation (MAT) problem: given a set of n points in the plane, find a triangulation such that the total length of edges in triangulation is maximized. We prove an $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ lower bound on the approximation factor for several heuristics: maximum greedy triangulation, maximum greedy spanning tree triangulation and maximum spanning tree triangulation. We then propose the Spoke Triangulation algorithm, which approximates the maximum weight triangulation for points in general position within a factor of almost four in O(nlog?n) time. The proof is simpler than the previous work. We also prove that Spoke Triangulation approximates the maximum weight triangulation of a convex polygon within a factor of two.     

The management buy-out—An offer you can't refuse

The management buy-out, which was virtually unknown in the UK until a few years ago, has become increasingly common over the past five years. However, despite the fact that the concept of the management buy-out is now well established, there are few published statistics and up-to-date literature reviews relating to this field. A survey of 120 recent management buy-outs identified through the financial press was therefore conducted by mailed questionnaire in order to review and collect statistics relating to the following aspects of this type of transaction: sources of management buy-outs; reasons for the sale of the company to be bought-out; vendor and management motivation for a buy-out; sources of finance for buy-out; structure of financial packages for buy-outs; characteristics of bought-out companies; structure of buy-out transactions; pre- and post-buy-out industrial relations; and success of management buy-outs.     

Corporate planning in domestic airlines— An Indian case study

In this article the author considers the problems of planning in the airline industry, drawing specifically on experience in the domestic Indian airline. The article seeks to examine some of the strategic issues relevant to domestic airlines which, while related here to the Indian environment, may be seen to be pertinent in most developing countries.     

An Evaluation of Train-to-Code to Teach Implementation of PECS©

We evaluated the impact of a customized training program developed using an observation and behavioral coding software system (i.e., Train-to-Code) to teach implementation of Phase 3A of the Picture Exchange Communication System to four undergraduate students. The training program coached participants on all relevant steps of the procedure. To accomplish this, participants viewed multiple video exemplars of correct and incorrect implementation of each step in the sequence of behaviors, and coded these behaviors in accordance with a taxonomy developed by the experimenters. The training program provided prompts and feedback in real time based on participants’ current level of performance and required mastery of seven levels of training, each with fewer prompts and feedback, until an expert level of unprompted coding performance was demonstrated. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program on levels of procedural integrity during performance test probes conducted with a confederate learner before and after the completion of the training program. Results showed improved performance relative to baseline following training, and maintenance of performance at 2–4 weeks follow-up. A conceptual analysis of these findings will be discussed, along with implications for staff training in applied settings.     

Digital Futures — An Agenda for a Sustainable Digital Economy

Despite the death of the dot-coms, there's no doubt that the digital revolution is reshaping the way we do business and relate to each other. Some would argue that this is happening with precious little thought for the environment or society at large, yet others say it has real potential to benefit both. Over the past year, Forum for the Future's Digital Futures project has examined the sustainability opportunities of e-business and the project's findings are summarised in this article.¹     

Social forecasting: An integral part of corporate planning?

The increasing need for business to monitor the social dimensions of its environment and, hopefully make some forecasts of future trends has met with some constructive response from academics and consultants although not as yet on a very liberal scale. The published literature does not indicate to what extent companies in general attemp social forecasting and, where they do, the degree of integration which exists within their corporate planning systems. The authors, therefore, decided to survey a sample of British organizations to see if they could shed some light on these issues and thereby add some information to the excellent accounts of individual cases of social forecasting in, they suspect, the more advanced and atypical companies. The survey suggests a general picture of: awareness of the value of social forecasting; fairly widespread ignorance of the techniques which do exist, primitive though these may largely be; successful integration of social forecasting into the corporate planning systems of a substantial number of organizations but not in the majority.     

An individual-based model of information diffusion combining friends’ influence

In many real-world scenarios, an individual accepts a new piece of information based on her intrinsic interest as well as friends’ influence. However, in most of the previous works, the factor of individual’s interest does not receive great attention from researchers. Here, we propose a new model which attaches importance to individual’s interest including friends’ influence. We formulate the problem of maximizing the acceptance of information (MAI) as: launch a seed set of acceptors to trigger a cascade such that the number of final acceptors under a time constraint T in a social network is maximized. We then prove that MAI is NP-hard, and for time \(T = 1,2\) , the objective function for information acceptance is sub-modular when the function for friends’ influence is sub-linear in the number of friends who have accepted the information (referred to as active friends). Therefore, an approximation ratio \((1-\frac{1}{e})\) for MAI problem is guaranteed by the greedy algorithm. Moreover, we also prove that when the function for friends’ influence is not sub-linear in the number of active friends, the objective function is not sub-modular.     

Innovation by contest: Innovation 83—An interscandinavian innovation contest

The current interest in innovations has led to the initiation of a number of activities all over the world aimed at increasing the flow of ideas for new products and pursuing their development into useful results. In Scandinavia two large national contests have recently been completed, SWEDE-INNOVATION 81 [1] and NORDINNOVATION 83. This report summarizes some of the results and conclusions from the last mentioned project. The use of a contest to publicize the search for product ideas and to encourage widespread participation by inventors is not new; it has been tried many times. However, little is known about the results, the effects, the methods used, the cost of running it and many other essential details. A report on NORDINNOVATION 83 is felt to be of interest.     

Transition management—An analysis of strategic considerations for effective implementation

Today, organizations must deal with change on all fronts. The ability to deal with change may become the yardstick by which future managers are judged. But what do good managers need to know about managing the change process? Management literature contains hundreds of sources dealing with various aspects of change management and there are numerous books and case studies which discuss the complete process. After reviewing this material and testing it against interviews conducted with managers of companies that have undergone change programs, the authors have identified six guidelines to facilitate successful change. These six factors are: the need for a catalyst to initiate change; organizational goals must be set which take into account the impact of technical, political, and cultural factors; transition team is required to guide the change; top management must demonstrate commitment to the change as well as to act as change agents; utilizing employee participation and good communication can help overcome employee resistance; and finally, evaluating the change program is extremely important to the success of present and future change programs.     

Leaders’ influence on collective action: An identity leadership perspective

What makes followers act collectively when called upon by their leaders? To answer this question, participants were randomly allocated to leader–follower relationships embedded either in a partisan group or a workgroup context; and the relationship between identity leadership and collective action through ingroup identification (Study 1: N = 293) or both ingroup identification and group-efficacy (Study 2: N = 338) were assessed. Based on the model of identity leadership, we predicted and found that identity leadership was positively related with intentions for collective action when called upon by the leader, both via ingroup identification and belief in group efficacy. As predicted, the social identity process for the effectiveness of identity leadership was more important in partisan groups than in workgroups. The efficacy related process was group context invariant. These results have implications for our understanding of group processes involved in the leadership in collective action.     

Wither or whither London? An application of industry structure analysis

Industry structure analysis provides a tool for managers and leaders to more clearly understand the context in which day-by-day decisions are to be taken. It encourages a systematic analysis of ‘whither an enterprise?’ in the sense of ‘in what direction’ and ‘wither an enterprise?’ in the sense of ‘to what purpose’. Industry structure analysis applied to London reveals those forces which may doom current approaches to the solution to inner city problems to early failure and suggests new areas for the application of effort. As we enter a decade in which economic, political and social upheaval will be the norm, such a tool could be of use in helping managers in other enterprises to chart a surer course through uncertainty.     

An exact micro–macro approach to cyclic and non-cyclic train timetabling

When planning new railway infrastructures in order to enhance the network to meet future demand, the capacity departments of railway operators typically have to face a time consuming trial-and-error process. The process involves the computation of a new timetable which satisfies the demand and is feasible w.r.t. the enhanced network, and is typically carried out by expert personnel with little or no assistance by computer tools. The quality of the results is thus very dependent on the skills of the individual planner. In this paper, we describe an exact approach to produce train timetables in short computation time. The approach extends the models and decomposition algorithms previously developed for train dispatching, a deeply related operational problem. The problem is solved at the microscopic level and the final timetable, even if in general non-cyclic, can incorporate cyclicity constraints for any subset of trains. Results are presented for a feasibility study in the Oslo area commissioned by the capacity planning department at Jernbaneverket (Norway׳s infrastructure manager).     

An exploration of ‘sticky’ inventory management in the manufacturing industry

Traditional models examining relationships between firm resources and revenues assume that the many expenses and asset holdings change in proportion to changes in demand. However, research has found that for many costs and assets assumed to be variable, the magnitude of a change in a cost or asset in proportion to a change in revenue is smaller during periods when revenue decreases compared to the change in the cost or asset when revenue increases. Costs and assets which behave in this manner have been denoted as ‘sticky’ costs or assets. This study examines if inventory in the manufacturing industry is managed in a ‘sticky’ manner and what implications inventory stickiness has on firm performance. Utilising firm panel data over a 25-year time window we find that inventory stickiness does exist amongst manufacturers and that it has negative implications for firm performance.     

How to Use Technical Terms in Ads? An FCB Grid Perspective

Research on the optimal use of technical terms in advertising can help sponsors effectively communicate complex technical concepts to consumers. This study therefore examined how technical terms, and the extent to which they are explained, influence advertising effectiveness for four product types in the FCB grid. The sample comprised 436 college students. The analytical results of this study indicate that using two technical terms together with detailed explanation of the terms improves consumer attitudes towards the ad and consumer evaluation of the advertised product for thinking (products meeting consumer utilitarian needs) and high involvement products. For thinking and low involvement products, using two technical terms together with detailed/rough explanation improves consumer attitudes towards the ad and consumer evaluation of the advertised product. Moreover, using two unexplained technical terms improves consumer attitudes towards the ad for feeling (those providing consumer gratification, social acceptance and sensory satisfaction) and high involvement products. Using no technical terms improves consumer attitudes towards the ad for feeling and low involvement products. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Is the Swiss Labor Market Segmented? An Analysis Using Alternative Approaches

Abstract. In this paper, three common empirical methods encountered in the segmentation literature are used in order to establish whether or not the Swiss labor market is segmented: (i) a hierarchical cluster analysis; (ii) a switching model with unknown regime; and (iii) an analysis of low‐wage mobility with a bivariate probit model with endogenous selection. According to method (i), segmentation can hardly be observed. Method (ii) shows that the Swiss labor market is dualistic in nature. Method (iii) reveals that a certain degree of persistence exists in low‐wage jobs. Whether or not the Swiss labor market is segmented thus depends on the choice of method, i.e. on the definition and understanding of segments. In any case, none of the methods used in this study point to the existence of a large and well‐defined secondary segment.