Implementing property tax reforms in Bangalore: an actor-network perspective

Many municipal governments in developing countries are experiencing serious difficulties in dealing with the rapid growth of population in cities. Catalysed through processes of globalisation, the growth of cities, especially the so-called ‘mega-cities’, has not been matched by investments in infrastructure like roads and power due to the inability of local government organizations to collect adequate revenues from sources like property tax. Recognizing these difficulties, agencies such as the Asian Development Bank have initiated systems for property tax reforms in a number of Asian cities, including Bangalore. In this paper, we discuss the story of this reform process drawing upon the actor-network perspective on translations. We argue that such a perspective helps to go beyond studying innovation processes through the lens of ‘technology diffusion’, and provides a more interesting and insightful perspective of ‘technology translation’.     

Fear Becomes the Unintended Consequence of Creativity/Innovation

Creativity and innovation are essential elements for growth in organizations to achieve a competitive advantage. Transformational leaders often exhibit traits reflective of being creative and innovative, thus creating a cultural climate that fosters, embraces, and produces effective change. That productive organizational atmosphere can become toxic and initiate unintended behavioral consequences. People are psychologically and physiologically attracted to stability. The continual burden to develop effective creativity and innovation outcomes creates organizational and individual stress. Stress, which unconsciously produces fear, develops from the initial pressure to create ideas and subsequent effective innovations. Next, anxiety is heightened relative to performance expectations. Finally, a successful innovation becomes an expectancy barometer, adding supplemental stress and anxiety about future ideas and initiatives. The unintended consequence of fear can manifest into resistance and an unconscious inhibitor in producing creativity and innovation.     

Core-stem solutions of n-person essential games

A new wide class of internally stable solutions to essential n-person games in characteristic function form, ‘core-stem’ solutions, is herein derived based on the notion of ‘core of a coalition’ and a finite sequence of meta-games (a ‘stem of games’) with a ‘stem-level’ solution for each meta-level. Core-stem solutions exist for every game, can diner according to different stems selected or different stem-level solutions selected. An example with an implausible core and plausible core-stem solution (two different stems) is presented.     

Technology policy between ‘diversity’ and ‘one best practice’ — A comparison of Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies

Policy makers in all industrialized countries are increasingly orienting their science and technology policy towards foreign patterns. There seems to be ‘one best practice’ which is used by all nations to make their economies fit for global competition.This paper doubts this paradigm. By comparing the South Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies, it is shown that an appropriate technology policy has to take the individual national system of innovation into consideration. Merely initating the examples of countries with different frame conditions is inappropriate.Diversity in science and technology policy has been the precondition for the success of contributions of these policies to economic and technological development in both South Korea and Germany.     

A review of the literature on environmental innovation management in SMEs: implications for public policies

The aim of this article is to collect and make up the most important contributions in the economic literature in relation to the special characteristics of the management of the environmental innovation in the SMEs. Specifically, we want to show their strengths and weaknesses in order to make up the main conclusions of these analyses with the literature in relation to the way Public Administrations face this situation. The scarce development in the SMEs in respect to their environmental strategy may be a consequence of the links among some of the following factors: limited financial resources, the type of organizational structure, a little influence of the strategic adaptation competence against the changes in the SMEs, the managers’ scarce environmental training and short term orientation, the staff’s scarce environmental awareness and training, the status of the environmental issues in the company, the SMEs’ lower ability to obtain highly radical innovations, the scarce influence of manufacturing process flexibility in the most advanced states of the environmental strategy in the SMEs and their lack of relation ability with external stakeholders—very important in the success of the most advanced environmental approaches. Besides, the lack of regulation neutrality must be added as a key difference among companies of different sizes. So specific actions seem be necessary, such as technological advice and awareness, and training programs in order to cooperate with external stakeholders.     

Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation

With rapid changes in technology, and global competition, the success of many organizations has become progressively more dependent on their ability to bring innovative products to market. Ultimately, however, innovation depends on the generation of creative, new ideas. Accordingly, the literature bearing on the nature of creativity is reviewed to identify the conditions that influence innovation. Observations about the nature of creativity are used to draw conclusions about the kind of human resource management strategies that might enhance creativity. It is argued that organizations should consider multiple interventions that take into account the individual, the group, the organization, and the strategic environment when selecting interventions intended to enhance creativity.     

How Creative Can Leaders Afford to be Without Losing Credibility?

Leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the life blood of their organization. New ideas can lead to programs that are superior to an organization's established or planned programs. Leadership is to engage the right people, at the right times, to the right degree, in creative work. Inspirational leaders will promote employee creativity. On the other hand, the ability of leaders to be creative is an essential quality of leadership. Done well, the change of course looks like a moment of courage. The leader went to the precipice and had the strength to say, Let's turn back. Done badly, the change of course looks like pure opportunism or lack of conviction, and the leader's leadership credibility is undermined. The line between the two is thin. Which side a leader ends up on depends essentially on how the leader takes into account essential strategic factors, and how hard the leader will work to keep others on their side when they make the move.     

服装专业学生创新能力的培养

现代服装教育本身就是一个创新的过程,教师必须具有创新意识,改变以知识传授为中心的教学思路,以培养学生的创新意识和实践能力为目标,从教学思想到教学方式上,大胆突破,确立创新性教学原则。     

Towards a common understanding of the differences between purchasing, procurement and commissioning in the UK public sector

This paper recognises that commissioning has now become an important term in the lexicon of UK public policy but the term ‘commissioning’ is taking on a different meaning than that traditionally used within the purchasing and supply management community. The frequent inter-changeability of the terms ‘commissioning’, ‘procurement’ and ‘purchasing’ is now causing confusion and means different things to different people. Therefore the academic community needs to help practitioners understand the differences and implications. A document analysis of various UK Central Government departments’ commissioning frameworks was used to establish the key themes and compare commissioning, procurement and purchasing. This paper discusses the similarities and differences, and argues that commissioning is different from procurement, but that commissioning offers major opportunities for Procurement practitioners to make a strategic contribution.     

A theory of formal conceptual definitions: developing theory-building measurement instruments

This study develops the need for formal conceptual definitions (sometimes called nominal definitions) and how to develop better measurement instruments for theory-building. It develops the underlying theory for ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions by defining terms, demonstrating that formal conceptual definitions are needed for all theory-building empirical research, explains how and why ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions are used to develop properties and their measures, and last, it logically explains that good formal conceptual definitions are necessary conditions for construct validity (content validity, criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity) while statistical tests are sufficient conditions for validity. This theory development explains why formal conceptual definitions are necessary before any traditional statistical empirical validity tests are performed. This study suggests that any statistical validity tests are not meaningful if the concept is not formally defined.In short, the theory of formal conceptual definitions provides a structure to develop ‘good’ measures of the formal theory that leads to ‘good’ empirical theory-building.     

Stochastic processes of temporary equilibria

It is the aim of the paper to study within the framework of an ‘overlapping generation model’ the evolution of temporary equilibria. At date t, there are ‘newborn’ agents and ‘old’ agents who were born in previous periods; the old agents hold cash balances (fiat money) that they carried over from the previous period. At the beginning of period t, all agents receive a random endowment of consumption goods. Then the agents exchange these endowments and money on spot markets at date t (trading in future markets is not considered). Once a temporary equilibrium is reached, the economy move to the next date. Agents who were born at date t then become old and meet agents born at period t+1.It is shown that the evolution of temporary equilibria in this model leads to analyse the ergodic properties of a certain class of Markov processes with stationary transition probability.     

Unpacking the client(s): Constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics

Research on management consultancy usually emphasizes the role and perspective of the consultants. Whilst important, consultants are only one element in a dynamic relationship involving both consultants and their clients. In much of the literature, the client is neglected, or is assumed to represent a distinct, immutable entity. In this paper, we argue that the client organisation is not uniform but is instead (like organisations generally) a more or less heterogeneous assemblage of actors, interests and inclinations involved in multiple and varied ways in consultancy projects. This paper draws upon three empirical cases and emphasizes three key aspects of clients in the context of consultancy projects: (a) client diversity, including, but not limited to diversity arising solely from (pre-)structured contact relations and interests; (b) processes of constructing ‘the client’ (including negotiation, conflict, and reconstruction) and the client identities which are thereby produced; and (c) the dynamics of client–consultant relations and how these influence the construction of multiple and perhaps contested client positions and identities.     

Economic dynamics of reservoir sedimentation management: Optimal control with singularly perturbed equations of motion

We analyze the economic dynamics of reservoir sedimentation management using the hydrosuction-dredging sediment-removal system. System dynamics depend on two interdependent hydraulic processes evolving at different rates. The accumulation of water impounded in the reservoir evolves on a ‘fast’ time scale, while the loss of water storage capacity to trapped sediments evolves on a ‘slow’ time scale. We formulate a multidimensional optimal control problem with singularly perturbed equations of motion to accommodate the disparate time scales. We apply singular perturbation methods to approximate (via polynomial series expansion) a ‘slow’ manifold reducing multi-dimensional solution space to the single-dimensional subspace confining long-term dynamics.     

Developing breakthrough products: challenges and options for market assessment

Competitive pressures and market forces are augmenting the importance of product innovation as a source of competitive advantage. Key drivers underpinning market success have the capacity to develop the “right” products for the “right” customers, using the “right” channels, with a shorter development cycle than competitors. But when breakthrough products (BTPs) are involved, how do we sort out what is “right”? How do we identify customers' future requirements when the technology platforms are still unfolding, products are still in development and customers lack experience with the product? Traditional product development market research techniques are problematic since they assume the customer has historical experience with products similar to those being created. The objective of this paper is to raise the awareness of the OM community with the strengths and weaknesses of existing methodologies for developing and introducing innovative products to market. Further, it suggests promising future directions for both practice and research when BTPs are involved. This is important because of the central role OM plays in managing the success of the BTP development process.     

Implementation of enterprise resource planning in China

ERP implementation is a ‘Triple Play’ that combines people, technology, and processes. It embodies a complex implementation process, especially in developing countries like China, often taking several years, huge amount of fund and involving a major business process reengineering exercise. In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify some Chinese-specific difficulties in the implementation process and provide solutions to implement ERP system successfully through questionnaire survey, interviews, and secondary data. On the basis of analysis of questionnaire results, some common difficulties have been explored by authors, such as support of top management, costly and time-consuming, cultural differences, technical complexity, lack of professional personnel, and inner resistance. The difficulties are largely due to the nature of enterprise's ownership and size. Suggested solutions to overcome these difficulties: ERP software packages selection, ERP implementation team, BPR, Training, and Outsourcing-Application Service Provider. These solutions can effectively solve ERP difficulties.     

Self-organized criticality in evolutionary systems with local interaction

This paper studies a stylized model of local interaction where agents choose from an ever increasing set of vertically ranked actions, e.g. technologies. The driving forces of the model are infrequent upward shifts (‘updates’), followed by a rapid process of local imitation (‘diffusion’). Our main focus is on the regularities displayed by the long-run distribution of diffusion waves and their implication on the performance of the system. By integrating analytical techniques and numerical simulations, we come to the following two main conclusions. (1) If non-coordination costs are sufficiently high, the system behaves critically, in the sense customarily used in physics. (2) The performance of the system is optimal at the frontier of the critical region. Heuristically, this may be interpreted as an indication that (performance-sensitive) evolutionary forces induce the system to be placed ‘at the edge of order and chaos’.     

关于信息技术教育创新的探析

信息技术课程是一门体现创新性和实践性较强的课程,对于培养学生的创新能力有着独特的优势。本文结合自己的教学实践,谈谈关于信息技术教育中如何实现创新的几点想法。     

On the convergence of Bayesian posterior processes in linear economic models Counting equations and unknowns

I propose a technique, counting ‘equations’ and ‘unknowns’, for determining when the posterior distributions of the parameters of a linear regression process converge to their true values. This is applied to examples and to the infinite-horizon optimal control of this linear regression process with learning, and in particular to the problem of a monopolist seeking to maximize profits with unknown demand curve. Such a monopolist has a tradeoff between choosing an action to maximize the current-period reward and to maximize the information value of that action. I use the above technique to determine the monopolist's limiting behavior and to determine whether in the limit it learns the true parameter values of the demand curve.     

试析思想政治教育对大学生创新意识的培养

创新能力由诸多要素构成,创新意识是其中关键性构成要素之一,能否具有创新能力,关键在于能否具有创新意识。而在高校教育中,思想政治教育工作对培养大学生创新意识有着至关重要的作用。     

基于K-means算法的企业服务创新方向选择研究

企业在进行服务创新过程中,首先需要考虑到企业发展战略与其自身优势能力的匹配性,结合这两点来确定服务创新的发展方向。本文研究了企业基于自身已有的优势能力,运用K-means算法建立了企业服务创新战略方向选择模型,识别并确定了企业服务创新战略方向,由此得出企业进行服务创新时的最佳服务定位策略。