Maternity Management in SMEs: A Transdisciplinary Review and Research Agenda

This paper provides a transdisciplinary critical review of the literature on maternity management in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), embedded within the wider literatures on maternity in the workplace. The key objectives are to describe what is known about the relations that shape maternity management in smaller workplaces and to identify research directions to enhance this knowledge. The review is guided by theory of organizational gendering and small business management, conceptualizing adaptions to maternity as a process of mutual adjustment and dynamic capability within smaller firms’ informally negotiated order, resource endowments and wider labour and product/service markets. A context‐sensitive lens is also applied. The review highlights the complex range of processes involved in SME maternity management and identifies major research gaps in relation to pregnancy, maternity leave and the return to work (family‐friendly working and breastfeeding) in these contexts. This blind spot is surprising, as SMEs employ the majority of women worldwide. A detailed agenda for future research is outlined, building on the gaps identified by the review and founded on renewed theoretical direction.     

Mechanisms for Managing Ambidexterity: A Review and Research Agenda

Ambidexterity is of central importance to the competitive advantage of the firm, yet to date there is limited understanding of how it is managed. The theorization of ambidexterity is inadequate for complex, practical realities and, in turn, this hinders the way in which it can aid the management of ambidexterity in practice. This paper asks: What are the mechanisms for achieving ambidexterity? The authors use a systematic review to develop a research framework which integrates intellectual capital resources (organizational, social and human capital) across various levels of analysis (organization, group and individual). This review extends understanding of the generic mechanisms (i.e. temporal, structural and contextual ambidexterity) that dominate the literature. This allows for a more fine‐grained understanding of how ambidexterity is achieved and enables avenues for further research to be identified.     

A Comprehensive Model for Managing Credit Risk on Home Mortgage Portfolios*

Managing credit risk in financial institutions requires the ability to forecast aggregate losses on existing loans, predict the length of time that loans will be on the books before prepayment or default, analyze the expected performance of particular segments in the existing portfolio, and project payment patterns of new loans. Described in this paper are tools created for these functions in a large California financial institution. A forecasting model with Markovian structure and nonstationary transition probabilities is used to model the life of a mortgage. Logistic and regression models are used to estimate severity of losses. These models are integrated into a system that allows analysts and managers to depict the expected performance of individual loans and portfolio segments under different economic scenarios. With this information, analysts and managers can establish appropriate loss reserves, suggest pricing differentials to compensate for risk, and make strategic lending decisions.     

Managing the Risk of Global Climate Catastrophe: An Uncertainty Analysis

Despite much scientific progress over many decades, the nature of global climate change remains highly uncertain, and the possibility of global climate catastrophe is one of the main concerns in public debates about global climate change. In this paper, we present a model which incorporates the risk of climate catastrophe in an analysis of greenhouse gas abatement strategy. In this model, the timing and severity of climate catastrophe are treated probabilistically. The impacts of key uncertainties on optimal policy are analyzed, and the expected values of additional information that reduces the uncertainty associated with the world economy, carbon cycle, climate change, and climate damage are estimated.     

领导与管理关系辨析

领导与管理是组织中最为常见的活动,也是领导学与管理学研究的核心范畴,学者们在不同的历史时期对二者的内涵进行了界定,从不同的角度提出了各自的观点.正是由于在概念界定上的多样性,人们对领导与管理间关系的认识存在差异,从而形成了不同的理论观点.     

Managing multi-organization projects: A people perspective

Recent reports of management practices in multi-organization settings as well as advances in interorganizational theories possess implications for enhancing the effectiveness of technical personnel in multi-organization projects. These reports focus on what makes a project a success or on what makes an innovation a success. Factors include the characteristics and roles of key supporters and of those who link together the participating organizations. Much less emphasis is given to how these factors relate to an ongoing project and, in particular, how they impact upon the performance of individual engineers. This paper examines the reported success factors from a systems viewpoint and discusses the relationships between these factors and individual technical personnel performance in a multi-organization project setting.     

Managing Potential Health Risks from Electric Powerlines: A Decision Analysis Caught in Controversy

Over the past 20 years, several epidemiological studies have found an association between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and health effects, including childhood leukemia and adult brain cancer. However, experts strongly disagree about whether this association is causal and, if so, how strong it is. In this article, we examine several alternatives to reduce EMFs from sources of the California power grid, including undergrounding distribution and transmission lines and reconfiguring or rephasing lines. The alternatives were evaluated in terms of the potential health risk reduction, cost, impacts on service reliability, property values, and many other consequences. Because of the uncertainty about an EMF-health link, the main effort was to determine the sensitivity of the decisions to the probability and seriousness of an EMF hazard. User-friendly computer models were developed to allow stakeholders to change the model assumptions and parameters to analyze the impacts of their own assumptions and estimates on the decision. The analysis clearly demonstrated that only four of the many concerns raised by the stakeholders could make a difference in the decision: health risks, costs, service reliability, and property values. Whether undergrounding, moderate alternatives for EMF reduction, or no change was the best decision depended on a few key factors, including the probability that EMF exposure is a hazard, the severity of this hazard, how the EMF reduction measures are financed, and the impacts on property values. While the analysis did not resolve the EMF issues, it showed that even in the most controversial settings, a little analysis goes a long way to clarifying the issues and to focus the debate.     

Improving Food Safety in the Domestic Environment: The Need for a Transdisciplinary Approach

Microbial food safety has been the focus of research across various disciplines within the risk analysis community. Natural scientists involved in food microbiology and related disciplines work on the identification of health hazards, and the detection of pathogenic microorganisms. To perform risk assessment, research activities are increasingly focused on the quantification of microbial contamination of food products at various stages in the food chain, and modeling the impact of this contamination on human health. Social scientists conduct research into how consumers perceive food risks, and how best to develop effective risk communication with consumers in order to improve public health through improved food handling practices. The two approaches converge at the end of the food chain, where the activities regarding food preparation and food consumption are considered. Both natural and social sciences may benefit from input and expertise from the perspective of the alternative discipline, although, to date, the integration of social and natural sciences has been somewhat limited. This article therefore explores the potential of a transdisciplinary approach to food risk analysis in terms of delivering additional improvements to public health. Developing knowledge arising from research in both the natural and social sciences, we present a novel framework involving the integration of the two approaches that might provide the most effective way to improve the consumer health associated with food-borne illness.     

Evolution of the Debate on Control Enhancing Mechanisms: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis

This paper aims to assess the state of the art, the structure and the evolution of the debate on control enhancing mechanisms (hereafter CEMs). It combines bibliometric and qualitative methodologies to analyze 210 articles published in scientific journals up to 2014. The findings show that the academics’ interest has increased over time, and the research has simultaneously developed along two main poles: antecedents and consequences of the proportionality principle. The analyses also reveal that the debate stems from the US studies on the legal principles of disproportionate ownership devices at the end of 19th century, and has been strongly fueled by the ‘law and finance’ theorists. This paper has both theoretical and practical implications. First, it provides insights into underexplored issues where future research efforts could be focused. Second, it supports new policy‐making interventions to CEMs and encourages investor regulation and corporate transparency.     

Managing testing activities in telecommunications: A case study

This paper examines ways of managing testing more efficiently and effectively. The importance and the workload of testing have been growing constantly in the telecommunication industry, as a result of shorter product lifecycles and decreased time-to-market. At the same time, the complexity of products has increased with a decrease in physical dimensions. Managers face enormous challenges in developing knowledge and effective testing processes. This case study proposes the application of two models, a testing optimization model and an extended V2M2 (Verification Validation Maturity Model) model, for managing the value of testing. In the empirical part of the study, the present state of testing management is examined.     

Multicriteria Decision Analysis: A Comprehensive Decision Approach for Management of Contaminated Sediments

Contaminated sediments and other sites present a difficult challenge for environmental decisionmakers. They are typically slow to recover or attenuate naturally, may involve multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups, and engender multiple toxicological and ecotoxicological risks. While environmental decision-making strategies over the last several decades have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complex approaches, there remains considerable dissatisfaction among business, industry, and the public with existing management strategies. Consequently, contaminated sediments and materials are the subject of intense technology development, such as beneficial reuse or in situ treatment. However, current decision analysis approaches, such as comparative risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and life cycle assessment, do not offer a comprehensive approach for incorporating the varied types of information and multiple stakeholder and public views that must typically be brought to bear when new technologies are under consideration. Alternatively, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers a scientifically sound decision framework for management of contaminated materials or sites where stakeholder participation is of crucial concern and criteria such as economics, environmental impacts, safety, and risk cannot be easily condensed into simple monetary expressions. This article brings together a multidisciplinary review of existing decision-making approaches at regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe and synthesizes state-of-the-art research in MCDA methods applicable to the assessment of contaminated sediment management technologies. Additionally, it tests an MCDA approach for coupling expert judgment and stakeholder values in a hypothetical contaminated sediments management case study wherein MCDA is used as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies.     

Knowledge and Identity: A Review

This paper reviews the literature in a number of areas that converge upon the theme of the role of knowledge within professional identity. Within knowledge transfer literature the individual perspective is underdeveloped, and this paper seeks to contribute by exploring the function of knowledge within an individual's professional identity, thus unfolding a theoretical connection between the literatures of knowledge and identity. Its central argument concurs with Szulanski's notion of ‘internal stickiness’ as a barrier to knowledge transfer but extends this hypothesis into the psychological ownership of knowledge and to the idea of ‘possessiveness’. The paper argues that the value of self‐categorized knowledge places the latter within the individual's cognitive structure of their identity. It offers up the idea of valued knowledge to the knowledge transfer domain and suggests that feelings of possessiveness towards knowledge may intervene in the willingness of an individual to disclose knowledge in a knowledge transfer process.     

Scenario Analysis for the Safety Assessment of Nuclear Waste Repositories: A Critical Review

A major challenge in scenario analysis for the safety assessment of nuclear waste repositories pertains to the comprehensiveness of the set of scenarios selected for assessing the safety of the repository. Motivated by this challenge, we discuss the aspects of scenario analysis relevant to comprehensiveness. Specifically, we note that (1) it is necessary to make it clear why scenarios usually focus on a restricted set of features, events, and processes; (2) there is not yet consensus on the interpretation of comprehensiveness for guiding the generation of scenarios; and (3) there is a need for sound approaches to the treatment of epistemic uncertainties.     

Managing Outsourced Software Projects: An Analysis of Project Performance and Customer Satisfaction

We examine the drivers of project performance and customer satisfaction in outsourced software projects using a proprietary panel dataset. The data cover 822 customer observations related to 182 unique projects executed by an India‐based software services vendor. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, we investigate how project planning, team stability, and communication effectiveness impact project performance and customer satisfaction. We delineate the direct and interactive influences of the antecedent variables. We also examine how these influences are moderated by two important project contexts: (a) the nature of software work (maintenance and development vs. testing projects) and (b) project maturity (new vs. mature projects). Among other results, we demonstrate that, when project planning capabilities are high, the positive impact of team stability and communication effectiveness on project performance is even higher. In addition, our results suggest that the impact of communication on project performance is muted when team stability is high. Finally, we also demonstrate that the impact of the antecedent variables on project performance varies with the nature of software work. Our findings offer specific and actionable insights to managers that can help them manage outsourced projects better, and open up new research perspectives in the context of outsourced project management.     

A Review of the High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository Siting Analysis

We critique two 1986 Department of Energy reports concerning the selection of sites for characterization as the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. We find that the multiattribute utility analysis of the five nominated sites was well done, although we express concern about the assessed probabilities, question the construction of two important attribute scales, and disagree with some of the value tradeoffs that were used. In contrast, we find the logic of the recommendations report to be weak and unconvincing.     

Conflict Management of Cooperative Organizations in Contemporary Iran: A Review Analysis

Emergence of conflicts-of-interests and of disputes in organizations, especially within and among work team systems, is inevitable. Cooperatives are self-governing organizations with democratic characters aimed at meeting the members’ needs and promoting social equity. Yet, internal organizational conflicts arise as conflicts-of-interests develop. Such conflicts can cause serious damages to the parties involved as well as harm the reputation of cooperatives as social and economic entities that tend to pursue social justice and fair distribution of income in society. This paper addresses conflict management in contemporary cooperative organizations. It is based on a preliminary research performed on factors causing conflicts in various types of cooperatives in Iran by analyzing 253 complaints made in 224 housing, consumer, transportation, producer procurement, and credit cooperatives within the central province of Tehran. It also offers some suggestions to improve conflict management within cooperative organizations.

项目管理知识体系的比较分析

本文从指导思想、结构和内容三个方面研究了对项目管理理论和实践产生重大影响的五个项目管理知识体系(PMBOK Guide、APMBOK、ICB、NCSPM、ISO 10006),分析了各知识体系的异同和优劣。本文还分析了出现这些差异的原因,指出项目管理知识体系的发展方向应该是建立一套自成体系、全球统一的理论框架及认证标准。