Uncertainty,Flexibility Gap and Labour Demand in the Italian Economy

In this paper we analyse the effects of changes in the degree of uncertainty of the economic system and in the “flexibility gap”, deriving from the combined evolution of the degrees of uncertainty and flexibility of the economic system (in particular, labour market flexibility), on regular and irregular labour demand. On the basis of a simple qualitative model, we give a partial interpretation of some stylized facts of the Italian economy during the last decades. We argue that the low uncertainty and flexibility gap in the 1950s and 1960s, their remarkable increases in the 1970s, their inadequate reduction in the 1980s and the new increase of uncertainty and flexibility gap in the first half of the 1990s, have had a considerable influence on the quantity and quality of the “investment in employment” of Italian economy. The higher degree of uncertainty and the inadequate degree of flexibility of the Italian economic system are likely to have contributed towards the lower regular employment rate, compared to the main industrialized countries, and to high irregular employment. An adequate economic policy for reducing the uncertainty of the economic system together with a structural economic policy for increasing the flexibility of the economic system (in particular, an active labour policy for increasing the flexibility of the labour market), would be likely to produce positive effects on the quantity and quality of labour demand, contributing towards reducing unemployment.     

Distribution Channel Network and Relational Performance: The Intervening Mechanism of Adaptive Distribution Flexibility

Network theories argue that organizations can enjoy information and control benefits from the network in which they are embedded. Focusing on distribution channel networks with strong, prominent, and central ties, this article argues that distribution flexibility, composed of logistics and relationship flexibility, is a response to environmental uncertainty that mediates the effect of channel network embeddedness on relationship performance. Results show that logistics flexibility and relationship flexibility fully mediate the effect of channel network embeddedness on relationship satisfaction, but that only relationship flexibility mediates the effect of channel network embeddedness on long‐term relationship orientation. Furthermore, not only is the effect of tie strength on logistics flexibility stronger in an uncertain environment, but relationship flexibility also decreases as the congruence between uncertainty and tie strength increases, suggesting a complex higher‐order contingency model.     

逆向物流网络设计研究进展

随着环境资源压力的增大,政府法制要求以及社会环保要求的提升,研究者对逆向物流网络的研究日益关注。本文系统地对近几年的逆向物流网络设计研究进行回顾,讨论并对比研究了网络设计研究问题,研究方法,定量模型,求解算法以及逆向物流网络设计中不确定环境方面的研究。探讨了逆向物流网络研究中的不足,为研究者未来的研究方向提供了参考。     

Elaborating the Contingency Theory of Organizations: The Case of Manufacturing Flexibility Strategies

What determines which manufacturing flexibility strategies are feasible and which are not? In this paper, I build both theoretical and empirical understanding of task‐environmental contingencies that may either enable or constrain the selection of various flexibility strategies. The special emphasis is on the various plant‐level actions that are used to seek manufacturing flexibility. Demand uncertainty and variability, technology, and competitive strategy emerge as the most important contingencies, although not in ways that are immediately apparent. Finally, managerial implications at both the corporate as well as manufacturing unit levels are discussed.     

商业关系结束时的环境不确定性与交易关系规范研究

聚焦于商业关系结束阶段的交易关系规范行为,探索在不同的“交易结果信息传播”和“终止交易依赖”的条件下,厂商如何选择交易规范以应对环境的不确定性。收集了我国3个省份的312个样本,以MANOVA和GLM模型检验假设后发现：交易网络结构特征通过影响交易依赖度和传播信息,进而干扰厂商的商业关系退出策略。商业关系结束时,交易网络密度反向调节环境不确定性对团结规范的影响,较高的交易网络中心度反向调节环境不确定性对信息分享规范和弹性规范的影响。     

Deliberative Disjunction: Expert and Public Understanding of Outcome Uncertainty

Many environmental and risk management decisions are made jointly by technical experts and members of the public. Frequently, their task is to select from among management alternatives whose outcomes are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty. Although it is recognized that how this uncertainty is interpreted can significantly affect decision‐making processes and choices, little research has examined similarities and differences between expert and public understandings of uncertainty. We present results from a web‐based survey that directly compares expert and lay interpretations and understandings of different expressions of uncertainty in the context of evaluating the consequences of proposed environmental management actions. Participants responded to two hypothetical but realistic scenarios involving trade‐offs between environmental and other objectives and were asked a series of questions about their comprehension of the uncertainty information, their preferred choice among the alternatives, and the associated difficulty and amount of effort. Results demonstrate that experts and laypersons tend to use presentations of numerical ranges and evaluative labels differently; interestingly, the observed differences between the two groups were not explained by differences in numeracy or concerns for the predicted environmental losses. These findings question many of the usual presumptions about how uncertainty should be presented as part of deliberative risk‐ and environmental‐management processes.     

产业转型企业战略柔性优化模型研究

战略演进的路径依赖特征往往会导致企业产业转型的失败,而以战略柔性为基础的动态竞争优势体系对于推进企业转型具有促进作用.但是,若一味地追求战略柔性,则有可能使企业陷入"柔性陷阱".为此,本文构建了环境不确定性和战略柔性水平的测度指标体系,提出了相应的匹配模型,将战略柔性与环境不确定性进行比较与匹配,以优化转型企业战略柔性配置.实现战略柔性的供需平衡.     

Supply chain agility as an acclimatisation process to environmental uncertainty and organisational vulnerabilities: insights from British SMEs

Abstract

Even though supply chain agility (SCA) has been considered an essential concept in supply chain management (SCM) research, the way it is experienced and manifested, especially by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has received much less attention. Our purpose is to focus on SME organisational vulnerabilities in the context of increased environmental uncertainty, and explore how SCA is developed and applied by SMEs amid their vulnerabilities. By relying on insights from comparative case studies of three British SMEs, we examine SME SCA as an acclimatisation process and delve into SMEs’ experiences of facing environmental uncertainty while developing and applying SCA. Our findings highlight that organisational attitudes underlie how SMEs perceive environmental uncertainty, tackle organisational vulnerabilities and develop SCA as an acclimatisation process. Our findings also reveal that resource constraints, supply chain relationships, interorganisational power dynamics, and access to information play important roles in developing SCA.     

Development of a Preliminary Framework for Informing the Risk Analysis and Risk Management of Nanoparticles

Decisions are often made even when there is uncertainty about the possible outcomes. However, methods for making decisions with uncertainty in the problem framework are scarce. Presently, safety assessment for a product containing engineered nano-scale particles is a very poorly structured problem. Many fields of study may inform the safety assessment of such particles (e.g., ultrafines, aerosols, debris from medical devices), but engineered nano-scale particles may present such unique properties that extrapolating from other types of studies may introduce, and not resolve, uncertainty. Some screening-level health effects studies conducted specifically on engineered nano-scale materials have been published and many more are underway. However, it is clear that the extent of research needed to fully and confidently understand the potential for health or environmental risk from engineered nano-scale particles may take years or even decades to complete. In spite of the great uncertainty, there is existing research and experience among researchers that can help to provide a taxonomy of particle properties, perhaps indicating a relative likelihood of risk, in order to prioritize nanoparticle risk research. To help structure this problem, a framework was developed from expert interviews of nanotechnology researchers. The analysis organizes the information as a system based on the risk assessment framework, in order to support the decision about safety. In the long term, this framework is designed to incorporate research results as they are generated, and therefore serve as a tool for estimating the potential for human health and environmental risk.     

When to Mass Customize: The Impact of Environmental Uncertainty*

Previous research on mass customization (MC) has focused on what it is and how it is implemented. In this study we examine when MC is an appropriate strategy for firms to follow by scrutinizing the effects of three environmental uncertainty variables (demand uncertainty, competitive intensity, and supply chain complexity) on the MC–performance relationship. Specifically, we distinguish the direct effect of environmental uncertainty on MC ability and the moderation effect of environmental uncertainty on MC ability's impact on customer satisfaction. We examine six competing hypotheses using data collected from 266 manufacturing plants. Our results show that competitive intensity has a direct positive impact on MC ability. However, demand uncertainty moderates the relationship between MC ability and customer satisfaction, and the direct and positive relationship between MC ability and customer satisfaction holds only when customer demand is highly uncertain. Supply chain complexity neither has a direct relationship with MC, nor moderates the MC–performance relationship. Implications of these research findings are discussed and future research directions are identified.     

Environmental regulatory influence and product innovation: the contingency effects of organizational characteristics

This paper examines the relationship between environmental regulatory influence and product innovation in a multi-industry sample of manufacturing organizations. Our theory argues that the influence of environmental regulation on the level of product innovation in a manufacturing organization is at least partially contingent on the organization's internal characteristics—in particular, its structural flexibility and production process flexibility. Hypotheses are derived from our theory and tested, and the results are consistent with the conclusion that structural flexibility and production process flexibility moderate the environmental regulatory influence–product innovation relationship. Whether environmental regulation inhibits or promotes product innovation seems to depend at least in part on certain internal features of an organization. We discuss implications of our results for future organization studies research on environmental regulation, and for research on other types of external constraints on organizational performance.     

Capital Budgeting for Volume Flexible Equipment*

Recent advances in technology have created opportunities for firms to invest in expensive automated equipment designed to improve volume flexibility. Such investments are made on the basis that flexibility benefits the firm by increasing managerial control over output, reducing the risk of demand uncertainty, and improving productivity. The presumption is that these benefits will eventually translate to higher cash flows, appreciation in the firm's market value, and better return to shareholders. Yet, there is no managerially useful analytical framework for measuring this relationship. This study develops a model that uses contingent claims analysis to evaluate the effect of volume flexibility on the firm's value and to determine the optimal degree of automation that maximizes share value. The analysis is done by taking into consideration alternative demand characteristics, cost patterns, and the effectiveness of volume flexibility in increasing managerial control over output, reducing the risk of demand uncertainty, and improving productivity.     

Fit,Flexibility and Performance in Manufacturing: Coping with Dynamic Environments

This research develops the notion of environmental fit and flexibility and illustrates the importance of such fit empirically using survey data from 101 manufacturing firms. Two dimensions of environmental dynamism are identified and the fit between them and different approaches to flexibility are assessed. Hierarchical regressions provide evidence that flexibility is a stronger predictor of performance in more dynamic environments. Specifically, presence of the unpredictability or the volatility aspects of environmental dynamism each warrant the use of different types of manufacturing flexibility strategies. Statistical results are interpreted with the caveat that while implemented capability must be used to study performance effects, this study uses perceived importance scales for flexibility.     

Risk Uncertainty and Supply Chain Decisions: A Real Options Perspective

Supply chain risk uncertainty can create severe repercussions, thus it is not surprising that research interest in supply chain risk has been growing. While extant inquiry is informative, there is a lack of investigations that center on supply chain investment decisions when facing high levels of risk uncertainty. Given the potential dollar value involved in these decisions, an understanding of how these supply chain decisions are made is of significant theoretical and practical importance. Real options theory, with its focus on decision making under conditions of uncertainty, is an appealing theoretical lens for this endeavor. In essence, real options theory asserts that managerial decisions center on creating and then exercising or not exercising certain opportunities. To date, theorizing about and investigations of real options have used firms as their focus. Not yet examined are real options within supply chains that cross firm boundaries and drive much of the competitive activity in the modern economy. Accordingly, we extend real options theory to the supply chain context by examining how different types of options are approached relative to supply chain project investments. Specifically, we theorize how the options will be related to perceived value under conditions of high supply chain risk uncertainty. Overall, our investigation builds knowledge by extending real options theory to the supply chain context and by providing evidence suggesting some options operate differently in supply chains than they do in firms.     

创业导向与探索式创新的关系：一个双中介效应模型

  创业导向对探索式创新的影响决定创业企业在不确定商业生态环境中的市场机会捕捉能力和价值创造效果。虽然已有研究部分证实了创业导向与探索式创新的相互作用,但面对创业企业生存环境不确定性更高、资源约束更明显的事实,创业企业如何借助合理的战略决策和高效的资源使用行为帮助自身实现由生存到发展的过渡显得尤为重要,鲜有研究对此类问题予以深入探讨。         基于战略创业理论、创新管理理论和资源基础观理论,以创业导向为解释变量,以探索式创新为被解释变量,引入战略灵活性和创业拼凑两个可能影响导向与产出关系的关键要素,探讨创业导向对探索式创新的直接影响,以及战略灵活性和创业拼凑可能起到的特殊中介作用。借鉴并改进已有研究的成熟量表形成问卷,选取深圳的创业企业为调研对象,以电子邮件的形式发放问卷,基于最终获得的283份有效问卷,采用结构方程和双中介模型的研究方法,全面检验创业导向、战略灵活性、创业拼凑与探索式创新之间的关系。         研究结果表明,创业导向、战略灵活性和创业拼凑均对探索式创新产生促进作用;创业导向与战略灵活性呈显著的正相关关系,也对创业拼凑产生积极影响;战略灵活性与创业拼凑呈显著的正相关关系。创业拼凑在创业导向与探索式创新之间和战略灵活性与探索式创新之间起部分中介作用。由战略灵活性和创业拼凑形成的中介链部分中介了创业导向与探索式创新之间的关系。         研究结论从导向-策略-行为-产出的研究框架拓展了战略创业理论的研究内容,揭示了创业导向、战略灵活性、创业拼凑与探索式创新之间的关系机理,为创业企业理解战略灵活性和创业拼凑的影响、充分实践和发挥创业导向的创新精神、促进探索式创新活动的持续开展提供了重要的理论依据和经验证据。     

Stepping Out of Your Own Shadow: A Didactic Example of How Facing Uncertainty Can Improve Decision-Making

Advocates of quantitative uncertainty analysis (QUA) have invested substantial effort in explaining why uncertainty is a crucial aspect of risk and yet have devoted much less effort to explaining how QUA can improve the risk manager's performance. This paper develops a teaching example, using a personal decision problem with subtle parallels to societal risk management, to show how choices made with increasing appreciation of uncertainty are superior ones. In the hypothetical, five analysts explain the same uncertain prospect (whether to invest in a volatile stock issue), with increasing attention to the nuances of uncertainty. The path through these different perspectives on the decision demonstrates four general points applicable to environmental risk management: (1) Various point estimates with equal claim to being "best estimates" can differ markedly from each other and lead to diametrically different choices; (2) "conservatism" has both relative and absolute meanings, with different implications for decision-making; (3) both inattention to and fixation on "outliers" in the uncertainty distribution can lead the manager astray; and (4) the best QUA is one that helps discriminate among real options, that points to optimum pathways toward new information, and that spurs on the iterative search for new decision options that may outperform any of the initial ones offered.     

Approaches to displaying information to assist decisions under uncertainty

The estimation of the costs of a product or project and the decisions based on these forecasts are subject to much uncertainty relating to factors like unknown future developments. This has been addressed repeatedly in research studies focusing on different aspects of uncertainty; unfortunately, this interest has not yet been adopted in practice. One reason can be found in the inadequate representation of uncertainty. This paper introduces an experiment, which engages different approaches to displaying cost forecasting information to gauge the consideration of uncertainty in the subsequent decision-making process. Three different approaches of displaying cost-forecasting information including the uncertainty involved in the data were tested, namely a three point trend forecast, a bar chart, and a FAN-diagram. Furthermore, the effects of using different levels of contextual information about the decision problem were examined. The results show that decision makers tend to simplify the level of uncertainty from a possible range of future outcomes to the limited form of a point estimate. Furthermore, the contextual information made the participants more aware of uncertainty. In addition, the fan-diagram prompted 75.0% of the participants to consider uncertainty even if they had not used this type of diagram before; it was therefore identified as the most suitable method of graphical information display for encouraging decision makers to consider the uncertainty in cost forecasting.     

战略性转移定价承诺策略下的供应商选择柔性研究

在上游供应商的战略性转移定价承诺策略与下游制造商投资创新决策之间存在着交互作用,笔者将静态环境下的这种交互作用与不同柔性层次下的动态供应网络架构相结合,以供应链路径柔性为切入点,基于承诺的交货提前期、投资创新、产量与供应链收益等供应链绩效维度来探讨战略性转移定价承诺策略下的供应链合作模式相关话题。考虑到AM_j在不同CS_#em/em#之间进行选择的柔性化特征,笔者至少得到如下三个方面的结论:首先,供应网络架构柔性是供应链整体及其各节点企业获取绩效改善的重要途径,与没有柔性相比,完全柔性和部分柔性情形下的供应链绩效均能得到明显改善,而其中又以完全柔性优势最为突出;其次,虽然部分柔性是供应网络架构中较为可行的柔性层次选择,但是,其与完全柔性一样,容易产生供应网络资源的供给与需求失衡现象;第三,不确定性情境下的一体化决策与确定性情境下的转移定价承诺决策对供应链利润绩效所产生的影响取决于供应网络柔性层次以及供应网络节点企业各自的能力特点,进而对供应链整体及其各节点的合作模式和行为取向起着主导作用。     

企业知识管理系统柔性与环境不确定性的匹配度计算模型

旨在为进行企业知识管理系统(EKMS)柔性的评价与决策提供量化工具。分析了EKMS柔性的组成、环境不确定性的主客观因素及EKMS柔性与环境不确定性匹配的涵义,提出了EKMS柔性与环境不确定性的评价指标体系及测度方法,在此基础上借鉴空间几何概念设计了EKMS柔性与环境匹配度的计算方法及判断准则,最后给出了算例。     

PERCEIVED ENVIRONMENTAL UNCERTAINTY AS A MEDIATOR OF EXPECTANCY THEORY PREDICTIONS: SOME PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

Expectancy theory has been tested in a variety of research settings with somewhat mixed results. One possible explanation for the sometimes low predictive ability of the model is the presence of environmental uncertainty. It was hypothesized that the greater the perceived environmental uncertainty, the greater the uncertainty regarding expectancy estimates. Hence, the predicted relationship between the level of motivation and job performance was expected to vary with the level of perceived uncertainty. Empirical results are presented supporting the hypothesis.