BUSINESS STRATEGY,MANUFACTURING FLEXIBILITY,AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIPS: A PATH ANALYSIS APPROACH

It has been argued in the literature that business strategy and manufacturing flexibility independently affect the performance of an organization. However, no empirical examination of the interrelationship among these three constructs has been performed. In this paper, based on a field study of 269 firms in the manufacturing industry, the identified constructs have been used to test a theoretical model using path analysis techniques. Our results indicate that business strategy contributes both directly and indirectly to organizational performance. The findings provide evidence of direct effects of (i) business strategy on manufacturing flexibility and (ii) manufacturing flexibility on organizational performance.     

对《高海拔缺氧、文化和人类生育力或生殖能力》一文的评论

在戈尔斯坦、查隆和比尔最近发表的论文--<高海拔缺氧、文化和人类生育力或生殖能力的比较研究>(载<美国人类学家>85:28-49,1983)中,作者试图把文化当作解释喜马拉雅山区居民人口差异问题的惟一因素,完全排除了缺氧的影响,同时他们还对别人过去发表的用缺氧进行解释的相关材料(魏兹以及其他人1978;本格汉和塞奇勒1980;古朴塔1980)提出批评.     

Impact of Information Systems (IS) Steering Committees on IS Planning*

One of the most efficient ways to manage the information systems function is to introduce steering committees. It has been suggested that one of the foremost benefits of a steering committee is that it can improve the information systems planning efforts of an organization. However, there is very little empirical evidence in the literature that deals with how such committees affect planning. This study investigates the impact of steering committees on three phases of information systems planning: strategic planning, systems planning, and implementation of planning. The greatest impact of steering committees appears to be the strategic planning phase, while a lesser effect is observed in the systems planning and implementation of planning phases.     

Family planning for the home,working wives and mothers

The Indian family planning program is discussed in relation to the home, working wives, and mothers. The major objectives of the program are to learn the reasons for the rapid growth of population, to discover suitable contraceptive techniques, advise, and reduce the birthrate to a level consonant with India's economic well being. Efforts to reach the home are made more difficult by geographic remoteness of some regions, sociological barriers, and the experience of infant mortality. Emphasis must be put on the fact that the fewer the children, the more hopeful the outlook for health and economic security. The trend today is for the middle classes to have fewer children than members of the lower classes. This situation should be reversed if India is to prosper. The hazzards to health of repeated childbirth are especially great to the working wife. Every large-scale industry should begin family planning clinics. By limiting family size, working wives can increase productivity and raise healthier and happier children; middle class wives will be able to respond to their desire to serve their country. Attitudes of working wives toward family planning is increasingly favorable. The most common deterrent to family planning use is fear of losing their children through death. Members of some communities also feel the need to increase the population of their community.     

Goodness-of-fit tests of hypothesized canonical variables

In the literature goodness-of-fit tests for canonical variables are available either in the x space or in the y space, see e.g., Bartlett (1951), Kshirsagar (1971, 1972), Radcliffe (1968), and Williams (1952). Here we present goodness-of-fit tests for canonical variables in both the x and y spaces. The results appear as extensions of the results of the above authors.     

On the estimation of restricted mean

In sampling from a continuous distribution with unknown mean μ and variance σ² the problem of estimation of μ, when it is known that μ∈(a, ∞) (or μ∈(-∞, b)), is considered. The estimators proposed here lie in the interval (a, ∞) (or (-∞, b)) almost surely. The performance of these estimators is compared to that of some known estimators in the case of sampling from a normal, exponential and a weighted difference of two independent chi-square distributions.     

The World Bank model for global interdependence: A quantitative framework for the World Development Report

This paper describes the basic structure of the Global Model used in preparing various parts of the World Development Report (WDR) issued annually by the World Bank. The report is designed to help clarify linkages between the international economy and the domestic strategies of developing countries. The paper is divided in four parts. The first two present different aspects of the model structure and discuss the reasons that induced the authors to orient themselves towards given functional specifications. In the final parts the policy relevance of the exercise is studied in light of the results that the model has produced for 1975–1985.     

Residual analysis and outliers in loglinear models based on phi-divergence statistics

In this paper we consider new families of residuals and influential measures, under the assumption of multinomial sampling, for loglinear models. These new families are based on φ$\phi$-divergence test statistic. The asymptotic normality of the standardized residuals is obtained as well as the relation of the new family of influential measures with the appropriate Cook's distance in this context. The expression of the new family of residuals is obtained in two important problems: independence and symmetry in two-dimensional contingence tables. A numerical example illustrates the results obtained.