Managing Multiple Facets of Risk in New Product Alliances*

The trend of forming alliances to develop new products continues; however, many of these new product alliances fail. As such we explore how key risk types intrinsic in new product alliances, performance, relational, and knowledge appropriation risks, influence alliance success. Further, we theorize that different alliance governance mechanisms can reduce the negative impact of risks on alliance success. To disentangle possible heterogeneous factors across firms that may affect the interplay of risk assessments and the use of governance mechanisms, we employ latent class regression analysis on survey data collected from 128 new product alliance firms and find support for a two‐regime solution. Longer alliance relationships and lower technological turbulence are factors for some firms (regime one), while the opposite are factors for other firms (regime two). These two regimes show different patterns in the interplay of risk assessments and governance for alliance success. Our theory and results support viewing risk as a multiple‐factor concept and by understanding the different impacts of the risk types in new product alliances and how governance mechanisms mitigate such effects, we aid managers' decision making regarding the balance of contractual versus normative governance in new product alliances. Understanding the heterogeneous factors inherent in these complex relationships enables managers to understand the conditions in which various governance mechanisms promote new product alliance success.     

Supply Chain Conflict Due to Store Brands: The Value of Wholesale Price Commitment in a Retail Supply Chain*

Store brands are of increasing importance in retail supply chains, often causing channel conflict, as the retailer's product directly competes with the manufacturer's national brand. Extant research on the resulting channel interactions either assumes the national brand manufacturer can credibly commit to maintaining a wholesale price or that he lacks such ability. However, these two scenarios imply very different supply chain interactions, as only a national brand manufacturer with commitment ability can strategically adjust a national brand wholesale price to prevent a store brand introduction by the retailer. We specifically analyze the impact of this assumption on the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customers. We determine when long‐term contracts that provide the manufacturer with such commitment ability can improve supply chain profitability.     

战略导向、组织学习对产品创新的影响研究

本文对战略导向影响产品创新的路径进行了研究,发现不同战略导向对学习活动有不同的选择倾向,而不同类型的学习活动也会对产品创新产生不同的影响。本研究不仅弥补了应用性学习与探索性学习研究的不足,也有助于企业引导和利用组织学习来提高产品创新水平,为管理实践提供理论参考。     

航空产品责任诉讼初探——以美国立法与司法实践为视角

发生空难后,航空产品责任诉讼是受伤害旅客获得高额赔偿的重要途径,美国是航空产品责任诉讼的集中地,有着丰富的司法实践经验和较为完备的法律规定。航空产品责任诉讼的责任主体主要是航空产品制造商和航空器出租人,要使其承担产品责任,必须证明航空器存在设计、制造或警示说明缺陷。同时,美国法院常常会在航空产品责任诉讼中应用不方便法院原则,从私人利益和公共利益因素两方面进行考察,判断法院是否对案件行使管辖权。尽管由于法官自由裁量权的行使可能导致不同案件判决结果存在差异,但是通过对美国《第三次侵权法重述:产品责任》和相关案例的研究,在美国航空产品责任诉讼中原告的举证责任、不方便法院原则的适用标准等问题上仍有一些规律可循。     

20世纪30年代的乡村公务人员--见之于农村复兴委员会的调查

1933年民国行政院农村复兴委员会的调查表明,乡村中区的设置比较普遍,并成为重要的政治机构,区以下的自治系统,则遗留下浓重的传统痕迹,对国家规制变异情形严重;乡村公务人员的产生途径,除区长一般由上级任命外,选举、推选、指定、轮充等方法不一而足,但不管通过何种途径产生,选择时的经济趋向至为明显;乡村公务人员的法定收入有限,而中饱现象严重,社会评价低劣;乡村自治在国民政府核心统治区域流于形式,在较为偏远的地方则恶性变质,成为乡村社会的破坏性力量.     

Relations for Moments of Progressively Type-II Censored Order Statistics from Log-Logistic Distribution with Applications to Inference

In this article, we establish several recurrence relations for the single and product moments of progressively Type-II right censored order statistics from a log-logistic distribution. The use of these relations in a systematic recursive manner would enable the computation of all the means, variances and covariances of progressively Type-II right censored order statistics from the log-logistic distribution for all sample sizes n, effective sample sizes m, and all progressive censoring schemes (R ₁,…, R _m ). The results established here generalize the corresponding results for the usual order statistics due to Balakrishnan and Malik (1987 Balakrishnan , N. , Malik , H. J. ( 1987 ). Moments of order statistics from truncated log-logistic distribution . J. Statist. Plann. Infer. 17 : 251 – 267 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Balakrishnan et al. (1987 Balakrishnan , N. , Malik , H. J. , Puthenpura , S. ( 1987 ). Best linear unbiased estimation of location and scale parameters of the log-logistic distribution . Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth. 16 : 3477 – 3495 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The moments so determined are then utilized to derive best linear unbiased estimators for the scale- and location-scale log-logistic distributions. A comparison of these estimates with the maximum likelihood estimates is made through Monte Carlo simulation. The best linear unbiased predictors of progressively censored failure times is then discussed briefly. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate all the methods of inference developed here.     

A-optimal designs for heteroscedastic multifactor regression models

Abstract

This paper searches for A-optimal designs for Kronecker product and additive regression models when the errors are heteroscedastic. Sufficient conditions are given so that A-optimal designs for the multifactor models can be built from A-optimal designs for their sub-models with a single factor. The results of an efficiency study carried out to check the adequacy of the products of optimal designs for uni-factor marginal models when these are used to estimate different multi-factor models are also reported.     

Recurrence formula on the joint distribution of sample skewness and kurtosis under normality

Abstract

Two recurrence relations with respect to sample size are given concerning the joint distribution of skewness and kurtosis of random observations from a normal population: one between the probability density functions and the other between the product moments. As a consequence, the latter yields a recurrence formula for the moments of sample kurtosis. The exact moments of Jarque-Bera statistic is also given.     

VARIATION REDUCTION AND ROBUST DESIGNS

In this paper we consider two strategies for variation reduction. One of them is the exploitation of interactions. We also discuss the role of experiments in discovering interactions and in particular the use of robust designs to obtain the interaction between control and noise factors. Then we attempt to reduce the variation in a measurement system using a robust design.     

Estimation of Laspeyres Price Indexes Using the Prediction Approach for Finite Population Sampling

Estimators of chain and fixed-base Laspeyres price indexes are studied using the prediction approach to finite population sampling. The estimators include some that are based on those used in several U.S. government index programs and others derived from prediction models. Biases and variances of the estimators are studied for a case in which the reference period index weights are unknown for nonsample items. Under a model for a one-period price change in which items have common within-stratum means, unbiased estimators can be constructed, but under a more general regression model, special sample balance conditions are needed for unbiasedness of those estimators. The theory for the estimators of fixed-base indexes is illustrated in an empirical study using a population of items priced for the U.S. Consumer Price Index.