Managing strategic change in a mature business

The article draws on the experience of four sectors of the U.K. economy to suggest what the competetive conditions of the next decade might look like. The distinction is made between barries to entry and barries to success. Strategic management in the more successful companies appears to involve the common ability to sustain strategic flexibility. The majority of the piece indicates how this quality has been fashioned and how the process of its creation and maintenance has been managed in the companies concerned. Evidence from the four sectors is used to speculate on some of the key determinants of strategic flexibility in the 1990s.     

Field work with the computer: Criteria for assessing systems

Computers, both large and small, can be of great assistance to a field worker. This assistance falls mainly in the area of relieving the field worker from tedious mechanical phases such as typing, sorting, and retrieving information. An examination of field work methods identifies issues and problems which must be addressed by any system for undertaking field work. A rationale for a loose and inclusive (as opposed to an exhaustive and mutually exclusive) coding system is presented. Efficiency, confidentiality, data reduction, and flexibility of testing propositions are discussed as criteria for assessing any system which facilitates field work. The paper concludes by contrasting the methods previously used to collect data, reduce its bulk, code, and retrieve information with what is possible with today's computer hardware and software, and with what will be possible in the near future.We wish to thank Peter Conrad, Susan LeBailly, and the anonymous reviewer of this article for their comments and suggestions.     

The dynamics of full-time and part-time female labour force participation in Great Britain

This paper examines empirically the dynamics of female labour force participation in Great Britain stressing the distinction between full-time and part-time employment. A three-state employment model is assumed, the states being in full-time work, in part-time work and not employed. The six transitions suggested by this state space represent exits from employment, entries into employment and employment changes (or transitions directly from full-time work to part-time work andvice versa). In order to quantify the impact that selected socio-economic factors have on the intensity of these transitions, hazard regression analysis is used. The data are from the1980 Women and Employment Survey. The analysis indicates that full-time and part-time employmènt are states exhibiting major differences beyond the obvious difference in the number of hours worked.Cet article envisage les dynamiques de l'activité professionnelle féminine en insistant sur la distinction entre emploi à plein temps et emploi à temps partiel. Un modèle faisant intervenir trois états (travail à plein temps, travail à temps partiel et inactivité) est proposé. Les six transitions possibles entre ces trois états sont les départs de l'emploi, les entrées dans l'emploi et les changements dans le statut de l'emploi (ou transitions entre emploi à plein temps et emploi à temps partiel et vice versa). En vue de quantifier le rôle de certains facteurs socio-économiques sur l'intensité de ces transitions, un modèle de régression à risques proportionnels est utilisé. Les données sont issues de l'enquête de 1980 sur les femmés et l'emploi. L'analyse permet de conclure que des différences fondamentales existent entre l'emploi à plein temps et l'emploi à temps partiel, au-delà des différences évidentes du nombre d'heures de travail.     

Centrality Asymmetry and Partner Complementarity as Influences on Alliance Dissolution

Research on interfirm alliances indicates that partner firms’ asymmetry in network centrality increases the likelihood of alliance dissolution because it gives rise to a power imbalance and opportunism in the partnership. We contend that this view of centrality asymmetry does not consider the binding force that network resource complementarity can provide in an alliance, which motivates partners to ally for the long term. We propose that centrality asymmetry can have both divisive and cohesive forces in an alliance, which – when considered together – lead to a prediction that centrality asymmetry has a U‐shaped relationship with alliance dissolution. Moderate levels of asymmetry lead to lower rates of dissolution than high and low levels of asymmetry. The degree of cooperation between partners and the degree of external competition reduce the effects of centrality asymmetry on alliance dissolution because they mitigate power imbalances while encouraging partners to strengthen the alliance to withstand competitive challenges.     

Integrating risk assessment and life cycle assessment: a case study of insulation.

Increasing residential insulation can decrease energy consumption and provide public health benefits, given changes in emissions from fuel combustion, but also has cost implications and ancillary risks and benefits. Risk assessment or life cycle assessment can be used to calculate the net impacts and determine whether more stringent energy codes or other conservation policies would be warranted, but few analyses have combined the critical elements of both methodologies In this article, we present the first portion of a combined analysis, with the goal of estimating the net public health impacts of increasing residential insulation for new housing from current practice to the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC 2000). We model state-by-state residential energy savings and evaluate particulate matter less than 2.5 microm in diameter (PM2.5), NOx, and SO2 emission reductions. We use past dispersion modeling results to estimate reductions in exposure, and we apply concentration-response functions for premature mortality and selected morbidity outcomes using current epidemiological knowledge of effects of PM2.5 (primary and secondary). We find that an insulation policy shift would save 3 x 10(14) British thermal units or BTU (3 x 10(17) J) over a 10-year period, resulting in reduced emissions of 1,000 tons of PM2.5, 30,000 tons of NOx, and 40,000 tons of SO2. These emission reductions yield an estimated 60 fewer fatalities during this period, with the geographic distribution of health benefits differing from the distribution of energy savings because of differences in energy sources, population patterns, and meteorology. We discuss the methodology to be used to integrate life cycle calculations, which can ultimately yield estimates that can be compared with costs to determine the influence of external costs on benefit-cost calculations.     

Comments on globalization, interdisciplinary research, myopia and parochialism, government, convergence, and culture

Globalization presents social scientists with a wide variety of issues and challenges that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Disciplinary boundaries encourage specialization and advances in understanding aspects of social behavior, but specialization also creates barriers to more comprehensive understanding of social behavior such as globalization. Successful interdisciplinary efforts entail gains from trade across disciplinary specializations. The papers in this volume help outline an agenda for interdisciplinary investigation of globalization to knock down disciplinary boundaries and encourage gains from trade that further our understanding of globalization. But much work remains before we see real fruits from such efforts.     

Adjusting for covariates in non-inferiority studies with margins defined as risk differences

Adjusting for covariates makes efficient use of data and can improve the precision of study results or even reduce sample sizes. There is no easy way to adjust for covariates in a non-inferiority study for which the margin is defined as a risk difference. Adjustment is straightforward on the logit scale, but reviews of clinical studies suggest that the analysis is more often conducted on the more interpretable risk-difference scale. We examined four methods that allow for adjustment on the risk-difference scale: stratified analysis with Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel (CMH) weights, binomial regression with an identity link, the use of a Taylor approximation to convert results from the logit to the risk-difference scale and converting the risk-difference margin to the odds-ratio scale. These methods were compared using simulated data based on trials in HIV. We found that the CMH had the best trade-off between increased efficiency in the presence of predictive covariates and problems in analysis at extreme response rates. These results were shared with regulatory agencies in Europe and the USA, and the advice received is described.