The effects of internal resources and partnership quality on firm performance: An examination of Indian BPO providers

Firms from developed nations are increasingly resorting to business process outsourcing (BPO) as part of their global sourcing strategy. Although BPO is a growing practice, there has been limited empirical attention in understanding the phenomenon, particularly from the perspective of provider firms that execute important business processes for their overseas clients. In this paper we focus on the resources and capabilities that are utilized by the providers in fulfilling their clients' sourcing needs. Using resource-based view and social exchange as theoretical foundations, we argue that providers' human capital, organizational capital, management capability, and partnership quality are crucial assets that are deemed valuable by the clients and are utilized by the providers in attaining higher performance. Using a sample of Indian BPO providers, we empirically test three models (direct, mediating and moderating) to understand how these assets impact firm-level performance. Results show that resources and capabilities relate to performance in varying measures and partnership quality has partial-mediating and moderating effects on these relationships. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of the study and highlighting avenues of future inquiry.     

VC++中基于ODBC的数据库访问技术研究

ODBC是一个允许应用程序连接外部数据库服务器和文件、并执行查询操作的标准协议。应用程序只需要相同的ODBC源代码就可以访问不同的数据库管理系统。VC++提供了多种方法使用ODBC,比如ATL和MFC类库。对Windows2000环境下VisualC++6.0中MFC类库的ODBC数据库访问技术进行探讨。     

西方现代派戏剧在中国之命运

西方现代派戏剧在中国经历了两起两落的过程。五四前后导入、传播和兴起 ,到30年代衰落 ;80年代再度传播和复振 ,到 90年代式微 ,其中历史经验和教训十分深刻。选择、过滤和消化之后 ,才会形成特色。田汉、曹禺等人为代表的诗化现实主义流派 ,代表中国话剧的优秀传统。改革开放后 ,西方现代派戏剧再次涌入 ,导致“探索戏剧”兴起 ,中国话剧舞台发生巨大变化。     

文化的多元性与少数民族双语教学

现代化是每个民族繁荣昌盛的必由之路,丧失现代化意味着民族的贫困;每个民族又应保在自己的优秀文化传统,丧失文化传统意味着民族的消亡。民族教育中正确处理好现代化与传统文化的关系,就要做到民族教育的现代化和现代教育的现代化。文章结合两个藏汉双语教学的典型实践,从文化的多元性角度,引发了对民族教育中双语教学问题的思考。     

Open Dialogue: Frequently Asked Questions

Open Dialogue is an approach to working with people and their families experiencing psychosocial distress. Interest in Open Dialogue in Australia has been growing recently, raising questions about its adaption and implementation to local contexts. This article is an attempt to answer some of the frequently asked questions we have encountered in training and discussions about Open Dialogue. We attempt to provide responses to questions of how Open Dialogue is different to what is done already, how it fits with current approaches, how you know if you are doing it, whether it is passive or just about doing reflections, issues about including the social network, and concerns about the evidence base. This article aims to present a variety of viewpoints in relation to these questions and to hopefully further discussions on how Open Dialogue can be implemented and adapted to Australian health care and social care contexts.     

DURATION MODELS FOR CREDIT RATING MIGRATION: EVIDENCE FROM THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

We introduce a specific duration model to analyze the prediction of the credit rating migration. We consider hazard rate processes based on multi‐state autoregressive conditional duration models. To take account of the economic context, we model the conditional mean of the duration between two ratings by means of a latent process. To this purpose, a dynamic‐ordered probit model is developed to describe the directions taken by the ratings in the presence of multiple states. As an illustration, we study the migration of credit rating during periods before and after the financial crisis. (JEL C14, C41, G24)     

ACADEMIC PROBATION,STUDENT PERFORMANCE,AND STRATEGIC COURSE‐TAKING

We use a regression discontinuity design to study how academic probation affects outcomes and course‐taking behaviors at a large public university in the United States. Consistent with past work, students placed on probation improve their grade point average (GPA) in the subsequent semester. We document that part of this GPA improvement is attributable to strategic course‐taking, and there is significant heterogeneity in these behaviors across race. Non‐minority students placed on probation attempt fewer credits, easier courses, and are more likely to withdraw from courses in the following term. In contrast, underrepresented minorities exhibit few of these behaviors, consistent with past work that suggests black and Hispanic students are less likely to possess helpful institutional knowledge and use available support systems such as academic counseling. (JEL I20, I23)     

Aesthetic matters: writing and Cultural Studies

What would it mean to treat Cultural Studies as a project that has had amongst its accomplishments the production of new forms and styles of writing, and a generative approach to aesthetics? An initial answer to this question would be that this would recognize how Cultural Studies interceded in an academic environment not only through its concern with supplying ambitious questions and insisting on a broad range of objects of scrutiny, but also by showing how this often entailed reconfiguring the forms through which intellectual inquiry conveyed its cargo. This article doesn’t seek to provide a taxonomy of Cultural Studies’ forms and styles; what it seeks to do is to encourage a self-reflexive attention to aesthetics within Cultural Studies as a form of practice. It suggests that there are two guiding questions that might frame such an attention: how might Cultural Studies generate forms that are adequate to the complexity of the configurations that it seeks to register; and how might Cultural Studies generate forms that could reach the ear of new audiences not attuned to the cadences of scholarly writing? The tension between these two questions should be seen as an invitation to purposeful experimentation within Cultural Studies.