Re‐storying the Business,Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Concepts: The Model‐Narrative Review Method

We propose a novel literature review method in order to systematically trace and reveal the dominant narratives of a body of literature: the model‐narrative review method. We apply this method to an ever‐growing literature on ecosystems in business studies, as it resembles a rich knowledge base with somewhat competing, overarching stories, replete with emplotted characters, systematic puzzles and embellished scientific drama. To interpret these unfolding storylines, we both separately engage with and connect seminal work on business, entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems. Through thematic reading we map the key themes and scientific puzzles in each ecosystem type. Through enstoried reading we identify how authors construct the plot, narrative setting, emplotted characters, narrative voices and moral lessons around ecosystems. Through rhetorical reading we explicate the rhetorical devices and strategies that claim the relevance of their work. Our findings expose a number of hidden meanings and underlying assumptions, adding transparency to ecosystem rhetorics and enhancing conceptual clarity. Altogether, this method offers a systematic construction of model‐narratives to synthesize and critically reflect upon similarities and differences between related concepts and opens up space for alternative research questions.     

BANALITY FOR CULTURAL STUDIES

In her 1990 essay, ‘Banality in Cultural Studies,’ Meaghan Morris raises very serious concerns about the relatively unexamined role that banality plays in cultural studies' work. Taking up her challenge, this essay endeavors to unlock some of the ways that banality might be, as Morris suggests, ‘empowering’ and ‘enabling’ for cultural studies and, thus, not merely banality as something that is left behind after it has been exorcised or redeemed in the movements of cultural analysis itself. Beginning with a few of Morris' own critical coordinates (such as Michel de Certeau and Maurice Blanchot), this essay, then, looks to how banality enters into the triadic philosophical conceptualizations of Henri Lefebvre on ‘everyday life’ particularly through his concept of ‘everydayness’. Most of all, this essay investigates the ways that this often-undertheorized concept from Lefebvre might be brought to ‘life’ (in the widest sense imaginable) in the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari on ‘the virtual.’ The virtual is, in one sense, a means of grasping what lies beyond the realm of cognition a more diffuse view of the real that would include the incorporeal, the inorganic, and all points in-between (including a more broadly drawn version of consciousness). It will be argued that, through ‘the virtual,’ everyday life becomes available to cultural studies' accounts as a radically ‘open totality’ or Outside and, as such, the movements, as well as the politics, of critique take on a different sort of tone and trajectory.     

Optimal Abort Rules for Multiattempt Missions

Many real‐world systems use mission aborts to enhance their survivability. Specifically, a mission can be aborted when a certain malfunction condition is met and a risk of a system loss in the case of a mission continuation becomes too high. Usually, the rescue or recovery procedure is initiated upon the mission abort. Previous works have discussed a setting when only one attempt to complete a mission is allowed and this attempt can be aborted. However, missions with a possibility of multiple attempts can occur in different real‐world settings when accomplishing a mission is really important and the cost‐related and the time‐wise restrictions for this are not very severe. The probabilistic model for the multiattempt case is suggested and the tradeoff between the overall mission success probability (MSP) and a system loss probability is discussed. The corresponding optimization problems are formulated. For the considered illustrative example, a detailed sensitivity analysis is performed that shows specifically that even when the system's survival is not so important, mission aborting can be used to maximize the multiattempt MSP.     

Resource Distribution in Multiple Attacks Against a Single Target

A target is protected by the defender and attacked by an attacker launching sequential attacks. For each attack, a contest intensity measures whether the agents’ efforts have low or high impact on the target vulnerability (low vs. high contest intensity). Both the defender and the attacker have limited resources. It is assumed that the attacker can observe the outcome of each attack and stop the sequence of attacks when the target is destroyed. Two attacker objectives are considered, that is, to maximize the target vulnerability or to minimize the expected attacker resource expenditure. The article addresses the following three questions: whether the attacker should allocate its entire resource into one large attack or distribute it among several attacks; whether geometrically increasing or decreasing resource distribution into a fixed number of sequential attacks is more beneficial than equal resource distribution; and how the optimal attack strategy depends on the contest intensity.     

Retrospective Change Point Detection: From Parametric to Distribution Free Policies

The literature displays change point detection problems in the context of one of the key issues that belong to testing statistical hypotheses. The main focus in this article is to review recent retrospective change point policies and propose new relevant procedures. Commonly, applied quality control purposes have declared statements of the change point problems. Various biostatistical and engineering applications cause consideration of an extended form of the change point problem. In this article, we consider parametric and distribution free generalized change point detection policies, attending to different contexts of optimality and robustness of the procedures. We conducted a broad Monte Carlo study to compare various parametric and nonparametric tests, also investigating a sensitivity of the change point detection policies with respect to assumptions required for correct executions of the procedures. An example based on real biomarker measurements is provided to judge our conclusions.     

E-journal Management Systems

Abstract

Electronic journals are being added to library collections at exponential rates. Recent developments in e-journal management systems offer libraries a variety of solutions for enhancing the visibility and flexibility of their electronic journals. This article examines and compares Serials Solutions, JournalWebCite, TDNet, and Serials Cybrarian, four current e-journal management programs that create and integrate multiple lists of journal titles, regardless of format, into a single list. These systems can reduce or even eliminate common serials control problems for librarians. Readers will gain insights that will enable them to better understand and consider the value of an e-journal management system. Serials Review 2002; 28:176–194.