Does ‘the China Option’ influence subsidiary technology sourcing strategy?

We draw on transaction cost economics and the technology innovation management literature to advance a contextual model of the link between the perceived influence of China on technology strategy and MNC subsidiary sourcing strategy. In particular, we hypothesize that the relationship between a perceived influence of China on technology strategy and MNC subsidiary process technology sourcing strategy is moderated by the innovation context. Here, we consider the innovation context to be externally represented by the appropriability regime and dominant design, while internally it is measured by the subsidiary's level of complementary assets. We test our predictions on a multi-industry sample of 111 MNC subsidiaries from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. We find support for the moderating influence of the innovation contexts of appropriability regime and complementary assets.     

Reframing Asperger syndrome: lessons from other challenges to the Diagnostic and statistical manual and ICIDH approaches

The medical approach to Asperger syndrome (AS) classifies it as a mental disorder. This paper critically examines the concept of mental illness as specified by the Diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) in the light of published assessments and accounts of AS provided by a variety of sources. Taken together, these accounts provide further support for reframing AS as a socially constructed human difference rather than a pathology. The demedicalization of homosexuality is offered as one potential model for the nature of the reframing of AS.     

A Dynamic Collaboration Capability as a Source of Competitive Advantage

The resource‐based view of the firm argues the essence of decision making is to determine how firm and supply chain resources can be configured to achieve inimitable advantage and superior performance. However, combining resources found among diverse members of a supply chain requires higher levels of coordination than exist at most companies. Manifest cross‐functional and interorganizational conflict impedes the relational advantages of collaboration. This research employs a multimethod—survey and interview—approach to evaluate collaboration's influence on operational and firm performance. Our findings show that collaboration, as a dynamic capability, mediates the conflict resulting from functional orientations, and improves performance. Specific structural enablers to enhance an organization's collaborative capability are identified and described, providing insight into how firms can exploit interfirm resources for competitive advantage.     

Visions of resilience: lessons from applying a digital democracy tool in New York’s Jamaica Bay watershed

Resilience to extreme weather events and other sudden changes is an issue facing many communities in the early twenty-first century. Planning to respond to disasters is particularly complicated in densely inhabited, multi-jurisdictional urban social-ecological systems like the watershed of Jamaica Bay, a large urbanized estuary on the south side of New York City. This area contains parklands managed by New York City, the National Park Service, and other agencies, four sewage treatment plants, three former landfills, and urban and suburban communities, all of which were heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Here successful resilience planning and response requires participation from a wide variety of government and civil society players each with different types of knowledge, value systems, and expectations about what resilience means. To investigate how “visions” of future resilience differed among several communities living in or concerned with Jamaica Bay, New York, we deployed a free, Internet-based modeling framework called Visionmaker that enabled interactive scenario creation and testing. Through a series of standardized workshops, we recruited participants from a variety of different communities of practice (i.e. researchers, land managers, educators, non-governmental organization staff, and community board members) to design “visions of resilience”. Visions spanned terrestrial and marine environments and contained natural and built ecosystems. Most users favored increasing resilience through expanding salt marsh and green infrastructure while, for the most part, keeping the built city landscape of streets and buildings intact. We compare and contrast these visions and discuss the implications for future resilience planning in coastal cities.

     

A two-stage phase II trial design utilizing both primary and secondary endpoints

Phase II trials in oncology drug development are usually conducted to perform the initial assessment of treatment activity. The common designs in this setting, for example, Simon 2-stage designs, are often developed based on testing whether a parameter of interest, usually a proportion (e.g. response rate), is less than a certain level or not. These designs usually consider only one parameter. However, sometimes we may encounter situations where we need to consider not a single parameter, but multiple parameters. This paper presents a two-stage design in which both primary and secondary endpoints are utilized in the decision rules. The family-wise Type 1 error rate and statistical power of the proposed design are investigated under a variety of situations by means of Monte-Carlo simulations.     

Responses of US college and university student health services to the 2004 influenza vaccine shortage

The United States experienced a shortage of influenza vaccine for the 2004--2005 influenza season. The authors surveyed college health programs to determine whether they had targeted vaccine to priority groups and knew how to reallocate remaining vaccine. They used an electronic message to distribute a Web-based survey to the members of 3 college-affiliated organizations--the Association of American Colleges and Universities, American Association of Community Colleges, American College Health Association--and to subscribers of the Student Health Service Listserv. They received 434 completed surveys. Sixty percent (259) of the respondents stated they had received vaccine and planned to vaccinate their high-risk students, staff, and faculty members; 77% (198) planned to reallocate leftover vaccine. Given the potential for future disruptions of the influenza vaccine supply, the authors recommend that college health programs establish policies to identify members of their high-risk population and also consider providing the live attenuated influenza virus vaccine.     

The AIAC,A Design for Systematically Analyzing Marriage and Family Counseling: A Progress Report*

The Allred Interaction Analysis for Counselors is an instrument for systematically analyzing counselors' and clients' verbal behaviors. It was constructed to provide marriage and family counselors-in-training a method for acquiring meaningful, objective feedback on their counseling behaviors. The interrater reliability coefficients have been high. Results of validity studies have been encouraging. Though the instrument was initially designed from analysis of structured family counseling, research indicates it may have rather wide application for many different counseling approaches and settings.     

Categorical variable selection based on entropy reduction

This paper presents the derivation of a categorical variable selection technique which utilizes the entropy function as a measure of variability for nominally scaled variables. The selection criterion uses likelihood ratio statistics which, for the hypotheses under consideration, are identical to minimum discrimination information statistics. Thus, the paper provides an alternative motivation for a selection technique based on discriminatory power, and it provides an extension of that technique to the multipopulation discrimination problem. The selection technique is illustrated for a study in which we discriminate among three populations: cervical cancer patients, population-based controls, and hospital-based controls.