Formal governance,interfirm coordination,and performance in partnerships: An empirical investigation of a mediation model

This study investigates the extent to which formal governance mechanisms such as contracts and equity ownership affect interfirm coordination and partnership performance. We analysed data from a survey of 301 Korean firms to show that interfirm coordination partially mediates the relationship between contract completeness, defined as the extent to which a contract specifies task operations and contingencies, and partnership performance. Furthermore, we find that more complete contracts can attenuate the negative effects of equity ownership on coordination, and that this effect is particularly strong when partner tasks are interdependent and relational norms are weak.     

转型期实现内外均衡的政策搭配研究

中国在入世后的10年左右 ,正处于转型经济中。应该通过调节社会总需求、社会总供给等政策工具 ,实现合理搭配 ,以达到中国宏观经济的内外均衡     

企业家思辨

本文对不同学派的企业家观进行了分析 ,从管理学角度出发指出对企业家的分析应从企业 (企业维度 )、企业发展 (时间维度 )、企业家能力与企业发展的要求相匹配三个维度进行 ,只有那些具备与企业发展阶段相适应领导能力与管理能力的人才堪称企业家。     

Inventory and transshipment decisions in the rationing game under capacity uncertainty

In this paper, we consider the inventory decisions of two retailers who are supplied by a single supplier with uncertain capacity. When capacity is allocated in proportion to the retailers׳ orders, the retailers compete for the capacity by inflating their orders (i.e., the rationing game). In addition, we allow the retailers to implement transshipment between them such that they cooperate by transshipping the surplus stock of one to another who is out of stock. Our analysis of Nash equilibrium orders shows that, while order inflation in the equilibrium orders persists in the rationing game with transshipment, it may not occur if the amount of capacity shortage is small and the transshipment prices are low. Thus, carefully chosen transshipment prices may alleviate order inflation behavior. We also characterize centralized orders that maximize the total profit of the retailers and compare them to equilibrium orders. In particular, we investigate coordinating transshipment prices that induce the retailers to choose centralized orders. Our numerical analysis shows that, even for two identical retailers, coordinating transshipment prices exist in a more limited range of parameter values in the rationing game than they do outside the rationing game due to capacity uncertainty and limitation.     

我国城市经济圈合作机制创新研究

构建城市经济圈是我国城乡发展一体化和区域社会经济协调发展的重要趋势。经济圈的空间构成涵盖若干独立的行政区域,探索经济圈在协作机制方面的创新,寻求经济圈在协调机制、合作方式、利益调整、社会管理机构等方面的新机制,是经济圈健康、有序运行的关键所在。从目前我国现有经济圈的发展现状和问题来看,严重的行政分割、行政壁垒、地方保护主义等仍是其发展的主要体制机制障碍。在经济圈合作协调发展方面发达国家和地区的经验为我们提供了许多有益的借鉴和启示。经济圈合作机制的构建和创新最根本的是组建中央政府、地方政府和市场中介组织三个层面的制度性组织机构,并在经济圈内建立跨行政区的协调治理机构,并建立完善的利益调节和平衡机制。     

Linking Electronic Medical Records Use to Physicians’ Performance: A Contextual Analysis

Electronic Medical Records (EMR) studies have broadly tested EMR use and outcomes, producing mixed and inconclusive results. This study carefully considers the healthcare delivery context and examines relevant mediating variables. We consider key characteristics of: (i) interdependence in healthcare delivery processes, (ii) physician autonomy, and (iii) the trend of hospital employment of physicians, and draw on theoretical perspectives in coordination, shared values, and agency to explain how the use of EMR can improve physicians’ performance. In order to examine the effects of physician employment on work practices in the hospital, we collected 583 data points from 302 hospitals in 47 states in the USA to test two models: one for employed and another for nonemployed physicians. Results show that information sharing and shared values among healthcare delivery professionals fully mediate the relationship between EMR use and physicians’ performance. Next, physician employment determines which mediating variable constitutes the pathway from EMR use to physicians’ performance. Finally, we highlight the impact of shared values between the hospital and physicians in enhancing information sharing and physicians’ performance, extending studies of these behaviors among network partners in industrial settings. Overall, our study shows that EMR use should be complemented by processual (information sharing), social (shared values), and structural (physician employment) mechanisms to yield positive effects on physicians’ performance.     

Bargaining within the Supply Chain and Its Implications in an Industry

Our main objective is to investigate the influence of the bargaining power within a chain on its industry. As a building block, we first discuss the implications of bargaining within a single chain by considering an asymmetric Nash bargaining over the wholesale price (BW). We show that both Manufacturer Stackelberg (MS) and vertical integration (VI) strategies are special cases of the BW contract. We then develop the Nash equilibrium in an industry with two supply chains that use BW. We identify the profit‐maximizing (coordinating) bargaining power within this industry. We show that when a chain is not monopolistic, VI does not coordinate the chain and that the MS contract, where the manufacturer has all the bargaining power, is coordinating when competition is intense. We find that the main determinant of the equilibrium in mature industries is to respond well to the actions of the competing chain rather than to directly maximize the profit of each chain. That is, the equilibrium does not necessarily maximize the profit of the entire industry. While a coordination of the industry could then increase the profitability of both chains, such a coordination is likely against antitrust law. Moreover, if one chain cannot change its actions, the other chain may unilaterally improve its profitability by deviating from the equilibrium. Our results lead to several predictions supported by empirical findings, such as that in competitive industries chains will work “close to” the MS contract.     

Joint Beliefs in Conflictual Coordination Games

The traditional solution concept for noncooperative game theory is the Nash equilibrium, which contains an implicit assumption that players probability distributions satisfy t probabilistic independence. However, in games with more than two players, relaxing this assumption results in a more general equilibrium concept based on joint beliefs (Vanderschraaf, 1995). This article explores the implications of this joint-beliefs equilibrium concept for two kinds of conflictual coordination games: crisis bargaining and public goods provision. We find that, using updating consistent with Bayes rule, players beliefs converge to equilibria in joint beliefs which do not satisfy probabilistic independence. In addition, joint beliefs greatly expand the set of mixed equilibria. On the face of it, allowing for joint beliefs might be expected to increase the prospects for coordination. However, we show that if players use joint beliefs, which may be more likely as the number of players increases, then the prospects for coordination in these games declines vis-à-vis independent beliefs.     

环境与经济协调发展评价与对策研究——以苏南地区为例

本文以江苏省苏南地区17个样本城市为研究对象,构建了一套环境与经济协调发展的评价指标体系。并在因子分析基础上,测算了苏南地区城市环境与经济的协调度与协调发展度。最终依据上述两个综合评价指标,本文将这些城市分为环境与经济协调发展较好型、一般型和较差型三类,并提出了进一步发展的相关政策建议。     

Benchmark Schedules for Subcontracted Operations: Decentralization Inefficiencies that Arise from Competition and First‐Come‐First‐Served Processing*

Subcontracting has become a prominent business practice across many industries. Subcontracting of industrial production is generally based on short‐term need for additional processing capacity, and is frequently employed by manufacturers to process customer orders more quickly than using only in‐house production. In this article, we study a popular business model where multiple manufacturers, each capable of processing his entire workload in‐house, have the option to subcontract some of their operations to a single third party with a flexible resource. Each manufacturer can deliver customer orders only after his entire batch of jobs, processed in‐house and at the third party, is completed. The third party facility is available to several manufacturers who compete for its use. Current business practice of First‐Come‐First‐Served (FCFS) processing of the subcontracted workloads as well as the competitive Nash equilibrium schedules developed in earlier studies result in two types of inefficiencies; the third party capacity is not maximally utilized, and the manufacturers incur decentralization cost. In this article, we develop models to assess the value created by coordinating the manufacturers' subcontracting decisions by comparing two types of centralized control against FCFS and Nash equilibrium schedules. We present optimal and/or approximate algorithms to quantify the third party underutilization and the manufacturers' decentralization cost. We find that both inefficiencies are more severe with competition than they are when the third party allocates capacity in an FCFS manner. However, in a decentralized setting, a larger percentage of the players prefer Nash equilibrium schedules to FCFS schedules. We extend our analysis to incomplete information scenarios where manufacturers reveal limited demand information, and find that more information dramatically benefits the third party and the manufacturers, however, the marginal benefit of additional information is decreasing. Finally, we discuss an extension wherein each manufacturer's objective takes into account asymmetries in subcontracting, in‐house processing, and delay costs.