Supply chain management in the US and Taiwan: An empirical study

This study uses an empirical survey of middle-line managers in the US and Taiwan to study the association of supply chain management components and organizational performance. Through structural equation modeling, critical components of supply chain management are found to have considerable effects on organizational performance. The findings of the study are summarized as follows:

•$•$

Supply chain competencies have positive effects on organizational performance in both the US and Taiwan. Supply chain competencies are developed around quality and service, operations and distribution, and design effectiveness. The goal of supply chain competencies is to satisfy customer requirements.     

Outcome favorability in the link between leader–member exchange and organizational citizenship behavior: Procedural fairness climate matters

The study developed an integrated model of the relationship among leader–member exchange (LMX), outcome favorability, procedural fairness climate and employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Using three-phrase multilevel data from multiple sources collected from 238 employees working with 42 supervisors at manufacturing firms in China, we found that (1) LMX was positively related to outcome favorability and OCB, (2) procedural fairness climate moderated the relationship between outcome favorability and OCB, and (3) the indirect effect of LMX on OCB (via outcome favorability) was stronger when procedural fairness climate was high rather than low. The study provides insight on the LMX–OCB relationship and the integration of LMX and fairness research.     

An efficient algorithm for estimating the parameters of superimposed exponential signals

An efficient computational algorithm is proposed for estimating the parameters of undamped exponential signals, when the parameters are complex valued. Such data arise in several areas of applications including telecommunications, radio location of objects, seismic signal processing and computer assisted medical diagnostics. It is observed that the proposed estimators are consistent and the dispersion matrix of these estimators is asymptotically the same as that of the least squares estimators. Moreover, the asymptotic variances of the proposed estimators attain the Cramer–Rao lower bounds, when the errors are Gaussian.     

TEST FOR TREATMENT EFFECT BASED ON BINARY DATA WITH RANDOM SAMPLE SIZES

The problem of testing for treatment effect based on binary response data is considered, assuming that the sample size for each experimental unit and treatment combination is random. It is assumed that the sample size follows a distribution that belongs to a parametric family. The uniformly most powerful unbiased tests, which are equivalent to the likelihood ratio tests, are obtained when the probability of the sample size being zero is positive. For the situation where the sample sizes are always positive, the likelihood ratio tests are derived. These test procedures, which are unconditional on the random sample sizes, are useful even when the random sample sizes are not observed. Some examples are presented as illustration.     

男男性服务群体的性、性网络、艾滋风险——以东北地区为例

男男性服务者是近些年来地下性产业中的新兴群体,其在性身份认同、服务分层、组织类别等方面呈现出比女性性服务者更为复杂的生存样态。同时,艾滋病在男男性接触群体的迅猛传播,也使男男性服务者成为艾滋病防治工作的重点干预对象。文章采用参与观察、个案深入访谈和专题小组讨论的定性研究方法,对我国东北地区男男性服务网络进行调研和分析,对商业性网络的隐秘特征和运行机制、男男性服务者的多元性存在状态进行文化阐释,并在此基础上分析不同性取向群体、不同场所、不同服务种类的艾滋病风险因素并给予社会科学的干预建议。     

Citizenship and Governance in the Asian Region: Insights from The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study

Large scale assessment of student performance is a regular feature of the international education landscape. The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is a recent attempt with a focus on citizenship knowledge and skills. Student political trust data from ICCS is reported here and a mixture Rasch model is used to identify the heterogeneity in this data. The results indicate the complexity of within country and cross-country estimates of measures of political trust. The problem of relying on a single scale score to represent this complexity is underscored and the implications for citizenship education are discussed.     

Chinese widowers' self-perception of growth: an exploratory study

Presence of growth after traumatic events was introduced to the academic community about a decade ago (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995). From the conventionally neglected perspective of Chinese widowers, this paper reports seventeen Chinese widowers' views on growth after conjugal loss. Findings seem to suggest that Chinese widowers would define growth as human learning, a definition probably influenced by Confucian teachings. Furthermore, contrary to claims made by Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004), it was found that growth may occur for some individuals without the presence of distress if the individuals have either a stable philosophy of life and death or optimism to buffer their distress or a sense of responsibility to suppress their distress.     

孔子对君子与小人的界定——从《论语》“未有小人而仁者也”的解读说起

本文从《论语》"君子之不仁者有矣夫,未有小人而仁者也"一语之解读难点出发,探讨孔子口中"君子"、"小人"两词的真正意涵。首先论证小人并无道德丑恶的含义,所指仅为胸无大志,目光短浅,关心实际利益的小人物。至于君子,则传统上所谓从位言,从德言的两分法并不允当;孔子所称之君子皆位、德、才三者合言,此为其正名论思想的必然延伸。正名论既要求有其名位者有其实质,自然亦要求作为管治者的君子有管治的才德,即由"君君臣臣父父子子"而"君子君子"。君子、小人的意涵一经厘清,则该话之解读再无窒碍。     

Toward an Understanding of the Behavioral Intention to Use an Information System

Organizational investment in information systems is often large and risky given the variety of information requirements placed on systems today. To make more informed decisions and to meet the challenge of developing systems that satisfy these demands, system developers need to achieve a better understanding of factors that ultimately lead to system usage. To enhance this understanding, we posit a holistic framework to examine several constructs suggested in the literature that lead to the behavioral intention to use an information system. Our framework includes situational involvement, intrinsic involvement, argument for change, perceived usefulness, ease of use, prior usage, and attitude constructs. We extend the Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is founded on the Theory of Reasoned Action. A diverse sample from industry is used to test our model. Structural equation modeling is used to examine the entire pattern of intercorrelations among the constructs and to test related propositions. A hierarchical structure is used to compare the explanatory ability of TAM with our extension. Our model explains a large portion of the covariance among the constructs that lead to a user's behavioral intention to use an information system and compares favorably with TAM. The results indicate that (1) the direct effect of situational involvement on behavioral intention as well as attitude is significant in the negative direction, (2) attitude seems to play a mediating role, and (3) intrinsic involvement plays a significant role in shaping perceptions. Finally, we conclude that the user involvement construct needs to be separated into its psychological as well as its participative components for developers to understand its impact on the systems development process.     

Relative Performance Evaluation and Risk Taking in Delegated Investment Decisions*

Providing proper incentives to firm managers is increasingly important in the current competitive environment. Analytical research has suggested that evaluating a manager's performance relative to that of a peer group, in conjunction with standard-based pay, can induce efficient risk-sharing between firm owners and managers while maintaining the latter's incentives to exert effort. To date, direct empirical tests of this proposition have not been reported. This study uses a laboratory experiment to test the effect of relative performance evaluation on the risk-aversion of delegated investment decisions. Project-specific risk is operationalized using operating leverage, in part because the variability of a project's operating profits generally increases with this variable, and in part because many of the new manufacturing approaches held to be important to competitive advantage require significant capital investments and attendant increases in operating leverage. Across two levels of environmental uncertainty, subjects under a relative (as opposed to absolute) performance standard selected investments with significantly higher project-specific risk. Also, as environmental uncertainty increased, subjects under an absolute standard significantly reduced the riskiness of their investments. In contrast, subjects shielded from environmental uncertainty by a relative standard chose investments of about equal riskiness under both low and high uncertainty conditions. If supported by future research, these findings would suggest that relative performance evaluation may reduce managers' reluctance to adopt risky capital investments, especially in firms operating in high-risk economic or technological environments.