Quo vadis public procurement of innovation?

Governments are actively looking for ways to use public procurement so that it would become more effective in facilitating innovation across public and private sectors. However, a shift towards public procurement of innovation (PPI) has proven to be difficult. Whereas the contemporary debate has mostly focused on how to reduce the barriers of PPI through re-conceptualizing the procurement process, there is a need to take into account also wider strategic factors through which governments create capacity to undertake PPI. By revisiting historic and contemporary policy initiatives, four strategies for the future can be envisioned: PPI as experimental innovation policy, from fiscal policy under austerity to PPI, mission-oriented PPI and shifts in administrative culture towards PPI. Each of the strategies demands different capacities from the entrepreneurial sector, as well as state, policy and administrative capacities from the public sector. These issues should be an inherent part of future policy-making and offer new avenues for PPI-related policy analysis and academic research.     

Optimal cutpoints for random observations

For the discretisation of a continuous random variable into different categories the choice of cutpoints is essential. A popular application is the contingent valuation method. In a parametric approach, the choice of cutpoints directly effects the quality of the estimates. Therefore, optimal cutpoints are desirable in order to estimate the parameters most accurately. We consider an arbitrary number of cutpoints and determine optimal cutpoints for the exponential and Gumbel distribution and prove that the c-optimal cutpoints for the location parameter of the logistic distribution have corresponding equal category probabilities. Furthermore, we show that in the limiting case for infinitely many cutpoints there is no loss of information.     

The Effect of Income on General Life Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

Increasing evidence from the empirical economic and psychological literature suggests that positive and negative well-being are more than opposite ends of the same phenomenon. Two separate measures of the dependent variable may therefore be needed when analyzing the determinants of subjective well-being. We investigate asymmetries in the effect of income on subjective well-being with a single-item measure of general life satisfaction. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984–2004, and a flexible multiple-index ordered probit panel data model with varying thresholds, we find that income has only a minor effect on high satisfaction but significantly reduces dissatisfaction.     

Angst, Depression und die Verleugnung von Abh?ngigkeit

In this text I try to describe the intra-psychic consequences caused by internalisation of external heightened demands in today??s working situation. There has been a change from modernity??s super-ego-centered subjects to the increased ego-ideal-demands in today??s postmodern society of self-control. As a consequence of the rhetorics and ideology of permanent self-improvement, of ??positive thinking?? there is a denial of any intra-psychic conflict, any dependence. This may lead to self-exploitation, exhaustion and ??burnout?? as a self-diagnosis. People apply different strategies for coping with this situation: Application of defense mechanism like projection and splitting can only bring short-term relief. Acceptance of intra-psychic conflict, ambivalence and personal weaknesses as a form of ??intra-psychic democracy?? is a way to long-term improvements and increased tolerance for problems of the self and others.     

Optimal design for linear regression models in the presence of heteroscedasticity caused by random coefficients

Random coefficients may result in heteroscedasticity of observations. For particular situations, where only one observation is available per individual, we derive optimal designs based on the geometry of the design locus.     

Optimal design for the Bradley–Terry paired comparison model

Paired comparisons are a popular tool for questionnaires in psychological marketing research. The quality of the statistical analysis of the responses heavily depends on the design, i.e. the choice of the alternatives in the comparisons. In this paper we show that the structure of locally optimal designs changes substantially with the parameters in the underlying utility. This fact is illustrated by elementary examples, where the optimal designs can be completely characterized. As an alternative maximin efficient designs are proposed which perform well for all parameter settings. Research supported by grant Ho 1286 of the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).     

Integrating Kanban principles in a pharmaceutical campaign production system

Centralised planned campaign production is the predominant production system in process industries. In this study, we investigate whether a decentralised Kanban control system, which has proven to offer advantages in other industries, can be successfully integrated in a campaign production environment. The used research methodology combines model-based and case-study-based elements. Using the example of a pharmaceutical internal five-stage supply chain, we conceive a Kanban concept that integrates campaign formation, develop a discrete-event simulation model and conduct a range of explorative simulation experiments. We find that a Kanban campaign production system is not merely feasible but would also be favourable: throughput times can be reduced without increasing customer lead times. Sensitivity analysis shows that the system’s performance is relatively robust to changes in Kanban key configuration parameters such as number of Kanban cards or campaign size. We conclude by discussing our findings and formulating three propositions that might stimulate future research.