OPTIMIZING ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS IN ASSIGNING FACULTY TEACHING SCHEDULES

The administration of higher education, as with other administrative environments, has become increasingly complex. This paper presents a mathematical model which addresses one of the administrative tasks concerning administrators in all institutions, the establishment of faculty teaching schedules. The assignment technique utilized by the model is linear programming with two special characteristics: goal programming and mixed-integer programming. The goal programming characteristic refers to the provision of explicit stack variables to take on values representing deviations from assignment criteria that may result in resolving conflicts which arise from interactive administrative priorities. The mixed-integer programming characteristic refers to a requirement of the model that certain variables take on only integer values if they appear in the final solution. The model is demonstrated using two different sets of preference orderings for goal achievement.     

The Cost of Compensating Asbestos Victims Under the Occupational Disease Compensation Act of 1983

The potentially huge financial liability due to asbestos product suits and the resulting filings for reorganization in bankruptcy by Manville, UNR Industries, Inc., and Amatex, has become a major public policy concern. In response to the problem several bills have been introduced in the Congress to provide compensation for asbestos (and other occupational disease) victims. This paper estimates the cost of compensating asbestos victims under the provisions of the "Occupational Disease Compensation Act of 1983," introduced by Congressman George Miller. Utilizing fatality projections from studies by Enterline, Selikoff, and Walker, and assumptions regarding likely claims filing and success rates, duration and degree of disability, and medical expenses, first year costs for this legislation are estimated to range from a low of $131 million to a high of $ billion. Present value cost estimates at a 2% real discount rate range from $3 billion to $56 billion. The paper also estimates the impact of possible modifications to the compensation provisions of the legislation. Reducing medical payments by the amount received from medicare would lower costs by 3-4%. Providing survivors with a 3-year lump sum benefit rather than a 5-year lump sum payment would save 20-25% as would offsetting the 5-year lump sum by expected social security old age and disability benefits. Combining all of these changes would reduce costs by almost 50%.     

A KNOWLEDGE-BASED DSS FOR MANAGERIAL PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS

A knowledge-based system supporting managerial problem diagnosis is described. The system provides the capability to monitor values of selected variables for problem situations. When problems are located, a list of problem symptoms is delivered to a problem processor for structuring and diagnosis. Problem structuring is based on a combination of concepts from expert systems and structural modeling. User assertions about cause-effect relationships between pairs of variables are maintained in a semantic network. Problem diagnosis uses the relationships in the semantic network to construct causation trees, the branches of which represent potential explanations of the problem symptoms. Mathematical models are constructed based on causation-tree branches, and values from the data base are used to test whether the model confirms the diagnosis. If so, the source of the problem has been located and it is then up to the user to resolve the problem. If the model fails to explain the problem, the model apparently is deficient and the user may perform “what if…” type scenarios in attempts to improve the model and search for problem causes. Realistic applications in the accounting and health care areas are discussed.     

New technology and the value-based management of transformational leadership

New technology is calling on people to provide adaptive responses in situations where there are many exceptions or where a high degree of variability exists or where people provide linkages between programmable segments. Further, groups of people who are geographically dispersed and unacquainted with each other will work together to solve business problems or define a process and will then disband when the job is done. Thus, the general model of responsible autonomous job behavior becomes the key facet of individual-organization-technological relationships. It is suggested that this model is best activated by the empowerment of people through the value-based management of transformational leadership.     

Network Evening News Coverage of Environmental Risk

ABC, CBS, and NBC's carefully crafted and expensively produced evening news broadcasts devoted 1.7% of their air time to 564 stories about man-made environmental risks during the period from January 1984 to February 1986. Little relationship was found between amount of coverage and public health risk. Instead, the networks appeared to be using traditional journalistic determinants of news (timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, and human interest) plus the broadcast criterion of visual impact to determine the degree of coverage of risk issues. Government, industry, and citizens accounted for two-thirds of the sources cited by the networks. Experts and spokespersons for environmental advocacy groups were sparsely used as sources. Given the media's need for news pegs, acute and chronic risk stories were covered differently. Acute risk stories were reported in a clearly defined cycle, peaking on the second day with on-the-scene reports and film-clips of devastation. In keeping with a decrease in visual drama, later reports were shorter and emphasized legal and political considerations. Chronic risk coverage followed the release of new scientific, legal, or political information.     

Venture management—success or failure?

The considerable amount of published literature on venture management is reviewed in an attempt to see how successful this technique is in promoting new products. It was found that earlier articles were optimistic but later articles were more realistic with several describing failed projects.

An attempt is made to relate this with the published literature on the failure of traditional Research and Development but little published evidence is available. The role of New Towns in innovation is briefly mentioned. Finally the reasons for failure are identified and guidelines are established as a means of making venture groups more successful.     

Why Study Risk Perception?

Studies of risk perception examine the opinions people express when they are asked, in various ways, to characterize and evaluate hazardous activities and technologies. This research aims to aid risk analysis and societal decision making by (i) improving methods for eliciting opinions about risk, (ii) providing a basis for understanding and anticipating public responses to hazards, and (iii) improving the communication of risk information among laypeople, technical experts, and policy makers.     

Organizing the corporate planning function

A survey of corporate Planning in Britain suggests that the way the process is organized varies with the need of the firm. There appear to be two types of needs which foster the development of the planning activity—strategy development and co-ordination. In capital intensive companies, threatened by technological or market change, there is a need for reappraisal of the firm's overall strategy. On the other hand, in a large diversified firm the requirement may be to co-ordinate the plans of different divisions and departments, particularly investment proposals. This article suggests a framework for the analysis of these planning needs.     

New venture development at Du Pont

New Products are the life blood of a growing company, but traditional methods of introducing new products are no longer adequate. Du Pont is using a new approach called Venture Management. A New Venture Development provides an ideal environment for making and carrying out decisions involved in introducing new technological developments. It combines the advantages in mobility and communications enjoyed by a small venture-orientated company with the strong technical and financial advantages of a large company.