RFM customer analysis for product-oriented services and service business development: an interventionist case study of two machinery manufacturers

Journal of Management and Governance - This study examines how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can segment their product-oriented services customers with the help of a recency, frequency,...     

Self-Reported Fears as Indicators of Young Children’s Well-Being in Societal Change: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Our main interest in this paper is in studying children’s well-being by using children themselves as informants and fear as an indicator of insecurity from cross-cultural and longitudinal perspectives. More specifically our paper documents the changes in the content and prevalence of children’s fears in two neighboring countries, Finland and Estonia, during the last decade. The study was carried out in 1993 and replicated in 2002/2003 in both countries with the random samples of total number of 420 five to six-year-old children (in Estonia 115 in 1993 and 91 in 2002; in Finland 105 and 109, respectively). For both countries the decade in question was a period of social, political and economic transition including post-socialist transformation in Estonia. Especially informationalization and globalization had a profound impact on the everyday life of parents and children. The increase of insecurity among children in both countries was expected. Children’s fears were investigated by means of an individual semi-structured and picture-aided interview. The most important findings are: the prevalence of children’s self-reported fears has generally increased during the ten years, especially among the Estonian children. The most significant increase was observed in both countries in fears of imagination-related things including television-related fears, fears of imagined creatures and of nightmares parallel to children’s increased media-exposure in daily life. Despite the increase of␣general welfare in both countries our results suggest the opposite tendency among young children; decrease of safety and increase of insecurity. The level of children’s insecurity was higher in Estonian than in Finland at both times. It is noteworthy that some fears of young children are ‚universal’ (fear of getting lost, fear of darkness, fear of being alone), while some fears are more context dependent (television-induced fears, fear of strange people). Young children proved to be competent informants of their condition and well able to provide essential and invaluable information about their problems and well-being. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Understanding performance measurement dynamism: a case study

This paper elaborates on the notion of performance measurement (PM) dynamism. The paper’s argument is based on a literature review and an interventionist case study. The analysis of the structure of PM dynamism is deepened by using New Institutional Sociology theory as a tool. PM dynamism was found to occur at four different levels: in setting the role of performance measures for decision making in general, in the use of measures, in the selection of measures and within the components of single measures. PM dynamism allows, for instance, measures used only for specific and topical purposes (ad hoc), in contrast to the views presented in the extant literature, which reject measures that are not institutionalized. The use of up-to-date measures, a major implication of understanding PM dynamism more thoroughly, could lead to more efficient strategy implementation and enactment at different levels. The originality of the article consists of identifying the rationale and the levels of PM dynamism and of the consideration that the use of ad hoc measures may have a positive impact on managing performance.     

On the influence of a biased decision support model on subjects’ behavior

Summary  The role of decision tools in managerial decisions can be crucial. Yet, there is very little research seeking to understand and measure the influence of planning models on decision-makers’ actual behavior or performance. We focus on investigating, in an experimental context, the influence of a decision model (time allocation model) on student subjects’ changes of mind and behavior. Of special interest is the effect of the articulated importance of criteria on subjects’ choices. Furthermore, we have also studied how the above mentioned model influences subjects’ actual (measurable) performance. The results are partly conflicting, though interesting: (1) the (biased) decision model did have a significant influence on the subjects’ choices, (2) when the model provided additional freedom to improve criterion values, the subjects’ choices were rather inconsistent with the articulated importance of criteria, (3) the interpretation is not clear, how plans influence actual behavior, and (4) the subjects did not fully recognize the bias of the model (when present). However, our findings very clearly demonstrate that model developers have a great responsibility. Biased models may guide managers to make dramatically erroneous decisions in bona fide. We hope that our findings generate additional research into this important, but under-researched topic.      

Impact of Number of Interactions,Different Interaction Patterns,and Human Inconsistencies on Some Hybrid Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization Algorithms*

We investigate the impact of the number of human–computer interactions, different interaction patterns, and human inconsistencies in decision maker responses on the convergence of an interactive, evolutionary multiobjective algorithm recently developed by the authors. In our context “an interaction” means choosing the best and worst solutions among a sample of six solutions. By interaction patterns we refer to whether preference questioning is more front‐, center‐, rear‐, or edge‐loaded. As test problems we use two‐ to four‐objective knapsack problems, multicriteria scheduling problems, and multiobjective facility location problems. In the tests, two different preference functions are used to represent actual decision maker preferences, linear and Chebyshev. The results indicate that it is possible to obtain solutions that are very good or even nearly optimal with a reasonable number of interactions. The results also indicate that the algorithm is robust to minor inconsistencies in decision maker responses. There is also surprising robustness toward different patterns of interaction with the decision maker. The results are of interest to the evolutionary multiobjective (EMO) community actively developing hybrid interactive EMO approaches.     

Supporting individuals in group decision-making

Pooling of different resources is typical among the member countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance participating in joint large-scale construction projects. The problem faced by the members of the Council is to decide, how much of various resources each country should contribute to a construction project. In this paper we present a general approach to supporting individuals involved in such negotiations. We formulate the problem as a multiple criteria/multiple decision-maker model and use our approach to finding a compromise solution for the resource pooling problem within the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance. The approach is implemented on a computer, tested and illustrated using a prototypical example.     

A customer view on the most preferred alliance structure between banks and insurance companies

Summary  In this paper, we have studied alternative alliance structures between banks and insurance companies from the point of view of Finnish customer representatives. Seven criteria were introduced for the evaluation of six alternative structure models for such alliances. The alliance models based on plain cross-selling agreements were considered most preferred. We also studied how familiar the customer representatives were with the alliance problem from the point of view of the bank and insurance executives and that of the supervisory authorities. We observed that the customer representatives did not recognize the problem as well from the point of view of the supervisors as that of the executives. The best compromise model from all three points of view could be the financial conglomerate on the condition that certain supervisory and customer criteria are satisfied to a sufficient degree.

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Zusammenfassung  In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir alternative Allianzstrukturen zwischen Banken und Versicherungsgesellschaften aus der Sicht finnischer Konsumentenvertreter. Zur Bewertung sechs alternativer Strukturmodelle werden sieben Kriterien herangezogen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass diejenigen Allianzmodelle am meisten pr?feriert wurden, die einfache Leistungsverbünde darstellen. Zugleich wurde untersucht, inwieweit die Konsumentenvertreter mit der Sichtweise vertraut waren, unter der die Bank-und Versicherungsvorst?nde sowie die Aufsichtsbeh?rden Allianzprobleme analysieren. Dabei zeigte sich, dass die Konsumentenvertreter das Allianzproblem nicht in derselben Weise verstanden, wie die Aufsichtsbeh?rden und Vorst?nde. Um allen drei Sichtweisen gleicherma?en gerecht zu werden, besteht das beste Kompromissmodell darin, ein Finanzkonglomerat zu bilden, welches die Kriterien der Aufsichtsbeh?rde und der Konsumentenvertreter in hinreichendem Ma?e zufrieden stellend erfüllt.