A Contingent View of Quality Management‐The Impact of International Competition on Quality

Much of the research on quality practices and performance reflects a resource‐based perspective of the firm, dealing primarily with internal issues of managerial and technological competence in developing and executing an effective TQM strategy. The neoclassical perspective on the influence of the competitive environment on quality practices and performance remains conspicuously absent in the empirical quality literature. Our study aims to address this gap by examining the contingent role of international competition on quality management and performance. We develop and test an integrative framework of quality management, consisting of high involvement work practices, quality practices, quality performance, and firm performance. We then examine the contingent effects of international competition on the constructs and relationships of the framework. International competition was found to moderate the relationship between quality practices and customer satisfaction performance, as well as the relationship between high involvement work practices and firm performance. The moderator effects suggest interesting implications for quality theory and practice.     

On the Bayesian inference of Kumaraswamy distributions based on censored samples

In this article we discuss Bayesian estimation of Kumaraswamy distributions based on three different types of censored samples. We obtain Bayes estimates of the model parameters using two different types of loss functions (LINEX and Quadratic) under each censoring scheme (left censoring, singly type-II censoring, and doubly type-II censoring) using Monte Carlo simulation study with posterior risk plots for each different choices of the model parameters. Also, detailed discussion regarding elicitation of the hyperparameters under the dependent prior setup is discussed. If one of the shape parameters is known then closed form expressions of the Bayes estimates corresponding to posterior risk under both the loss functions are available. To provide the efficacy of the proposed method, a simulation study is conducted and the performance of the estimation is quite interesting. For illustrative purpose, real-life data are considered.     

Risk Attitude,Ambiguity Intolerance and Decision Making: An Exploratory Investigation*

Although recent research has identified attitudes towards ambiguity and risk to be important determinants of choice behavior [8] [18], no prior work jointly assessed the roles of both attitudes. We conducted a laboratory experiment using a real decision scenario and conducted exploratory analyses of the relationship between attitudes towards risk and ambiguity and the decision taken by the subjects. The results support the prediction that attitudes towards both risk and ambiguity affect choice behavior. Our exploratory analyses indicate interesting avenues for future research, including an examination of the decision process itself.     

A class of BIB designs with repeated blocks

Balanced incomplete block design (BIBD) with repeated blocks is studied in detail. Methods of construction of BIB designs with repeated blocks are developed so as to distinguish the usual BIBD and BIBD with repeated blocks. One additional parameter, say d, is considered here, where d denotes the number of distinct blocks present in the BIB design with repeated blocks. Further, a class of BIB design with parameters: v = 7, b = 28, r = 12, k = 3, λ= 4, has been constructed where, out of 15, 14 BIB designs have repeated blocks. These 15 BIB designs, which have the same parameters, are compared on the basis of number of distinct blocks (d) and the multiplicities of variance of elementary contrasts of the block effect.     

A Virtual Cellular Manufacturing Approach to Batch Production*

In this paper, Virtual Cellular Manufacturing (VCM), an alternative approach to implementing cellular manufacturing, is investigated. VCM combines the setup efficiency typically obtained by Group Technology (GT) cellular manufacturing (CM) systems with the routing flexibility of a job shop. Unlike traditional CM systems in which the shop is physically designed as a series of cells, family-based scheduling criteria are used to form logical cells within a shop using a process layout. The result is the formation of temporary, virtual cells as opposed to the more traditional, permanent, physical cells present in GT systems. Virtual cells allow the shop to be more responsive to changes in demand and workload patterns. Production using VCM is compared to production using traditional cellular and job shop approaches. Results indicate that VCM yields significantly better flow time and due date performance over a wide range of common operating conditions, as well as being more robust to demand variability.     

Box–Cox power transformation unconditional quantile regressions with an application on wage inequality

This study proposes a semi-parametric estimation method, Box–Cox power transformation unconditional quantile regression, to estimate the impact of changes in the distribution of the explanatory variables on the unconditional quantile of the outcome variable. The proposed method consists of running a nonlinear regression of the recentered influence function (RIF) of the outcome variable on the explanatory variables. We also show the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator and apply the estimation method to address an existing puzzle in labor economics–why the 50th/10th percentile wage gap has been falling in the USA since the late 1980s. Our results show that declining unionization can explain approximately 10% of the decline in the 50/10 wage gap in 1990–2000 and 23% in 2000–2010.     

On rapid change points under long memory

Estimation of points of rapid change in the mean function m(t) is considered under long memory residuals, irregularily spaced time points and smoothly changing marginal distributions obtained by local Gaussian subordination. The approach is based on kernel estimation of derivatives of the trend function. An asymptotic expression for the mean squared error is obtained. Limit theorems are derived for derivatives of m and the time points where rapid change occurs. The results are illustrated by an application to measurements of oxygen isotopes trapped in the Greenland ice sheets during the last 20,000 years.     

Semiparametric Stein estimators

Stein [Stein, C. (1956). Inadmissibility of the usual estimator for the mean of a multivariate normal distribution. In Proc. 3rd Berkeley symp. math. statist. and pro. (pp. 197–206). University of California Press], in his seminal paper, came up with the surprising discovery that the sample mean is an inadmissible estimator of the population mean in three or higher dimensions under squared error loss. The past five decades have witnessed multiple extensions and variations of Stein’s results. In this paper we develop Stein-type estimators in a semiparametric framework and prove their coordinatewise asymptotic dominance over the sample mean in terms of Bayes risks.