Multi-goal optimization in managerial science

A number of modern economists have accepted alternatives to the basic hypothesis of neo-classical economics that the overriding objective of any firm is to maximize the owner's (shareholder's) welfare. However, with one or two outstanding exceptions, these alternatives have been ignored by managerial scientists, whose economics related models continue to be formulated in terms of the neo-classical hypothesis. This paper treats the implications of those alternatives which deny that corporate management is trying to optimize any single goal—let alone shareholder welfare. More specifically, this paper discusses management science models involving the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy several goals. The resulting multi-goal “optimization” problem is identified as a vector “maximization” problem and is formulated in terms of the efficient point concept.     

智能体建模和资本市场复杂性

以复杂适应系统的思想和智能体建模的方法研究资本市场复杂性是新兴的有价值的研究领域,阐述了资本市场作为复杂适应系统的动力机制,介绍了这一领域一个重要模型———少数派博弈(minority game,MG)模型.仿真发现,处于拥挤阶段的MG具有和实际市场相近的收益率分布.进一步扩展标准MG,提出了快速适应的少数派博弈模型,仿真结果显示,新的模型有着和真实市场相同的特征:收益率分布的尖峰和肥尾现象,揭示了资本市场复杂性的内部动力学机理.     

Perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness in a non-profit organization: an exploratory and cross-sector comparative study

This paper presents the results of an ‘HRD professional partnership’ study of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness carried out within a UK third sector (non-profit) organization. Using the critical incident technique, concrete examples [critical incidents (CIs) ] of observed effective and least effective/ineffective managerial behaviour were collected from a purposive sample of senior and middle-level managers of the collaborating registered charity. The CIs were content analysed to identify themes and analytical categories. Behavioural statements were then devised to reflect the constituent CIs of each category. The paper also reports the results of a subsequent cross-sector comparative analysis that explored the similarities and differences between the identified behavioural statements and the results of equivalent studies in the UK public and private sector organizations. The findings challenge the widely held image that managers need to adopt different managerial behaviours to be effective in non-profit organizations because of inherent differences between the sectors. How the resultshave been used by the collaborating organization is outlined. Finally, thelimitations, implications for practice and research recommendations are discussed.     

金融契约与管理者激励——实验的证据

在实验的框架下分析了3种金融契约的激励约束功能.首先,根据金融契约内涵的现金流和控制权两种权利属性及其体现方式将金融契约激励约束效应划分为两类:即通过现金流权利属性体现的显性激励约束效应和通过控制权属性体现的隐性激励约束效应,在此基础上构建模型并运用实验研究方法实证检验了3种典型金融契约的激励约束效应及其差异.研究结果表明:权益契约的显性激励约束效应显著高于债务契约;相反,债务契约下通过控制权转移产生的隐性激励约束效应则显著高于权益契约;而可转债契约,则既能引发很高的投资者监督显性激励,又能对经营者产生很强的隐性激励约束效应.     

Coaching at the heart of managerial effectiveness: A cross-cultural study of managerial behaviours

This article considers the assessed performances of non-commissioned officers in aprogramme perceived as an important career enhancing activity for British military personnel. We introduce the idea of cognitive style as an important individual difference affecting performance on programmes of training and development and the implications for career progression. The research methodology adopted involved mixed methods as an alternative way of ‘seeing’, ‘researching’ and ‘theorising’ human resources development in this context. The research drew upon a mix of data from course participants and organizers, and it comprised cognitive style testing, within course assessment data and notes recorded during field observation. The results revealed relationships between the factors associated with ‘styles’, ‘assessed learning performance’ and ‘course experience’. Key perspectives on the experiences of training in terms of success and strategic direction were also identified. The study provides a deeper understanding of career-development processes in the military organization, considers the implications in which knowledge of an individual's style may have for the individual and course organizers and imports new theoretical frameworks into the study of human resource development.     

Information processing in managerial decision making: A preliminary study

This paper reports the preliminary findings of an exploratory investigation into information processing in a managerial context. The vehicle for testing several research objectives was a laboratory decision-making experiment in which subjects purchased information items and evaluated a set of organizational goals. The methodology included multidimensional statistical methods that hold promise for dealing with the complexity of problems in implementing managerial decision models. Within a specific information-decision scenario, the statistical evidence favorably supports the existence of individual differences in information perception and information selection, and the use of goal preference hierarchies as predictors of information preferences.     

A riddle wrapped in an enigma: Demystifying Russian managerial motivation

Western business people are eager to penetrate the vast Russian market that has opened up following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism. Yet, many are discovering that their Russian contacts are like the ‘riddle wrapped in an enigma’ that Winston Churchill called Russia in decades past. Using a framework of five components of motivation, Sheila Puffer explains how Russian managers think and act in three time periods: the autocrat in pre-revolutionary tsarist times, comrade communist from the Russian revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the emergent entrepreneur in the fledgling market-oriented economy of the 1990s.     

Deducing a taxonomy of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness: a comparative study of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour across three EU countries

This qualitative multiple case derived etic study focuses on perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness. It explores what employees in various organizations, organizational sectors and culturally diverse nations perceive as effective and ineffective managerial behaviour. Empirical findings from six emic replication studies carried out previously within three European Union countries were subjected to cross-case, cross-sector, and cross-nation comparative analysis. High degrees of sameness and similarity were found. Further analysis led to the emergence of a behavioural taxonomy comprised of 10 positive (effective) and 9 negative (ineffective) behavioural criteria. We find that managers and non-managerial staff in British and Romanian public-sector hospitals, and in British and German private-sector companies, perceive effective and ineffective managerial behaviour in much the same way. Our findings challenge past literature which argues that managers need to adopt different managerial behaviours to be effective in different organizational sectors and countries.     

Innovation in family firms: an empirical analysis linking organizational and managerial innovation to corporate success

Family firms play a significant role in national economies worldwide, accounting e.g. for 85% of all enterprises in the OECD countries as well as for the majority of companies in Central Europe. Previous scholarly research on family firms has mostly focused on the question of how they differ from public corporations, describing family firms as being more conservative, less risk-raking, or reluctant to grow—in sum, as being less entrepreneurial than their non-family counterparts. Similarly, the existing literature often criticizes the lack of innovation in family firms. But since innovation has long been discovered as one of the key drivers to company success, it is surprising that its role in family firms has been mostly neglected in existing academic research so far. The aim of this article is therefore to study the role of (managerial and organizational) innovation in family firms compared to non-family firms on the basis of an empirical survey of 533 companies from Finland, using structural equation modelling (MPlus) for the statistical analyses.     

Building an organizational capability for radical innovation: The direct managerial role

Our research examines practices for managing project leaders as a component of an organization's capability for radical innovation. Our qualitative analysis of 246 interviews in twelve industry-leading corporations suggests that managers use performance-based assessment to select project leaders with demonstrated experience and skills for innovation, as well as passion that extends beyond a single project toward an awareness of its broader contribution to the organization's growth objectives. The managerial role includes concurrent hands-off/hands-on involvement, which balances autonomy and accountability with guidance. Additionally, downside/upside management involves removing the negative consequences associated with failure while providing recognition for the project leader's efforts.     

投资策略与投资收益:基于计算实验金融的研究

通过计算实验金融方法对不同策略投资者投资收益水平进行了考察,提出了一组Friedman假说不能成立的条件,即:在套利限制、噪音交易以及风险厌恶等因素的共同作用下,具有理性预期能力的套利者并不能获得较BSV投资者更高的资产期望收益水平或者更低的破产概率,故即使从长期来看,理性套利者也不能"消灭"BSV投资者,此时Friedman假说不能成立.     

The educational orientation of participants in postgraduate managerial study programmes in Poland

The health care industry in Taiwan has faced many challenges in recent years. To tackle those challenges, many hospitals in Taiwan began using management techniques used in other industries. As a result, quality management has become important within Taiwan's health care industry. This study provides a perspective on how this health care industry, by developing both quality control circle (QCC) practices and organizational learning techniques, responded to those challenges. In this study, the authors conducted a comprehensive review of studies published between 1995 and 2007 in Taiwan. The review focused on the quality management, QCC, organizational learning and health care organization aspects reported in previous studies. The authors applied the 4Is (intuiting, interpreting, integrating and institutionalizing) conceptual framework of Crossan et al. (1999 Crossan, M. M., Lane, H. W. and White, R. E. 1999. An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24(3): 522–537. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) (Crossan, M.M., H.W. Lane, and R.E. White. 1999 Crossan, M. M., Lane, H. W. and White, R. E. 1999. An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24(3): 522–537. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review 24, no. 3: 522–37). in their discussion of the linkage between quality improvement activities and organizational learning. The results revealed the existence of a link between organizational learning and QCC activities. In addition, the reviewed QCC activities facilitated organizational learning and contributed to health care quality improvements in the studied hospitals. Finally, QCC practices in hospitals facilitated dissemination of organizational learning concepts in those hospitals.     

Behavioural criteria of managerial and leadership effectiveness within Egyptian and British public sector hospitals: an empirical case study and multi-case/cross-nation comparative analysis

This paper reports the results of a study of managerial and leadership effectiveness carried out within an Egyptian public sector hospital in which concrete examples of ‘effective’ and ‘least effective/ineffective’ manager and managerial leader behaviour, as observed by superiors, peers and subordinates, were collected using the critical incident technique. These critical incidents were then content analyzed to identify a smaller number of discrete behavioural statements and criteria of effectiveness. The paper also reports the results of a subsequent comparative analysis of these Egyptian findings against equivalent behavioural criteria that emerged from studies in two different British NHS Trust hospitals. This latter multi-case/cross-nation study revealed high degrees of overlap, commonality, and relative generalization across all three organizations. The results lend strong empirical support to those who believe in ‘generic’ and ‘universalistic’ explanations of the nature of managerial and leadership effectiveness.     

Toward an emergent Asian behavioural model of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness: a cross-nation comparative analysis of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour of private sector managers in India and South Korea

ABSTRACT

This Type 4 (emic-and-etic) indigenous cross-case/cross-nation comparative study compares the results of two Type 3 (emic-as-emic) indigenous replication studies of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour carried out within private companies in India and South Korea respectively. The method used was ‘realist qualitative content analysis’ involving inductive open and axial coding. Of the Indian findings 100% were found to be convergent in meaning with 94.43% of the equivalent South Korean findings. This has led to the identification of a two-factor emergent Asian behavioural model of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness comprised of 16 positive (effective) and 6 negative (ineffective) generic behavioural criteria. These criteria could be used in both countries to critically review and improve extant, or develop new, competency-based management/leadership development programmes. The research findings lend no support to claims that national culture has a major impact on managerial and leadership practices, styles, and effectiveness.     

The science of leadership: A journey from survey research to field experimentation

This is a personal account of the stages through which my thinking and my research career unfolded, beginning with student socialization into questionnaire-based survey research, through originating implicit leadership theory, to initiating “respite research” to study the effects of stress on strain without causal ambiguity, and finally to my adoption of field experimentation as the most internally and externally valid research method. It was a journey of breaking free of popular survey research methods and embracing causally unambiguous experimentation. It struck home for many, inasmuch as almost all the articles that my students and colleagues and I submitted reporting randomized field experiments were accepted for publication in top-tier journals. I describe my transition from survey research to field experimentation as it unfolded, provide successive examples of field experiments, and press home the major lesson: field experiments are doable, replicatable, and causally unambiguous. Moreover, they provide actionable cause-and-effect results that can propel our science forward and put useful tools into the hands of practitioners.     

A survey of simulation modeling techniques in production planning and control (PPC)

The manufacturing sector as a whole has undergone remarkable changes in terms of scale, complexity and technology over the past decades and this applies across most modern high-technology manufacturing such as electronics, semiconductor, aerospace and automotive industries. In order to remain competitive, manufacturers have to produce high-quality products at low cost, and at the same time retain sufficient flexibility and to meet rapidly changing customer demands. Production planning and control (PPC) is a key role which enables the manufacturer to gain visibility and control over all aspects of manufacturing activities. PPC in itself forms a subject of study, within which simulation techniques have proven themselves to be one of the most practical methodologies available to investigate and evaluate manufacturing issues. In this review paper, we focus on state-of-the art applications of simulation techniques in PPC to demonstrate their applicability to modern manufacturing issues. The review reports on academic publications on simulation applications in manufacturing from 2002 to 2014, incorporating surveys of peer-reviewed literature. The review covers three types of simulation techniques (system dynamic, discrete event simulation and agent-based simulation) and eight PPC issues (facility resource planning, capacity planning, job planning, process planning, scheduling, inventory management, production and process design, purchase and supply management). Literature survey is analysed on the basis of simulation application to PPC problems which can give a guideline for simulation technique selection and also can help for simulation modelling in PPC problemsWould you consider changing the term “modeling” to “modelling” in the title. Please check, and correct if necessary.     

Removing the impact of environment with units-invariant efficient frontier analysis: An illustrative case study with intertemporal panel data

The four-stage methodology consists of a units-invariant efficient frontier analysis followed by Tobit regression, adjustment of data, and a repeat of the efficient frontier analysis. The outlined methodology is an improvement over existing similar approaches because the playing field can be levelled by adjusting data based on input as well as output slacks for managers who may have been advantaged or disadvantaged by their environments. The accompanying case study investigates the influence of the general level of interest rates on bank efficiency using intertemporal panel data spanning 8 years and two countries. Key findings support the assertion that changes in interest rates can distort measurement of bank efficiency.