REENGINEERING CHANNEL REORDERING PROCESSES TO IMPROVE TOTAL SUPPLY-CHAIN PERFORMANCE

This paper discusses the relationship between business process reengineering and channel performance for firms implementing electronic data interchange (EDI) linkages within the U.S. grocery industry. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources are combined to test the hypothesis that channel transformation involving adoption of EDI and redesign of replenishment processes enables performance improvements more than an order of magnitude greater than implementation of EDI alone. This new process, enabled by EDI, provides retailers with 50- 100% higher inventory turns for products on continuous replenishment processes (CRP) relative to retailer performance using traditional ordering processes. Firms adopting EDI without using CRP to reengineer the ordering processes have failed to realize any statistically significant improvements in either inventory levels or warehouse stockouts. This research provides evidence to support the claims of process reengineering that are common in the popular business press, but for which statistically significant empirical evidence is minimal. The findings of the research also demonstrate the potential improvements that firms can realize through extending the business process reengineering concept to include the firms' entire supply chain.     

Letters from a Kangaroo: A Third Object Technique for Working with the Young Child

Summary The author looks at the use of letter writing as a third objecttechnique and considers its value in working with under fives.She also touches on early language development in the pre-schoolchild and the relevance of the theory for social workers.     

Race and Electoral Mobilization: White Southerners, 1952-1968

The voting turnout rate among whites in the South has long beenlower than elsewhere, but in recent years the gap has diminished.Neither the earlier difference nor the recent southern increaseis due to the socioeconomic composition of the regions; rather,the increase has been greatest among southerners who believethat the major parties take distinct stands on racial issues.The change in southern turnout is therefore explained by theincreased salience of racial issues, and they can thereforebe expected to remain important in southern politics John L. Hammond is Assistant Professor of Sociology, ColumbiaUniversity, and Research Associate of the Center for PolicyResearch. This article is a revised version of a paper presentedat the American Sociological Association, August 1974. The dataused were collected by the Institute for Social Research andprovided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.The author whises to acknowledge the helpful comments of GordonAdams, Adrienne Asch, Gerald Finch, Anne Foner, Eugene Litwak,Patrick Molloy, George Martin, and Patrick Peppe.     

Educational Entrepreneurialism in the Private Tutoring Industry: Balancing Profitability with the Humanistic Face of Schooling*

S'appuyant sur une étude de deux ans sur les entrepreneurs en tutorat privé en Ontario, cet article se penche sur la légitimité croissante de l'entrepreneurialisme éducatif. Cette légitimité transforme la nature de l'éducation en préconisant des solutions commerciales aux « problèmes »éducatifs et la croyance que la compétition et la débureaucratisation encouragent la responsabilité, l'efficacité et la réceptivité du client. L'industrie du tutorat privé fournit une étude de cas exemplaire. Non plus simplement moyen de produire des revenus supplémentaires, cette industrie promet désormais des occasions d'affaires à plein temps aux investisseurs cultivés ayant des formations éducatives et professionnelles diverses. Dépourvu de la prétention des professeurs à l'autorité professionnelle, l'entrepreneurialisme éducationnel est soutenu par la culture émergente de l'éducation intensive des enfants et par la personnalisation en éducation. Étonnamment, la franchise tutorielle s'avère constituer un véhicule particulièrement efficace pour équilibrer les buts financiers et l'aspect humaniste de l'éducation. Based on a two‐year study of private tutoring entrepreneurs in Ontario, Canada, this paper examines the increased legitimacy of educational entrepreneurialism. This legitimacy is changing the nature of schooling by supporting market solutions to education “problems” and the belief that competition and de‐bureaucratization encourages accountability, efficiency and consumer responsiveness. The private tutoring industry provides an exemplary case study. No longer simply a means to generate additional income, the private tutoring industry now promises full‐time business opportunities for well‐educated investors from a variety of educational and occupational backgrounds. Lacking teachers' claims to professional authority, educational entrepreneurialism is further bolstered by the emerging culture of intensive parenting and educational customization. Surprisingly, the tutoring franchise proves to be a particularly effective vehicle for balancing profit goals with the more humanistic face of schooling.     

Gender and Promotion at Canadian Universities*

De 1984 à 1999, pour tous les professeurs à plein temps des universités canadiennes, les modèles de temps de défaillance accéléré démontrent que le temps médian de promotion de professeur adjoint à professeur agrégé est de 0,4 année plus long pour les femmes. Il n'y a pas de pic correspondant au refus de titularisation après cinq à sept ans de service, et les augmentations salariales des promotions sont stables avec le temps. Le temps médian de promotion de professeur agrégéà professeur titulaire est d'un an plus long pour les femmes que le temps médian pour les hommes, soit 8,3 années. Les différences entre les disciplines et entre les institutions n'ont qu'un petit impact sur les évaluations des différences entre les genres dans les promotions. From 1984 to 1999, for all full‐time faculty members at Canadian universities, accelerated failure time models show that the median time to promotion from assistant to associate professor is 0.4 years longer for women. There is no peak corresponding to denial of tenure after five to seven years of service and rates of promotion are stable over time. Women's median time for promotion from associate to full professor is one year longer than the median for men, 8.3 years. Variation between disciplines and between institutions has little impact on estimates of gender differences in promotion.     

Application of computer sampling in the estimation of seal diet

The diet of seals is often estimated using the remains of otoliths found in their faeces. The fish weight of a given species is estimated from the partially digested otolith thickness, using empirically derived relationships and digestion coe cients. Errors of estimation arise from natural variation in the amount of fish represented in each faeces sample and measurement errors in estimating the fish weight from the partially digested otoliths. Computer sampling is used to estimate the bias and variance of the estimates, and to calculate the confidence intervals. The method is applied to data from samples of grey seal faeces in four study areas in di erent seasons.     

Symbolic Power and the Institutional Response to Rape: Uncovering the Cultural Dynamics of a Forensic Technology*

Dans plusieurs juridictions, la réponse médicolégal au viol est axée sur l'utilisation d'une des versions de ce qu'on appelle communément une « trousse de prélèvement dans les cas de viol >>. De telles trousses sont utilisées par des professionnels de la santé dans le but de recueillir des preuves corroborantes sur le corps des femmes victimes d'agression sexuelle. L'usage de cette trousse se fonde sur l'hypothèse qu'elle peut conduire à la production de preuves techniques sur la véracité de l'allégation d'une femme. Dans cette étude, nous nous sommes servies des données d'enquêtes, d'interviews et de recherches effectuées auprès des groupes cibles de professionnels spécialisés dans l'agression sexuelle en Ontario, pour étudier comment les interprétations et les valeurs sociétales dominantes et spécifiquement professionnelles peuvent se conjuguer à l'utilisation régulariséd de la trousse provinciale d'examen consécutif à une agression sexuelle pour preuves judiciaires.
Across many jurisdictions, the medico-legal response to rape is centred on the use of what is commonly known as a "rape kit." These are administered by health professionals to sexually assaulted women for the purpose of collecting corroborating evidence from their bodies. The assumption is that the use of this kit can lead to the production of technical facts about the truth of a woman's allegation. We drew on data from survey, interview and focus group research with sexual assault professionals in Ontario to explore how dominant societal and narrow profession-specific values and interpretations may be intertwined with the regularized use of the provincial Sexual Assault Evidence Kit.     

CONFIGURING A SUPPLY CHAIN TO REDUCE THE COST OF DEMAND UNCERTAINTY

Reducing lead time enables a company to react more quickly to demand information and, hence, to better match supply with uncertain demand. But it is only one lever for improving response capability. Managers are familiar with others (e.g., excess capacity, supplier choice, and so forth) but lack techniques to quantify the impact of adjusting these levers. Here, we enumerate a number of these levers and present a model whereby they might be combined into effective response capability. The impact of adjusting these levers is illustrated by data obtained from a skiwear manufacturer that did so. Some of the insights that resulted run counter to intuition.