Assessing the contribution of R&;D to total factor productivity—a Bayesian approach to account for heterogeneity and heteroskedasticity

This paper proposes a hierarchical Bayes estimator for a panel data random coefficient model with heteroskedasticity to assess the contribution of R&D capital to total factor productivity. Based on Hall (1993) data for 323 US firms over 1976–1990, we find that there appear to have substantial unobserved heterogeneity and heteroskedasticity across firms and industries that support the use of our Bayes inference procedure. We find much higher returns to R&D capital and a more pronounced downswing for the 1981–1985 period, followed by a more pronounced upswing than those yielded by the conventional feasible generalized least squares estimators or other estimates. The estimated elasticities of R&D capital are 0.062 for 1976–1980, 0.036 for 1981–1985 and 0.081 for 1986–1990, while the estimated elasticities of ordinary capital are much more stable over these periods.     

Quantitative complexity analysis in multi-channel intracranial EEG recordings form epilepsy brains

Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized clinically by temporary but recurrent disturbances of brain function that may or may not be associated with destruction or loss of consciousness and abnormal behavior. Human brain is composed of more than 10 to the power 10 neurons, each of which receives electrical impulses known as action potentials from others neurons via synapses and sends electrical impulses via a sing output line to a similar (the axon) number of neurons. When neuronal networks are active, they produced a change in voltage potential, which can be captured by an electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG recordings represent the time series that match up to neurological activity as a function of time. By analyzing the EEG recordings, we sought to evaluate the degree of underlining dynamical complexity prior to progression of seizure onset. Through the utilization of the dynamical measurements, it is possible to classify the state of the brain according to the underlying dynamical properties of EEG recordings. The results from two patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), the degree of complexity start converging to lower value prior to the epileptic seizures was observed from epileptic regions as well as non-epileptic regions. The dynamical measurements appear to reflect the changes of EEG’s dynamical structure. We suggest that the nonlinear dynamical analysis can provide a useful information for detecting relative changes in brain dynamics, which cannot be detected by conventional linear analysis.     

The Dynamism of Organizational Practices: The Role of Employment Blueprints

This paper explores how founders’ blueprints affect the dynamism of organizational practices, and in particular the capability to sustain as well as change practices. First, a theoretical argument is developed on the critical role of founders’ blueprints of the employment model, which are difficult to alter and mark firms’ future paths by affecting the dynamism of organizational practices over an extended period of time. Subsequently, case studies of several organizational practices in three management consulting firms in the USA, the Netherlands and the UK illustrate how founders’ conceptions of the employment relationship (i.e. their employment model) affect the way in which competing demands of continuity and renewal are addressed. Moreover, engineering‐ or commitment‐oriented blueprints appear to facilitate the capability to adapt, while autocratic blueprints do not.     

Population-level adult mortality following the expansion of antiretroviral therapy in Rakai,Uganda

There are limited data on the impact of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on population-level adult mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. We analysed data for 2000–14 from the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) in Uganda, where free ART was scaled up after 2004. Using non-parametric and parametric (Weibull) survival analysis, we estimated trends in average person-years lived between exact ages 15 and 50, per capita life-years lost to HIV, and the mortality hazards of people living with HIV (PLHIV). Between 2000 and 2014, average adult life-years lived before age 50 increased significantly, from 26.4 to 33.5?years for all women and from 28.6 to 33.8?years for all men. As of 2014, life-years lost to HIV had declined significantly, to 1.3?years among women and 0.4?years among men. Following the roll-out of ART, mortality reductions among PLHIV were initially larger in women than men, but this is no longer the case.     

Developing a Human‐centred and Science‐based Approach to Design: The Knowledge Management Platform Project

The gap between theory and practice is a persistent problem in management and organization research. In this respect, several scholars have suggested that ‘design’ is an ideal‐typical form of mode 2 knowledge production. Design research develops knowledge in the service of action and problem solving in organizational settings. In this paper, we connect two perspectives on design that can be considered to be largely complementary but have hardly been combined and integrated in practice: science‐based design drawing on design propositions grounded in research and human‐centred design emphasizing an active and systematic participation by users and other stakeholders. An integrated approach that builds on both perspectives is developed and subsequently applied to designing and developing a portal for mapping competencies in an information technology cluster. This project involves creating problem awareness and articulating design propositions as well as developing scenarios of use, experimenting with prototypes, and organizational transformation. As such, this methodology addresses the dual challenge of rigour and relevance by producing both scientific and practical knowledge.     

Towards Common Ground and Trading Zones in Management Research and Practice

The purpose and nature of management scholarship is contested, evidenced by debates about the ‘academic–practitioner divide’ and attendant remedies for addressing it, including mode 2 and mode 3 research, engaged scholarship, evidence‐based management and design science. In this paper the authors argue that, without a culture of dialogical encounter, management scholarship will never be able to emerge from its adolescence, and management will not develop into the profession that it should and can become. The central proposition is that the highly fragmented landscape of management (practice and scholarship) lacks sufficient capability for dialogue among the plurality of actors situated across that landscape. Developing the dialogical capability ultimately required to break this fundamental impasse demands, first, a shared sense of purpose and responsibility (akin to the Hippocratic Oath in medicine) and, second, institutional entrepreneurship to establish more and better ‘trading zones’. Drawing on the philosophy of pragmatism, the authors further this endeavour by identifying and proposing key elements of a statement of shared purpose and responsibility. Finally, they explore the nature and characteristics of successful trading zones, highlighting particular examples that have already been created in management studies.     

Marital strategies for regulating exposure to HIV

In a setting where the transmission of HIV occurs primarily through heterosexual contact and where no cure or vaccine is available, behavioral change is imperative for containing the epidemic. Abstinence, faithfulness, and condom use most often receive attention in this regard. In contrast, this article treats marriage as a resource for HIV risk management via mechanisms of positive selection (partner choice) and negative selection (divorce of an adulterous spouse). Retrospective marriage histories and panel data provide the evidence for this study and results indicate that men and women in Malawi increasingly turned to union-based risk-avoidance strategies during the period that the threat of HIV/AIDS materialized. Although both sexes strategize in a similar fashion, men are better equipped than women to deploy these strategies to their advantage. The article concludes with reflections on the long-term and population-level implications of these coping mechanisms.