Stability and Complexity of Inter-Firm Co-operation:: The case of Multi-Point Alliances

The authors examine alliances involving inter-firm co-operation which they term ‘multi-point alliances’. These are first defined and considered in varying degrees of complexity. A typology of multi-point alliances is produced, and interviews conducted with French and Spanish corporations followed by a two-stage questionnaire survey of France's largest corporations. The dynamics of multi-point co-operation were then examined. The results include support for the authors' research hypothesis that both business complexity (scope) and organizational complexity (structure) impact the evolution of co-operation: the higher the complexity, the more likely the co-operative arrangement will diverge from its initial objective.     

The folly of theorizing “A” but testing “B”: A selective level-of-analysis review of the field and a detailed Leader–Member Exchange illustration

Leadership research has recently begun to emphasize the importance of examining the level of analysis (e.g., individual, dyad, group, organization) at which phenomena are hypothesized to occur. Unfortunately, however, it is still not commonplace for theory to clearly specify, and for investigations to directly test, expected and rival level-of-analysis effects. This article first selectively reviews a cross-section of theories, models, and approaches in leadership, showing generally poor alignment between theory and the level of analysis actually used in its testing. A multiple levels of analysis investigation of the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) model is next presented. This theory has as its foundation the dyadic relationship between a supervisor and his or her subordinates. Yet, less than 10% of published LMX studies have examined level of analysis—and none has employed dyadic analysis. Using within- and between-entities analysis (WABA) and two different samples, four LMX level-of-analysis representations are tested, which involve monosource data; three of these models are then tested using heterosource data. Overall, good support is found for the LMX approach at the within-groups and between-dyads levels. Implications for aligning theory with appropriate levels of analysis in future research are considered.     

Great Expectations. Part I: On the Customizability of Generalized Expected Utility

We propose a generalization of expected utility that we call generalized EU (GEU), where a decision maker’s beliefs are represented by plausibility measures and the decision maker’s tastes are represented by general (i.e., not necessarily real-valued) utility functions. We show that every agent, “rational” or not, can be modeled as a GEU maximizer. We then show that we can customize GEU by selectively imposing just the constraints we want. In particular, we show how each of Savage’s postulates corresponds to constraints on GEU.     

Basic needs in rural Nigeria

Rural poverty which persists in Nigeria despite the prosperity created by the country's oil wealth is evident in the difficulty experienced by many in satisfying their basic needs for food, water and shelter. The lack of these basic needs has held up rural development in Nigeria. This paper highlights the need for adopting a basic needs approach to rural development. It suggests that the basic needs should be identified for each community in recognition of the fact that the priority of needs differs according to the people's socio-cultural conditions. It is observed that if the priority of needs is not sorted out with the people, the government may be involved in spending money on rural development projects that least satisfy the people's needs. The phases of determining the basic needs with the people are examined. The paper concludes that at every stage of development people do know what their needs are and they can be relied upon to determine their own priorities of development and then work for them.     

Online tree node assignment with resource augmentation

Given a complete binary tree of height h, the online tree node assignment problem is to serve a sequence of assignment/release requests, where an assignment request, with an integer parameter 0≤i≤h, is served by assigning a (tree) node of level (or height) i and a release request is served by releasing a specified assigned node. The node assignments have to guarantee that no node is assigned to two assignment requests unreleased, and every leaf-to-root path of the tree contains at most one assigned node. With assigned node reassignments allowed, the target of the problem is to minimize the number of assignments/reassignments, i.e., the cost, to serve the whole sequence of requests. This online tree node assignment problem is fundamental to many applications, including OVSF code assignment in WCDMA networks, buddy memory allocation and hypercube subcube allocation.     

THE WAGE EARNERS' WELFARE STATE REVISITED: REFURBISHING THE ESTABLISHED MODEL OF AUSTRALIAN SOCIAL PROTECTION, 1983–93

This article sets out to give an overview of the most significant policy changes and developments influencing the development of social protection in Australia in the past decade. Rather than focussing on an assessment of gains and losses within the narrow confines of the state welfare system, it looks at what has happened to the broad configuration of policies which have come to constitute Australia's highly distinctive wage earners' welfare state. Overall, the conclusion is that the institutional forms and normative goals of the wage earner's welfare state have proved far more resilient and adaptable than critics have assumed likely, with targeting, award-based superannuation and women's welfare singled out as the most interesting areas in which Labor has contributed to the refurbishing of the established model.     

Estimating survival rates from recoveries of birds ringed as young: a case study

Models for analysis of survival rates from recoveries of birds ringed as young were evaluated for lesser snow geese ringed on the breeding grounds at La Perouse Bay, Manitoba from 1970 to 1992. Analyses of birds ringed as adults and young indicate recovery rates were lower for young than for older birds and varied independently in the two age classes. Adult survival increased over the study, while that of immatures decreased. Using only recoveries of birds ringed as young, models incorporating observed variation in recovery rates were not identifiable. Many sets of constraints could be selected to make the model identifiable, but there was no objective way to distinguish among them, and each could lead to different conclusions. The observed changes in survival rates could not be estimated. Previous analyses have shown that models for birds ringed as young can be used to test even complex variation in survival rates, provided that recovery rates do not vary with age. Unfortunately, as shown by the geese, this assumption may often be violated and can only be tested with additional data, preferably from birds recaptured or ringed as sub-adults or adults.