A Risk Assessment Method for Biological Introductions

This article describes an application of a method for assessing risks associated with the introduction of an organism into a new environment. The test organism was a binucleate Rhizoctonia fungal isolate that has potential for commercial development as a biological control agent for damping-off diseases in bedding plants. A test sample of host plant species was selected using the centrifugal phylogenetic host range principles, but with an emphasis on economic species. The effect of the fungus on the plant was measured for each species and expressed on a logarithmic scale. The effects on weights of shoots and roots per container were not normally distributed, nor were the effects on the number of plants standing (those which survived). Statements about the effect on the number standing and the shoot weight per container involved using the observed (empirical) distribution. This is illustrated with an example. Problems were encountered in defining the population of species at risk, and in deciding how this population should be formally sampled. The limitations of the method are discussed.     

A Comparison of Ethical Practices of Russian and American Managers

This study examines perception of various business practices of Russian and American managers. Using data collected from 136 Russian managers and 252 American managers we found that cross-national differences account for many differences between perceptions of business practices. Implications for managerial practice are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The value circle. A profile of J. Richard Gaintner, MD.

This article describes how the arrival of CEO J. Richard Gaintner, MD, at Shands HealthCare signaled a time for refocusing the organization's direction and helping physicians to cope with the changes buffeting the industry. He saw angst and disenfranchisement, sentiments that characterized not only Shands and the University of Florida Health Science Center, but also the entire establishment of American scientific medicine. Gaintner believes--and continually preaches--that practicing medicine in a cost-effective manner will improve, not harm, the quality of care. His willingness to face reality objectively is perhaps his greatest asset in helping physicians deal with managed care. He conveys heartfelt empathy with the day-to-day conflicts they face. But he does not allow himself the temporary luxury of cynicism, and he refuses to accept negativity and pessimism in others. Rather, he asks that physicians and managers understand the system and develop the capacity to work within it and take responsibility for improving it. Beyond exhorting physicians to be accountable for the success of the enterprise, Gaintner creates mechanisms for meaningful physician participation in enterprise management.     

The coming medical apocalypse.

Is there a medical apocalypse in our future? Will it happen soon? No one can say for sure, but five ominous trends suggest that a medical meltdown could occur at any time. These trends are: (1) The practice of providing medical care becoming too complex from both a business and a legal perspective; (2) Less money being spent on medical care without any corresponding reduction in services provided, creating long-term operating deficits; (3) Investor-owned, for-profit corporations changing the focus of medicine by putting shareholder concerns ahead of patient care; (4) Employment-linked health care insurance creating a growing uninsured population, adding extra financial stress to our hospitals; and, (5) Providers losing faith in their future and becoming increasingly demoralized about practicing the healing arts. These dangerous trends are considered, along with some suggestions that physician executives and organizations might take to protect themselves.     

Attracting qualified physicians to underserved areas. Part 2. Pay physicians more to practice in underserved areas.

With health networks searching for additional market share and with a projected 30.2 million to be enrolled in Medicaid HMOs by 2000, more health executives will be weighing various strategies of how to attract qualified physicians to practice in poor inner-city and rural areas. Most frequently cited as solutions are supplying more physicians, encouraging more medical school graduates to pursue primary care residencies, and modifying the number of international medical graduates entering U.S. residency programs. Part I of this article, which appeared in the November/December issue of The Physician Executive, reviewed the efficacy of these approaches. The second part explores a more pragmatic option: to simply improve the working conditions and pay substantially more to physicians who practice in "less desirable" locations. Although this idea is consistent with economic principles, drawbacks must be considered, such as: (1) the American taxpayers' reluctance to finance a more costly health care delivery system for the poor; (2) the inherent conceptual difficulties of a capitated Medicaid HMO serving as the linchpin for organizing, financing, and delivering care for the underserved; and, (3) many providers being expected to react in a fairly litigious manner to such an approach.     

Putting consumer behaviour in its place: the Behavioural Perspective Model research programme

Consumer research remains overwhelmingly cognitive in orientation, partly because its apparent underlying philosophical stance usually goes unremarked and unchallenged. In so far as scientific progress relies on the interaction of competing theories, consumer research is impoverished by too great a reliance on a single approach to theory. This paper proposes an alternative to the prevailing 'intentional stance' on which consumer research predominantly rests; the 'contextual stance' eschews the intentionality of the cognitive explanations of consumer choice, substituting for it an account of behaviour determined by its environmental consequences. As a prelude to the interactive debate that these competing stances will hopefully engender, the paper demonstrates that the contextual stance is a viable strategy for consumer research. The contextual strategy leads to an alternative model of consumer choice to those based on social cognitive psychology. It is argued that this model of consumer choice in behavioural perspective provides a thoroughgoing conceptual reinterpretation of consumer behaviour and marketing management as currently envisaged.     

Quality costing: a management review

This paper relates a review of the English language literature on quality costing and traces its historical development; it provides authoritative reading on the subject. The review also has a focus on collection and use of quality-costing methods, quantitative cost data and the role and views of accountants in the task of quality-cost collection and reporting. Amongst the main findings is the preoccupation with the prevention – appraisal – failure categorization of quality costs and lack of guidance on definitions. The considerable impact of the American quality profession on the development of quality costing is pointed out along with the increasingly positive stance of accountants.     

Aggregation and Market Demand: An Exterior Differential Calculus Viewpoint

We analyze under which conditions a given vector field can be disaggregated as a linear combination of gradients. This problem is typical of aggregation theory, as illustrated by the literature on the characterization of aggregate market demand and excess demand. We argue that exterior differential calculus provides very useful tools to address these problems. In particular, we show, using these techniques, that any analytic mapping in Rⁿ satisfying Walras Law can be locally decomposed as the sum of n individual, utility-maximizing market demand functions. In addition, we show that the result holds for arbitrary (price-dependent) income distributions, and that the decomposition can be chosen such that it varies continuously with the mapping. Finally, when income distribution can be freely chosen, then decomposition requires only n/2 agents.     

On the Measurements of Board Composition: Poor Consistency and a Serious Mismatch of Theory and Operationalization

Over two dozen operationalizations of board composition can be identified from the empirical literature. A structural equations confirmatory factor analysis (LISREL 8.03) suggests that these operationalizations do not constitute a single construct of board independence. Instead, analyses strongly indicate three separate constructs. Common operationalizations of board composition, then, are neither tenable surrogates for one another nor are they interchangeable. Implications for empirical aggregation of studies, theory/measurement convergence, and the current corporate governance public policy debate are discussed.