Planning and management by objectives

The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the relationship between management by objectives and planning. Specifically, 294 managers in banking and manufacturing were studied. The results of that study are presented in this article.     

HOW MANAGEMENT USERS VIEW INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The literature of management information systems suggests that substantial discord exists between management users and systems personnel. This paper describes the current attitudes of managers toward information systems and computers as reflected in seventy-five carefully structured interviews with managers from ten major companies. The author concludes that management user attitudes are quite favorable and do not reflect the predicted discord. In fact, the author believes that one of the major systems implementation problems of the future may be apathy rather than antipathy. The data collection was structured to indicate differences in attitudes on the part of users based on organizational level, functional area of work, type of activity, and type of environment.     

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN TERMS OF DECISION THEORY1

The paper presents an extension of decision theory to the analysis of social power. The power of a person, A, over another person, B, is viewed in terms of the effect A has on B's decision. The analysis is based on the idea that B's decision regarding the performance of alternative behaviors is a function of 1) B's utility for the consequences of the behaviors and 2) B's subjective probabilities that the behaviors will lead to these consequences. In these terms, A's power over B lies in A's ability to mediate various consequences for B, contingent upon B's compliance or noncompliance. Subjects were asked to consider eight situations in which hypothetical individuals had to make a choice between two courses of action. In each situation another person (A) was attempting to induce the hypothetical individual (B) to choose one of the alternatives, while various situational factors were influencing B to choose the other alternative. The subjects were asked to consider B's utilities and subjective probabilities in each situation and to indicate whether or not B should comply with A and to make ratings of A's power. The decision theory analysis did well in predicting whether or not subjects would indicate that B should comply with A. Also, subjects generally were able to correctly specify whether A or the situational factors had more influence over B's decision. Finally, the subjects' ratings of A's power in the eight situations were highly related to the decision theoretic measure of power.     

离村与不离村:发现与思考

社会人口流动和城市化在中国和全球范围内不断地加强,这些都为中国大多数的农村青年提供了机遇.同时,大量的人口仍然留守农村,无论流动人口输出地有多么偏僻,它们仍继续与日新月异的城市密不可分.正因为如此,农村居民对城市和国家的发展与未来发挥着同等重要的内在作用.