Enhancing effects of manufacturing flexibility through operational absorptive capacity and operational ambidexterity

A large body of research investigates how manufacturing flexibility in uncertain environments leads to firm performance, with mixed results. The mixed findings could be due to differences across firms in terms of the capabilities to acquire, assimilate, and transform knowledge and to simultaneously pursue both the exploitation of existing operational capabilities and the exploration for new operational capabilities. Building on the literature that suggests that manufacturing flexibility mediates the relationship between environmental uncertainty and firm performance, we explore the applicability of two organizational learning contingencies to the operations environment: operational absorptive capability and operational ambidexterity. Absorptive capacity enables the recognition and assimilation of new knowledge. Ambidexterity determines whether this knowledge will be applied for both exploration and exploitation. Using a sample of 852 manufacturing firms, we find that environmental uncertainty affects firm performance directly and indirectly through manufacturing flexibility. Furthermore, both operational absorptive capacity and operational ambidexterity moderate the relationship between environmental uncertainty and manufacturing flexibility and the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and firm performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Multi-level driving forces of biological invasions

Biological invasions are human-induced processes affecting biodiversity. Information on biological invasions can be organized following the categories of the DPSIR model. This paper examines the state of the art in the application of this model to the study and management of biological invasions.The paper focuses on driving forces and pressures, clarifying the different levels at which drivers operate and promote invasion processes. Identifying driving forces is necessary not only to understand the processes behind biological invasions but also to generate policy initiatives that address threats to biodiversity at different levels of governance. Thus driving forces and pressures on biological invasions are identified taking into account the multi-level character of such processes. The final section reviews the role that different stakeholders play in biological invasion management and finally elaborates a list of indicators derived from the analysis that can be used in decision making concerning invasion processes.     

Operational solar forecasting for the real-time market

Despite the significant progress made in solar forecasting over the last decade, most of the proposed models cannot be readily used by independent system operators (ISOs). This article proposes an operational solar forecasting algorithm that is closely aligned with the real-time market (RTM) forecasting requirements of the California ISO (CAISO). The algorithm first uses the North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast system to generate hourly forecasts for a 5-h period that are issued 12 h before the actual operating hour, satisfying the lead-time requirement. Subsequently, the world’s fastest similarity search algorithm is adopted to downscale the hourly forecasts generated by NAM to a 15-min resolution, satisfying the forecast-resolution requirement. The 5-h-ahead forecasts are repeated every hour, following the actual rolling update rate of CAISO. Both deterministic and probabilistic forecasts generated using the proposed algorithm are empirically evaluated over a period of 2 years at 7 locations in 5 climate zones.     

Operational risk and its impact on North American and British banks

This study examines the financial impact of operational risk and its loss announcements on the value of publicly traded banks in United States, UK and Canada. There are three main findings: (1) on average, the market reacts more negatively to a loss’s initial announcement than its settlement news; (2) operational loss events cause strong reputational damage to the announcing banks and (3) the market is particularly sensitive to the announcement of losses caused by internal fraud, of a large magnitude, resulted in the order of restitution, and that are the rulings of a regulatory investigation.     

“一带一路”倡议下企业如何规避外汇风险--基于经营性对冲和金融性对冲的比较

"一带一路"倡议下我国"走出去"的企业越来越多,企业国外业务占比日益增加,小币种汇率的不稳定性引致汇率波动风险不断攀升。本文基于2013-2017年264家参与"一带一路"建设的中国企业微观数据,实证检验了企业经营性对冲和金融性对冲策略的外汇风险对冲效果以及二者之间的关系。研究结果表明:经营性对冲和金融性对冲都能起到良好的对冲效果,经营性对冲的效果优于金融性对冲,二者之间是互补关系;东道国综合发展程度越高,企业采取经营性对冲策略的对冲效果越好,且制造业企业比非制造业企业更适合采用经营性对冲策略。     

经营风险与企业杠杆率

本文从理论和实证两方面考察企业经营风险将如何影响其杠杆率。其中,企业面临的经营风险被定义为在企业所属“年份×城市×二位行业”层面内除自身外其他所有企业资产收益率(ROA)的分布标准差。整体而言,当企业经营风险上升时,其投资和负债决策将更加保守,表现为资产负债表收缩和杠杆率下降。分债务期限来看,杠杆率的变化又可分为“规模效应”和“结构效应”,前者指向投资、负债决策的整体收缩,后者指向债务结构中短期负债占比的下降。经营风险上升时,杠杆率下降主要体现为短期债务的缩减;分所有制来看,非国有企业对经营风险的敏感度较强,国有企业对经营风险的敏感度较小,这与两类企业的融资难易程度相符。     

国家科技奖励绩效评价指标体系生成机理探析

本质上，国家科技奖励绩效评价指标体系生成是国家科技奖励绩效基本概念从抽象到具体的操作化过程。遵循“基本概念—评价维度—测量指标”的逻辑理路，探析国家科技奖励绩效评价指标体系的生成机理。研究发现，在国家科技奖励绩效评价指标体系生成过程中，概念操作化是逻辑起点，评价维度解构是逻辑中介，测量指标筛选与赋权是逻辑终点。在生成机理剖析基础上构建的绩效评价指标体系更接近国家科技奖励绩效的本质内涵，更能体现国家科技奖励的核心绩效。     

RESEARCH ON STRUCTURAL HOLES: AN ASSESSMENT ON MEASUREMENT ISSUES

Social capital theory generally analyses network structures by focusing on the connections between players. However, it has been suggested by several authors that the absence of relations in a network or ‘structural holes’ is meaningful. The aim of our paper is to provide a global survey and appraisal of the academic research on structural holes and discuss its main measurements. We adopt a bibliometric approach and identify a typology of practices, developments, and issues related to structural holes. We highlight a strand of work on operationalization of structural holes, and discuss the various measures they propose. We provide numerical examples emphasizing the respective advantages and limitations of the studied measures. Based on our results, we propose a guide to using existing measures of structural holes according to the type (simple or complex) of network.     

单运放RC振荡器

本文根据网络变换的方法,讨论了由一个运算放大器构成RC振荡器时的12种电路形式.并说明这12种电路形式可以分为三组,每组包台四个不同但却紧密相关的电路.     

一款基于LM324集成运放廉价高性能仪用放大器

LM324是一种4集成运算放大器，由于价廉且使用方便，被广泛应用于控制和一般信号放大处理之中。在信号的精密放大处理中，经过认真设计和反复实验，用LM324构成的电路成功实现了精密信号的放大处理，即用于对仪器仪表的信号进行放大处理。其主要技术指标如稳定性、线性、增益、温度稳定性等并不亚于专用精密仪用放大器。