A strategic perspective for make or buy decisions

Make or buy decisions have typically been relegated to purchasing departments. While this is not totally unjustified, top management must consider the strategic implications. In essence, operative decisions are made here which influence the strategic thrust of the organization. Make or buy decisions have substantial strategic implications in the entire planning process. They can affect a firm's competitive advantage, and alter the types of alternatives considered in the planning process.

It is argued that strategic considerations should outweigh technical and conventional approaches to make or buy decisions. Top management needs to put these decisions back on their strategic agenda.     

Strategic benchmarking at ICI Fibres

Learning from comparison has two generic forms in business, at the strategic or business level, and at the level of individual processess. Most literature has discussed the ‘micro’ form—focused on specific practices or processes. The case of ICI Fibres shows that:

• 1.1. business performance benchmarks are just as measurable as those for processes,
• 2.2. there is a clear hierarchy of strategic/operating/ micro-process benchmarks which managers need to understand,
• 3.3. effective strategic management brings together benchmarks for business strengths and benchmarks for process capabilities,
• 4.4. you cannot benchmark your way to profit with the wrong strategy.

     

Modelling complex ethical decision problems with operations research

This paper discusses the practical contribution of operations research (OR) techniques to modelling decision-making problems with ethical dimensions. Such problems are frequent in the global world: they frequently appear today in sustainability issues, e.g., in conflicts in the triangle of society, economy and environment. We show that the prerequisites for ethical problem-modelling are: the definition of moral principles, the evaluation of the decision context, the participation of stakeholders, the multidisciplinary collection of data, and the understanding of systemic interconnections. Classical OR instruments, mainly used in logistics and optimisation problems, are not entirely satisfactory for coping with the new ethical dimensions of sustainability. It is recommended to use and to develop more advanced, or combined instruments from the multi-criteria/multi-stakeholder and systemic streams of OR. It is argued that an important added value of using OR techniques for modelling today ethical issues lies at least as much in the discovery of open questions as in finding closed-form solutions.     

Modelling decentralized decision making in the energy sector

Large linear programming models, which have been widely used to determine the optimal structure of national energy systems, are based on the assumption that there is an absolutely centralized decision making process within the energy system. In this paper an attempt is made to match the real decision structure of a given energy system, by decomposing an LP energy model into smaller models, with the corresponding system decision centres. This is done by applying the ‘transfer price’ algorithm of Dantzing and Wolfe. The ‘master’ problem corresponds to the central planning unit, i.e. a Ministry of Energy, whereas the subproblems correspond to peripheral operating units, i.e. enterprises, usually state owned, which produce and distribute the energy carriers. The optimal plans of the peripheral units are submitted to the central unit, which through the mechanism of pricing of both common resources, inputs and energy services outputs, co-ordinates the overall planning of the energy system. An illustrative example is given referring to the Hellenic national energy system. The research reported is placed within a wider research endeavour, whose objectives and main line of work are also given.     

Delegation can make (or break) your career

Delegation is not a soft skill. Physician executives who do not delegate well and strategically cannot expect to achieve the top jobs now or in the future. It's not enough to have great communications skills to convey your vision. You won't achieve that vision alone; you must have a great team to bring that vision to fruition. However, you can't delegate your first and most important step--self-assessment. To maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses, you'll need a clear view of what makes you tick. Then start thinking about your executive role in these terms: Conceptualize work mandates as projects; choose people who are better than you for your team; and try to work yourself out of a job. By learning to delegate, physician executives can make their own careers (as well as those on their team) richer and more fulfilled.     

Public sector managers: the decision to leave or remain in a job

The public sector faces a grave problem as far as managerial retention as the result of the increasing number of retirements and of voluntary resignations. Despite the vital interest in managerial turnover in the public sector, research is scarce. This study, which increases our understanding of why public sector managers leave their positions, takes a qualitative and narrative research approach in examining voluntary turnover. Interviews were conducted with operations managers (in education, social care, and technical activities) at three Swedish municipalities. We identify a multitude of environment push and pull factors with a focus on administrative support, supervisory support and illegitimate tasks. The narratives of managerial turnover reveal the complexity of the decision to leave or remain in a job, containing a mixture of push and pull factors, negative feelings, unmet expectations and extraordinary events. Three possible HRD actions to decrease undesirable managerial turnover are identified: re-work organizational structures; re-model job characteristics; and re-examine managerial turnover decisions as a long and complex process. Our hope is that the findings are used for ultimately create healthy organizations.     

Enhancing knowledge construction processes within multicriteria decision analysis: The Collaborative Value Modelling framework

This paper proposes a new Collaborative Value Modelling framework, that combines Delphi and multicriteria decision conferencing, to build widely informed evaluation models. Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is commonly used to help decision-makers and other stakeholders in complex evaluation contexts. Further to the technical soundness and meaningfulness of the methods and tools used, it is critical to design adequate social processes to promote shared understanding around key evaluation issues while capturing multiple stakeholders’ values and perspectives. Multicriteria decision conferencing processes have been typically adopted for collaborative modelling using MCDA methods in decision conferences with relatively small groups. Such a socio-technical approach has proven to be effective, in a variety of contexts, in creating a collaborative environment that enables surfacing individual beliefs, identifying common concerns, managing eventual value conflicts and promoting agreement in group model building. But, extending this framework to broader participatory contexts requires a different design of the social process, in order to ensure that model building captures the full panoply of points of view. This challenge can be tackled by enhancing multicriteria decision conferencing with an all-embracing (Web-)Delphi participatory process. We depart from the existing collaborative knowledge acquisition methodology to design, with the Delphi method, a participatory knowledge construction process that elicits and analyses individual judgemental knowledge from a (very) large and diverse number of stakeholders. The knowledge acquired is then digested by a small group of key-players, in a subsequent decision conferencing, to collaboratively develop a widely informed multicriteria evaluation model. This new Web-Delphi-decision conferencing social setting has been tested already in real complex evaluation contexts using a specific multicriteria method, the Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical Based Evaluation Technique (MACBETH), to develop a variety of value modelling activities. We call this socio-technical design the Collaborative Value Modelling framework. Here, we describe its real use to support the construction of value functions, focusing on how the judgemental knowledge collected flows between the participatory and collaborative stages of the framework. Results validate that enhancing MACBETH decision conferencing with an ex ante Web-Delphi process fosters higher participation and collaboration in multicriteria modelling.     

How to make the pitch for a part-time workload

Are you planning on moving from full-time to part-time hours? You'll need a game plan to negotiate what you want, including establishing a timeline and agreeing on productivity expectations. If you can agree on a reasonable timeframe that doesn't inconvenience anyone or endanger important results or relationships, you have a high probability of getting your boss' okay. If you and the boss can't agree on what you must produce, don't consider part-time work unless you thrive on combat. Once you negotiate your new schedule, consider the issue of managing co-worker resentment. Here are the best hints for keeping co-worker envy and resentment at a manageable level: Don't be secretive; keep a low profile; attend all office frolics; and ask for a trial period.     

Modelling Building Societies Takeovers a Non-Cooperative Game

Takeover and acquisition of corporations is awell-researched area and has been becomingincreasingly important. Much less research emphasishas been devoted to takeover activity within thegeneral area of financial services with thisparticularly the case for the building society sector.The building societies being mutual companies havespecial characteristics. The building societies andother financial mutuals like the corporations doencounter an acute agency problem. This opens up apotential application of Grossman and Hart theory oftakeovers bids as the individuals have option to freeride, securing knowledge that the regulatory processrenders their deposits de facto risk-free investment.This free-rider problem, like the corporations can beovercome by inducing hostile takeover.Some empirical studies of mergers activities withinthe building society sector have dealt with onlyintra-sectoral mergers. However, they have not lookedat inter-sectoral mergers and have not addressedefficiency issues in a general equilibrium frameworkusing game theory.In this paper I suggest a mechanism for merger at parwith sales of stocks of a corporation to organisebuilding societies' takeovers. I develop a two-stagegame between the members of building societies and theraider. Analysis of non-cooperative voting behaviourof members of Cheltenham and Gloucester buildingsociety shows that the actions of the members of thebuilding society may also give rise to less thanoptimal results as they may not be acting in their bestinterests. The members of the building society cangain if a hostile takeover is induced rather than afriendly takeover. The paper also examines the freerider problem and ex-ante efficiency in a generalequilibrium framework.     

Diffusing (let it happen) or disseminating (make it happen) innovations in health care

Management has different options for spreading new products. Our study empirically assessed the integral effects of both diffusion and dissemination on innovation adoption. Data on diffusion (as measured by social network density) and on dissemination (as measured by formulating objectives and executing focused activities) was gathered using a questionnaire given to 356 medical specialists, nested in 38 teams. We found both separate and integral effects for diffusion and dissemination. This shows the potential for both engaging the social network structures (diffusion) and adding process measures (dissemination) in order to optimize the innovation spreading process.     

A MADM justification of a budget reduction decision

In 1988, a significant budget reduction at the University of Wyoming left the Athletic Department nearly $700,000 short on operating funds compared to the previous biennium. In order to make the necessary monetary cuts, the Athletic Department eliminated the men's and women's varsity ski teams from University sponsorship, thus removing one of the most successful and popular programs from the athletic family. A protest of this action quickly spread throughout the state and the Athletic Department received harsh criticism. However, through the cardinal preference techniques of Multiple Attribute Decision Making, it was determined that the criticism of the Athletic Department for dropping the ski programs was unfounded. But in light of the politics of the situation, after several months of deliberation, the ski programs were eventually reinstated with a greatly reduced budget and the team committed to raise a certain percentage of their monetary requirements through their own fund raising efforts.     

The decision to add a second system producer

Typically in the United States only one contractor (the developer or first producer) makes a weapon system because it is too expensive or for some other reason infeasible to develop a second source. Congress and higher headquarters are constantly challenging the Armed Services to add other sources who can competitively make their systems. This paper describes a method of analyzing this complex problem which often has very large monetary and other significant impacts. Procedures and a case study are presented which consider cost and other criteria which might be used to make the second source decision.     

Leader decision speed as a signal of honesty

Decision speed is emerging as an important topic to organizations, yet its consequences for leaders have received little research attention. The present research builds on this notion by examining how the speed with which leaders come to decisions shapes observers' perceptions and behaviors. In three incentivized experiments, participants evaluated leaders who decided whether to include or exclude followers from participating in consequential decisions. Leaders were seen as more honest when they were fast (vs. slow) to include followers, but as less honest when they were fast (vs. slow) to exclude followers from decisions. These perceptions influenced several key outcomes: the willingness to reward leaders (Experiment 1) and the willingness to cooperate with leaders (Experiment 3). Consistent with a signaling perspective, these effects disappeared when observers learned that leaders were externally pressed to decide quickly or slowly (Experiment 2). The present research offers new insights into the cues that people use when judging leaders' decision-making processes, and the behavioral consequences of these judgments.     

Modelling end-of-life product recovery chains - a case study

European Union legislation, and existing national legislation of many European countries, mandates that manufacturers take back and recover their electronic and electrical equipment. If manufacturers are to comply with legislation, models need to be developed for these activities. Whilst infrastructural and technological deficits exist and must be addressed, so too must the organization of recovery, from a business perspective. In this paper, models of resource recovery are presented and a case study described.     

Modelling and analysis of a multi-stage order quantity model

A single-item, multi-stage serial order quantity MSOQ model with constant demand is discussed. An algorithm to determine the relationship between the lot sizes of the MSOQ model is also developed. Illustrative examples are presented.     

Inferring decision strategies from clickstreams in decision support systems: a new process-tracing approach using state machines

Webstores can easily gather large amounts of consumer data, including clicks on single elements of the user interface, navigation patterns, user profile data, and search texts. Such clickstream data are both interesting to merchandisers as well as to researchers in the field of decision-making behavior, because they describe consumer decision-behavior on websites. This paper introduces an approach that infers decision-behavior from clickstream data. The approach observes clicks on elements of a decision-support-system and triggers a set of state-machines for each click. Each state-machine represents a particular decision-strategy which a user can follow. The approach returns a set of decision strategies that best explain the observed click-behavior of a user. Results of two experiments show that the algorithm infers strategies accurately. In the first experiment, the approach correctly infers most of the pre-defined decision-strategies. The second study analyzes the behavior of thirty-eight respondents and finds that the inferred mix of decision-strategies fits well the behavior described in the literature to date. Results show that using decision-support-systems on a web site and observing the user’s click-behavior make it possible to infer a specific decision strategy. The proposed method is general enough to be easily applied to both research and real-world settings, along with other decision-support-systems and strategies.