Driving complementarity in interdisciplinary research: a reflection

ABSTRACT

The value of interdisciplinary research is increasingly recognised by the research community. Funding bodies are nowadays specifically encouraging that research they fund is interdisciplinary in nature. However, what is often branded as interdisciplinary research is in fact a network of researchers working to deliver a research output. In this research note, we share our experience of what we think can be labelled “truly interdisciplinary”. We share some best practice tips for those who are interested to go through a similar metamorphosis as we did as a team, learning from each other’s ways of working. Overall, it has been a very positive experience and a revelation that has had a big impact on each author’s view on how to conduct research as an integrated multidisciplinary team, as it has shifted our mental models and broadened our thinking, capacity to reflect, and critical analysis. We hope that our research note clearly shows the benefits of truly interdisciplinary research and motivates other researchers to follow our pathway of transformation.     

Analysing critical success factors to implement sustainable supply chain practices in Indian automobile industry: a case study

The aim of this article is to analyse the critical success factors (CSFs) behind the successful implementation of sustainable supply chain practices in Indian automobile industry. Supply chain sustainability is a critical and timely topic for the developing country like India that captures increasing concerns over sustainability, whether driven by current legislation, public interest or competitive opportunity. Identification of CSFs responsible for sustainable supply chain practices and evaluating their contextual relationships has the potential to affect future government policy, current production operations and identify new business models. In response to this, this paper intends to identify CSFs based on organisational theory and model them to implement sustainable supply chain practices in Indian automobile industry. Twenty-five CSFs to implement sustainable supply chain practices based on organisational theory are recognised by means of the literature review and in discussions with experts in one case study organisation. A solution methodology based on the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique is used to propose a structural model, which not only helps in understanding the contextual relationship among these CSFs, but also in determining their interdependence to implement sustainable supply chain practices. Further, the importance of CSFs has been determined based on their driving and dependence power using MICMAC analysis. Our overarching thesis is that the insights gained are useful for Indian automobile industry and would help practitioners, regulators and academicians to focus their efforts towards implementation of sustainable supply chain practices.     

How does cultural capital affect educational performance: Signals or skills?

In this paper, we test two mechanisms through which cultural capital might affect educational performance: (a) teachers misinterpreting cultural capital as signals of academic brilliance and (b) cultural capital fostering skills in children that enhance educational performance. We analyse data from the ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 from the United States and focus on three aspects of children’s cultural capital: participation in performing arts, reading interest and participation in athletics and clubs. We find that (1) none of the three aspects of cultural capital that we consider affects teachers’ evaluations of children’s academic skills; (2) reading interest has a direct positive effect on educational performance; and (3) the direct effect of reading interest on educational performance does not depend on schooling context. Our results provide little support for the hypothesis that cultural capital operates via signals about academic brilliance. Instead, they suggest that cultural capital fosters skills in children that enhance educational performance. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings.     

发展干预项目的有效性评估：功能定位与操作难题

发展干预项目的评估是确定发展目标、发展效率、干预影响以及可持续性同项目实施之间的相关性的过程。它至少包含两方面的现实功能,学术层面上,是回应当前知识界对于发展项目是否真正有效的学术争论的最直接手段;实践层面上,能够对特定发展项目的持续或中止进行合法化描述。发展干预是由多元因素长期共同作用下产生的改变,要展示其项目多大程度上推动了发展变迁,是一件十分困难的事情,其操作性难题主要包括：复杂社会系统中干预效果的归因偏差议题;阶段性影响与最终效果的关系平衡议题;普遍性与情景化的评估方法的采用偏向议题;项目评估的时间节点的动态选择议题。操作性难题归结成最重要的一点,其实就在于如何判断发展干预行动是否真正推动了减贫发展与社会变迁。     

无为范畴探析

文章通过老子思想体系透视无为范畴,多层面地展示了其内涵。     

Fostering Risk Taking in Research and Development: The Importance of a Project's Terminal Value

Large firms face a conflict in managing a portfolio of high-risk projects. When an ongoing project is thought to have a low likelihood of success, project team members take risks to improve its chances of success. However, upper-level managers who allocate resources tend to withhold resources from a project with a low likelihood of success in favor of others in the portfolio that look more promising. Because this paucity of resources influences project team members to avoid risk, the total effect of success likelihood on risk taking is conflicted. The influence on risk taking of a project's terminal value—defined as the value that remains in the firm in the event of project failure—is unequivocally positive, because both senior management resource allocation and project team risk-taking propensity are encouraged by terminal value. Thus, firms can override the ambivalent effect of likelihood of success on project decision making by focusing attention on a project's terminal value.     

对外承包工程国际收支统计存在问题与改进建议

 对外承包工程是一项重要的国际经济合作方式之一,与其相关的多项交易均需纳入国际收支统计范围。本文分析了《国际收支和国际投资头寸手册（第六版）》（Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (Sixth Edition)）中有关对外承包工程国际收支统计的基本原则,并指出以间接申报为主要数据源的统计模式的弊端,建议从规范间接申报入手改进现有统计制度,最后提出了开展专项统计采集对外承包工程国际收支数据的远期规划。     

Organizational Silence and Whistle‐Blowing on IT Projects: An Integrated Model*

An individual's reluctance to report bad news about a troubled information technology (IT) project has been suggested as an important contributor to project failure and has been linked to IT project escalation as well. To date, information systems researchers have drawn from the mum effect and whistle‐blowing literature to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence bad news reporting. More recent theoretical work in the area of organizational silence offers a promising new conceptual lens, but remains empirically untested. In this research note, we integrate key elements of Morrison and Milliken's (2000) model of organizational silence, which has never been empirically tested, with the basic whistle‐blowing model adapted from Dozier and Miceli (1985) . Using a role‐playing experiment, we investigate how organizational structures/policies, managerial practices, and degree of demographic dissimilarity between employees and top managers create a climate of silence and how this climate, in turn, affects an individual's willingness to report. Our results show that all three types of factors contribute to a climate of silence, exerting both direct and indirect influence on willingness to report, as hypothesized. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.