The politic,philosophy and practice of OR—A personal view of the issues

It is almost 50 years since Sir Henry Tizzard created the group of scientists in RAF Fighter Command who were to coin the term ‘Operational Research’. The group still exists, though its work, and the work of other defence OR groups, has changed from solving acute operational problems by the extrapolation of observed data, to an attempt at predicting the outcome of policy choices that are beyond experience. Inevitably this has forced OR further into a political arena. Yet most OR practitioners are scientists used to investigating apolitical and benign nature. In this paper the author gives a personal view of what he believes OR is trying to achieve, what practical problems and pressures have to be faced and attempts to give guidance on how to proceed.     

Workplace autonomy and industrial democracy: The equity solution

The time has come to begin thinking about a conceptual shift in management thought. Once again, turbulence is developing in the environment and a new framework is developing to manage people. This framework calls for new forms of partnership between workers and management, including an expansion of employee rights, autonomous workgroups, and employee ownership. This article proposes that a new definition of corporate citizenship is needed.     

The efficacy of using judgmental versus quantitative forecasting methods in practice

In an era where forecasts drive entire supply chains forecasting is seen as an increasingly critical organizational capability. However, business forecasting continues to rely on judgmental methods despite large advancements in information technology and quantitative method capability, prompting calls for research to help understand the reasons behind this practice. Our study is designed to contribute to this knowledge by profiling differences between firms identified as primary users of either judgmental or quantitative forecasting methods. Relying on survey data from 240 firms we statistically analyzed differences between these categories of users based on a range of organizational and forecasting issues. Our study finds large differences in forecast error rates between the two groups, with users of quantitative methods significantly outperforming users of judgmental methods. The former are found to be equally prevalent regardless of industry, firm size, and product positioning strategy, documenting the benefits of quantitative method use in a variety of settings. By contrast, the latter are found to have significantly lower access to quantifiable data and to use information and technology to a lesser degree.     

Reputation, trust and the dynamics of leadership in communities of practice

The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical framework describing the internal organization of communities of practice in a dynamic perspective. More precisely, we argue that communities of practice adopt some specific patterns of internal organization where some of their members obtain a leadership status. Leaders contribute to cognitive advance of the community of practice by providing members with a consistent and coherent vision of its objectives. We identify two of their attributes as important for allowing them to fulfil their task: informational mimesis and mediation. Finally, we propose a simulation model describing the emergence of leadership as the outcome of a self-organizing process. We find that leaders correspond to members who are characterized by higher levels of activity in the community.This work has greatly benefited from comments by participants at the 3^rd ETE Workshop held in Sophia-Antipolis. Comments by Markus Becker, Antoine Bureth, Patrick Cohendet, Robin Cowan, Christophe Lerch, Julien Pénin are gratefully acknowledged. Remarks by two anonymous reviewers and the editor contributed to improve significantly the quality of the article. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Reconciling autonomy and community: the paradoxical role of HRD

This paper examines the competing discourses of autonomy and community, so long a concern to social theorists but which we argue have been under-theorised by researchers of HRD. We argue that it is this tension, embedded in the assumptions and behaviours of those working within organisations, which has informed a growing concern by HRD practitioners to balance the needs of the individual with those of organisations, a preoccupation which dates at least to the appropriation by organisations of the socio-psychological theories of the human relations movement. The paper examines the most recent attempts to reconcile autonomy and community through the emergence of the new managerial discourses of spirituality and organisational citizenship. We conclude that this quest is inevitably elusive, based as it is on assumptions of trust within organisation relationships which are increasingly challenged by the short term nature of our post-bureaucratic organisational relationships and the fragmentation, instability and the blurring of boundaries. We conclude with a call for HRD to take on the mantle of critical educator and moral conscience raiser to encourage a deeper engagement with social, existential and philosophical questions that lie at the heart of organisational life.     

Development of hospice and palliative care in the United States

More than 30 years have passed since palliative care was introduced in the United States, and what began as a small rebellion has evolved into a fairly large health care industry. Although the palliative care movement has considerably improved the care given to those at the end of life, many challenges remain for palliative care providers in the United States. This article discusses the history of hospice and palliative care in the United States, the Medicare Hospice Benefit, the growth of hospice and palliative care, and challenges such as the need for regulatory change, workforce issues, improving access to care, and improving the quality of palliative care.     

The effectiveness of input control based on aggregate versus bottleneck work loads

This study compares input control based on aggregate shop loads with that based on bottleneck resource loads. Two appropriate release mechanisms are developed and compared in flow and job shops that have various levels of a bottleneck constraint. Simulation results show that both the level of bottleneck and the flow pattern influence the effectiveness of the strategies. Release based on aggregate loads works well when shop loads are balanced or when there is a bottleneck but the flow is highly structured, as in a flow shop. Release based on bottleneck loads works best when flow patterns are less structured, as in a job shop.     

The moderating effects of value similarity and company philosophy on the climate-commitment relationship

The present study examines the moderating effects of two components of culture (value similarity and company philosophy) on the relationship between organizational climate and commitment. Moderator regression analyses reveal that value similarity has a direct effect on levels of commitment but does not moderate the climate-commitment relationship. In contrast, company philosophy is found to affect commitment directly but also to moderate the relationship between the reward and consideration dimensions of climate and organizational commitment. The results provide support for a culture-based explanation of commitment and offer some insights into the linkage between climate and organizational culture.     

The impact of R&D sources on new product development: Sources of funds and the diversity versus control of knowledge debate

We build on the knowledge-based view to study the relative impact of alternative R&D sources on innovation performance. We contrast two arguments that have created a debate in the literature: One is that diversity of knowledge is better for innovation, because the integration of a larger variety of knowledge helps create new products that can fulfill unmet customer needs; another is that control of knowledge is better, because the incentives and contextual system of the firm facilitate employees' experimentation, which supports the creation of new products. We provide one solution to this debate by arguing that the relative importance of diversity and control of knowledge on innovation depends on the sources of finance. Hence, we find that, in general, control of knowledge has a higher impact than diversity of knowledge on the sale of new products. We also find that alternative sources of finance moderate the relationships: internal funds strengthen the impact of R&D sources with more diversity of knowledge on the sale of new products, while external funds strengthen the impact of R&D sources with more control of knowledge on the sale of new products.     

Two hospice patients and the roles of the physician and the physician executive

Hospice care is available nearly everywhere. Yet some physicians aren't aware of its role in end-of-life care. Explore what hospice care provides and how patients and their families may benefit.     

Spare parts classification and demand forecasting for stock control: Investigating the gap between research and practice

This paper investigates the gap between research and practice in spare parts management, with specific reference to durable goods addressed to private or professional customers. The paper provides a critical literature review of theoretical contributions about spare parts classification and demand forecasting for stock control. The discussion of ten case studies, then, allows to analyze the reasons for this gap, by addressing the limitations of models developed in literature, the role of contextual factors and the maturity in companies' spare parts management practices. Four main directions for research are proposed in order to bridge the gap, namely: to develop integrated approaches to spare parts management; to define contingency-based managerial guidelines, to favor the knowledge accumulation process in companies, and to supplement theoretical models with practical relevance.     

Ethics beyond the model: How social dynamics can interfere with ethical practice in operational research/management science

Responding to a call for more attention to be given to ethics within operational research, Marc Le Menestrel and Luk Van Wassenhove have recently outlined a perspective on the relationship between OR models and ethics that squarely ties ethical engagement to daily practice and, more specifically, to the manner in which a practitioner uses a model or other technique in a particular setting. They refer to this approach as “ethics beyond OR models”.This paper seeks to extend the debate on this topic by examining some of the difficulties of ethical action when it is defined in these terms. Specifically the paper seeks to show how the social dynamics that circumscribe much professional practice can easily override good intentions on the part of the people concerned. Ethical practice dictates that those involved in OR/MS practice should seriously contemplate their own involvement in the process of knowledge production and be fully aware of the wider ramifications of employing particular modelling techniques and other tools. However, this is not always easy since the complex social dynamics that surround an inquiry can surreptitiously undermine these intentions. In extreme cases, these processes can create an ethical trap that those involved may not be fully recognise until after the event.In exploring such a disjuncture between ethical intentionality and outcomes the paper re-examines and reflects upon a major consulting assignment which was led by the author and subsequently published through a leading journal and text.     

个人关系，联盟制度化程度与战略联盟控制——针对中国企业联盟实践的分析

有效的联盟控制是实现战略联盟潜在优势的重要保证.文章针对中国企业间战略联盟中的控制方式选择与应用展开分析.基于社会交易理论和制度理论,提出中国企业间联盟中个人层次的关系与联盟层次上的制度化程度是决定中国企业间战略联盟控制方式的重要因素;同时个人关系和联盟制度化对控制方式的影响在联盟不同阶段存在显著差异.通过对365个中国企业联盟进行调研所获得的数据进行统计分析,验证了相关假说.最后对研究的理论和实践意义进行讨论.     

Business planning: The gap between theory and practice

The author maintains that the gap between the theory and the practice of corporate planning is growing. He examines the planning systems currently used and concludes that corporate planning as advocated by the theorists is not being practised in any developed form by large corporations.     

The physicians practice profile: a piece of the quality puzzle

In responding to a New York State law and regulations that essentially mandated high quality and required hospitals to implement a system of physician practice profiles, Genesee Memorial Hospital involved the medical staff at all stages and made heavy use of computers for the ultimate system. The result is a profile system with the backing of physicians and with easy access to maximum amounts of information. Still, the author asserts, such profiles are at best an imperfect response to issues of quality.     

The innovation dynamics and technology cycles in the computer industry

This paper presents certain novel composite measures of technology. There are several important uses of the proposed measures in R & D management: to gauge the rate of innovation within any given field, to determine the relative contribution of chosen variables to technical progress, to isolate critical factors in the innovative activity, and to predict whether a technology is ahead or behind its time. This is illustrated here by means of a case study of technical progress in the computer industry. The theoretical framework of the case study is based on the earlier works of the author pointing to the existence of what may be called technology cycles that transcend both product life cycle and organization product cycle and have the same significance to innovative activity as have business cycles to economic activity. The results of our investigation reveal a ‘butterfly pattern’ of interaction between product and process innovations: The loss in the relevance of process innovations is almost exactly compensated by the gain in the relevance of product innovations to technical progress over the course of time. The results also indicate that although the pace of technical progress in the computer industry has been exceptionally rapid in the past, it shows signs of slowing down in the future. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Breadth versus Depth: The Timing of Specialization in Higher Education

This paper examines the trade‐off between early and late specialization in the context of higher education. I develop a model in which individuals accumulate field‐specific skills and receive noisy signals of match quality across different fields of study. I derive comparative static predictions between educational regimes with early and late specialization, and examine these predictions across British systems of higher education. Using survey data on 1980 university graduates, I find that individuals who switch to unrelated occupations have lower initial earnings, and that early specialization in England is associated with more costly switches. But higher wage growth among those who switch eliminates the wage difference after several years, and average earnings are not significantly different between England and Scotland.     

The role of materiality: Knowing through objects in work practice

Based on the perspective of knowing in practice, this paper investigates the everyday work of engineers in a semiconductor plant. Qualitative data analysis is used to examine the active role of objects and how engineers rely on them to perform troubleshooting in the manufacturing processes. Three active roles emerged from the analysis: (a) objects activating interpretations, (b) objects stimulating collaborative practices, and (c) objects sparking experimental activities. Based on these three findings, we propose that objects have three triggering roles. First, objects trigger meaning-making. The meaning-making process provides a condition for better understanding the situation, making inferences, and developing possible diagnostic logics. Second, objects trigger spontaneous relationships. This role promotes social interaction, encourages members to cooperate, and to negotiate in the organization. Third, objects trigger real-time exploratory actions. These triggering roles of objects enable prioritization and execution of troubleshooting practice, based on the available information, actionable knowledge, and the situation at hand. Finally, these findings have important theoretical implications and indicate interesting future research directions related to the active role of objects in work practice.