Competitive Priorities in Operations Management

Identifying manufacturers' competitive priorities has long been considered a key element in manufacturing strategy research. However, relatively little effort has been devoted to measurement of these constructs in published research. In this study we develop scales for commonly accepted competitive priorities, cost importance, quality importance, delivery-time importance, and flexibility importance. We assess how well the scales capture the constructs that they represent using data collected from 114 manufacturing plants in the United States. The findings suggest that the instrument developed can provide reliable data and that the constructs measured are valid. In addition, comparisons between pairs of informants representing the same business indicate that the perceptual measures of competitive priorities are as reliable as point estimates of routine, seemingly objective information.     

On Being Not Canadian: The Social Organization of “Migrant Workers” in Canada*

Se fondant sur la méthode d'ethnographie institutionnelle de Dorothy E. Smith, l'auteure étudie l'organisation sociale de notre connaissance des gens catégorisés comme non‐immigrants ou « tra‐vailleurs migrants ». À la suite de l'étude du Non‐Immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP) du gouvernement canadien (1973), elle montre l'importance de la pratique idéologique raciste et nationaliste des États à l'endroit de l'organisation matérielle du marché du travail compétitif « canadien » dans le cadre d'un capitalisme mondial restructuré de même que la réorganisation qui en résulte des notions d'esprit national canadien. Elle montre aussi que la pratique discursive des parlementaires qui consiste à considérer certaines personnes comme des « problèmes » pour les « Canadiens » ne provient pas de l'exclusion physique de ces «étrangers » mais plutôt de leur differentiation idéologique et matérielle des Canadiens une fois qu'ils vivent et travaillent dans la société canadienne. Utilizing Dorothy E. Smith's method of institutional ethnography, I investigate the social organization of our knowledge of people categorized as non‐immigrants or “migrant workers.” By examining Canada's 1973 Non‐immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP), I show the importance of racist and nationalist ideological state practice to the material organization of the competitive “Canadian” labour market within a restructured global capitalism and the resultant reorganization of notions of Canadian nationhood. I show that the parliamentary discursive practice of producing certain people as “problems” for “Canadians” results not in the physical exclusion of those constructed as “foreigners” but in their ideological and material differentiation from Canadians, once such people are living and working within Canadian society. Expressions such as…“foreigner”… and so on, denoting certain types of lesser or negative identities are in actuality congealed practices and forms of violence or relations of domination… This violence and its constructive or representative attempts have become so successful or hegemonic that they have become transparent—holding in place the ruler's claimed superior self, named or identified in myriad ways, and the inadequacy and inferiority of those who are ruled. — Himani Bannerji.     

Change-over designs with complete balance for first and second residual effects

This paper presents a unified method of constructing change-over designs that permit the estimation of direct effects orthogonal to all other effects when the residual effects of treatments last for two consecutive periods. Explicit methods of analysis of these designs have been obtained for the situations where the first period observations are omitted from the analysis and where the first period observations are included.     

Minimal balanced repeated measurements designs

Experimental designs in which treatments are applied to the experimental units, one at a time, in sequences over a number of periods, have been used in several scientific investigations and are known as repeated measurements designs. Besides direct effects, these designs allow estimation of residual effects of treatments along with adjustment for them. Assuming the existence of first-order residual effects of treatments, Hedayat & Afsarinejad (1975) gave a method of constructing minimal balanced repeated measurements [RM(v,n,p)] design for v treatments using n=2v experimental units for p [=(v+1)/2] periods when v is a prime or prime power. Here, a general method of construction of these designs for all odd v has been given along with an outline for their analysis. In terms of variances of estimated elementary contrasts between treatment effects (direct and residual), these designs are seen to be partially variance balanced based on the circular association scheme.     

The Emotional Environment of Families Experiencing Chronic Poverty in India

The emotional environment of families living in chronic poverty in India was explored. We hypothesized that the poor (when compared to the nonpoor) would report more aversive interaction and would report less family and life satisfaction. Results showed partial support for our hypotheses. Poor husbands expressed love to wives in fewer ways than the nonpoor men, and they were more likely to use physical or verbal abuse with wives and children. Poor wives showed anger more frequently to husbands and children than the nonpoor wives. However, there were no differences between the poor and the nonpoor on family and life satisfaction. Thus, income alone was not a sufficient predictor of the family's emotional environment.     

Quality of medical care by central government health scheme--a study

This study reports findings on the time spent by CGHS medical officers per patient in different medical care activities for 2,115 patients, as obtained by time study technique. This study was conducted during the year 1976-77. The average observed time spent by the medical officer per patient was found to be 117.15 seconds per patient. The medical officers elicited only main complaints without asking past and family history in 84.44 per cent of patients and the average time spent on history taking was 42 seconds per patient which also included examination of identify card, recording of name, age and sex of the patients. Physical examinations were conducted in only 23.88 per cent of patients and the time spent per patient was 45.93 seconds. The advice for investigations was imparted in 2.60 per cent of patients, though the facilities for routine laboratory examinations were available in the dispensaries. Advice to the patient regarding dietary instructions and general advice was exclusively given in only 5.20 per cent of cases whereas the family planning/health education advice to the patients was given only in 0.76 per cent of patients. The medical officers are aware of the inadequate quality of medical care provided to the beneficiaries and they felt they should at least spend 6.83 minutes for an old patient and 12.42 minutes for the new patient. Probably they are not able to do so because of long queues in the dispensaries during peak hours. Hence, to improve the overall medical care and provide comprehensive care to the beneficiaries it is suggested that the medical officers can be given certain beneficiary population and made responsible to them.     

Replicated measurement error model under exact linear restrictions

We consider a replicated ultrastructural measurement error regression model where predictor variables are observed with error. It is assumed that some prior information regarding the regression coefficients is available in the form of exact linear restrictions. Three classes of estimators of regression coefficients are proposed. These estimators are shown to be consistent as well as satisfying the given restrictions. The asymptotic properties of unrestricted as well as restricted estimators are studied without imposing any distributional assumption on any random component of the model. A Monte Carlo simulations study is performed to assess the effect of sample size, replicates and non-normality on the estimators.