Strategic management of consumer services

A period of more rigorous strategic management is under way in consumer service businesses. In banking, insurance, lodging, media, retailing, housing, restaurants and education, more growth must come from competitive share shift. This paper b shows the need for a different set of strategies to win in services than have been shaped in the product business context. Specific illustrations show how leading U.S. consumer service companies are building strategic advantage while also improving the value of their business.     

How Close Is Close Enough: Public Perceptions of the Risks of Industrial Facilities

Public opinion poll data have consistently shown that the proportion of respondents who are willing to have a nuclear power plant in their own community is smaller than the proportion who agree that more nuclear plants should be built in this country. Respondents' judgments of the minimum safe distance from each of eight hazardous facilities confirmed that this finding results from perceived risk gradients that differ by facility (e.g., nuclear vs. natural gas power plants) and social group (e.g., chemical engineers vs. environmentalists) but are relatively stable over time. Ratings of the facilities on thirteen perceived risk dimensions were used to determine whether any of the dimensions could explain the distance data. Because the rank order of the facilities with respect to acceptable distance was very similar to the rank order on a number of the perceived risk dimensions, it is difficult to determine which of the latter is the critical determinant of acceptable distance if, indeed, there is only one. There were, however, a number of reversals of rank order that indicate that the respondents had a differentiated view of technological risk. Finally, data from this and other studies were interpreted as suggesting that perceived lack of any other form of personal control over risk exposure may be an important factor in stimulating public opposition to the siting of hazardous facilities.     

Use of Sensitivity Analysis to Assess Reliability of Metabolic and Physiological Models

Because ethical considerations often preclude directly determining the human health effects of treatments or interventions by experimentation, such effects are estimated by extrapolating reactions predicted from animal experiments. Under such conditions, it must be demonstrated that the reliability of the extrapolated predictions is not excessively affected by inherent data limitations and other components of model specification. This is especially true of high-level models composed of ad hoc algebraic equations whose parameters do not correspond to specific physical properties or processes. Models based on independent experimental data restricting the numerical space of parameters that do represent actual physical properties can be represented at a more detailed level. Sensitivities of the computed trajectories to parameter variations permit more detailed attribution of uncertainties in the predictions to these low-level properties. S-systems, in which parameters are estimated empirically, and physiological models, whose parameters can be estimated accurately from independent data, are used to illustrate the applicability of trajectory sensitivity analysis to lower-level models.     

Effects of the Mechanism of Receptor-Mediated Gene Expression on the Shape of the Dose-Response Curve

A mathematical model of receptor-mediated gene expression that includes receptor binding of natural and xenobiotic ligands, protein synthesis and degradation, and metabolism of the xenobiotic ligand was created to identify the determinants of the shape of the dose-response profile. Values of the model's parameters were varied to reflect alternative mechanisms of expression of the protein. These assumptions had dramatic effects on the computed response to a bolus dose of the xenobiotic ligand. If all processes in the model exhibit hyperbolic kinetics, the dose-response curves can appear sigmoidal but actually be linear with a positive slope at low doses. The slope of the curve only approached zero at low dose, indicative of a threshold for response, if binding of the xenobiotic ligand to the receptor exhibited positive cooperativity (ligand binding at one site increases the affinity for ligand at another binding site on the receptor). Positive cooperativity in the rate-limiting step of protein synthesis produced dose-response curves which were "U-shaped" at low doses, also indicative of a threshold. Positive cooperativity in the metabolism of the xenobiotic ligand produced dose-response curves that increased more rapidly than linearly with increasing dose. The model illustrates the fact that response cannot be predicted from qualitative mechanistic arguments alone; any assessment of risk to health from xenobiotic chemicals must be based on a detailed quantitative examination of the kinetic behavior of each chemical species individually.     

Research Notes on the Best British Companies: a Peer Evaluation of Britain's Leading Firms

The assessment of company performance is one of the major dilemmas facing the strategic researcher. This paper reviews the alternative methods available, then uses one approach, peer assessment, to produce a guide to British company performance. Britain's best companies are identified and their profiles are examined. Their declared financial strengths and relative weaknesses in marketing and innovation are identified.     

Some practical issues in the evaluation of heterogeneous labour market programmes by matching methods

Summary.  Recently several studies have analysed active labour market policies by using a recently proposed matching estimator for multiple programmes. Since there is only very limited practical experience with this estimator, this paper checks its sensitivity with respect to issues that are of practical importance in this kind of evaluation study. The estimator turns out to be fairly robust to several features that concern its implementation. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the matching approach per se is no panacea for solving all the problems of evaluation studies, but that its success depends critically on the information that is available in the data. Finally, a comparison with a bootstrap distribution provides some justification for using a simplified approximation of the distribution of the estimator that ignores its sequential nature.