Capturing the benefits of industry 4.0: a business network perspective

Abstract

This study uses a business network perspective to investigate the industry 4.0 context with the internet of things (IoT) as its enabling technology and product-use data as its core network resource. A three-stage qualitative methodology (interviews, focus group, Delphi-based inquiry) was used to examine the case of an emergent IoT-based business network in the UK road transport industry to examine: (i) how aspects of product use data influence the benefit opportunities the data provide to the different network actors; (ii) how capturing of the benefit opportunities in a network context is impacted by key barriers; and (iii) how network capabilities can overcome these barriers to capture benefits from product-use data. The study, thereby, contributes to an understanding of the industry 4.0 context from a resource dependency theory perspective and provides concrete recommendations for management operating in this context.     

The nearest neighbor Spearman footrule distance for bucket, interval, and partial orders

Comparing and ranking information is an important topic in social and information sciences, and in particular on the web. Its objective is to measure the difference of the preferences of voters on a set of candidates and to compute a consensus ranking. Commonly, each voter provides a total order of all candidates. Recently, this approach was generalized to bucket orders, which allow ties. In this work we further generalize and consider total, bucket, interval and partial orders. The disagreement between two orders is measured by the nearest neighbor Spearman footrule distance, which has not been studied so far. For two bucket orders and for a total and an interval order the nearest neighbor Spearman footrule distance is shown to be computable in linear time, whereas for a total and a partial order the computation is NP-hard, 4-approximable and fixed-parameter tractable. Moreover, in contrast to the well-known efficient solution of the rank aggregation problem for total orders, we prove the NP-completeness for bucket orders and establish a 4-approximation.     

Corporate prediction markets: a tool for predicting market shares

Prediction markets have been applied for various forecasting issues, such as political events or sports. The ability of these markets to collect distributed information in a fast and efficient way provides useful support for corporate planning. A crucial criterion for the quality of the information aggregation process is the liquidity of the market, especially in corporate prediction markets, which typically consist of fewer traders than public markets. The use of automated market makers is one option with which to ensure enough liquidity, but it is always related to some drawbacks. This paper investigates a field study of a corporate prediction market that replaces the automated market maker with human traders. We analyze the efficiency of such markets, the impact of the applied incentive system and the effects of human market makers.     

Der Coaching-Boom. Eine Printmedienanalyse

From its very beginning executive coaching has been suspected of being a consultancy fad. To meet with the fashion point there are three standpoints: (1) Executive coaching is a real competitive social innovation; (2) it is both, a fad and an instrument for coping with problems; (3) executive coaching is almost ignored as sheer fashion phenomenon. The article takes a fourth account by showing that the fashion verdict applies only for the booming coaching literature whose rate of expansion exceeds all rates of comparable issues like human resource development, leadership development, clinical supervision, and mentoring. In contrast in organizations executive coaching is of little importance. What is more, the discussion of coaching fails to keep up with recent organization science’s standard of knowledge.     

Effects of flat tax reforms in Western Europe

Recent success of the flat income tax in Eastern Europe raises questions about whether there is scope for such a policy reform in Western Europe as well. We address this by estimating the potential distributional impact of various flat taxes for selected Western European countries. Our simulations show that in specific circumstances a revenue neutral flat tax reform can increase income equality and improve work incentives; however, in most cases there is an equity-efficiency trade-off. We show that the specific flat tax design and the welfare state regime play a key role.     

Learning strategic environments: an experimental study of strategy formation and transfer

I present an experiment on learning about a game in an initially unknown environment. Subjects play repeatedly simple 2 × 2 normal-form coordination games. I compare behavioral learning algorithms for different feedback information. Minimal feedback only informs about own payoffs, while additional feedback informs about own payoffs and the opponent’s choice. Results show that minimal feedback information leads to a myopic learning algorithm, while additional feedback induces non-myopic learning and increases the impulse with which players respond to payoff differences. Finally, there is evidence for a strategy transfer across games which differ only according to the relabel of actions, but not according to permutation in the payoff matrix.     

Cui bono? Depicting the benefits of the new municipal budgeting and accounting regime in Germany

The new budgeting and accounting regime for the public sector (Doppik), which is based on private sector accounting standards, has been the subject of numerous discussions in research and practice in Germany for the last 20 years. However, those discussions were mostly characterized by assertions, unproven statements and logical arguments. The objective of this paper is to empirically analyze the perceived benefits of a reformed municipal accrual budgeting and accounting system by using a structural equation model. Our results show that improved management capabilities are an important indirect factor, whereas efficiency, intergenerational equity, and transparency are direct determinants of benefit. The consistent implementation of the new output-/outcome-oriented management rationality and the necessity of harmonizing budget laws are revealed as prerequisites for further development.     

Analyzing event stream dynamics in two-mode networks: An exploratory analysis of private communication in a question and answer community

Information about social networks can often be collected as event stream data. However, most methods in social network analysis are defined for static network snapshots or for panel data. We propose an actor oriented Markov process framework to analyze the structural dynamics in event streams. Estimated parameters are similar to what is known from exponential random graph models or stochastic actor oriented models as implemented in SIENA. We apply the methodology on a question and answer web community and show how the relevance of different kinds of one- and two-mode network structures can be tested using a new software.     

Promotion Planning and Supply Chain Contracting in a High–Low Pricing Environment

Demand forecast errors threaten the profitability of high–low price promotion strategies. This article shows how to match demand and supply effectively by means of two‐segment demand forecasting and supply contracts. We find that demand depends on the path of past retail prices, which leads to only a limited number of reachable demand states. However, forecast errors cannot be entirely eliminated because competitive promotions entail some degree of random (i.e., last‐minute) pricing. A hedging approach can be deployed to distribute demand risk efficiently over multiple promotional campaigns and within the supply chain. A retailer that employs a portfolio of forward, option, and spot contracts can avoid both stockouts and excess inventories while achieving the first‐best solution and Pareto improvements. We provide an improved forecasting method as well as stochastic programs to solve for optimal production and purchasing policies such that the right amount of inventory is available at the right time. By connecting a stockpiling model of demand with the supply side, we derive insights on optimal risk management strategies for both manufacturers and retailers in a market environment characterized by frequent price promotions and multiple discount levels. We employ a data set of the German retail market for a key generator of store traffic—namely, diapers.