Change within purchasing and supply management organisations – Assessing the claims from maturity models

It is a wide-held assumption that professional development and change within purchasing and supply management (PSM) organisations can be explained and guided by a maturity model. In this paper the guidance which the maturity model concept offers to understand a PSM organisation's performance is assessed. The methodology is based on the outcomes of a literature review of PSM maturity models, development of an organisational change framework and the learning from three qualitative case studies. An alternative understanding of the development of the PSM organisation is offered through an organisational change framework, composing 1) movement transitions, 2) scalability of change, 3) acceptability of change, and 4) the substantive element of change. The research found that extant PSM maturity models are too rigid for PSM managers to apply, and although maturity models are commonly accepted in PSM literature, in practice, they may produce the opposite effect of what is promised. The PSM maturity models suggest that their application will lead to increased status and influence of PSM within the organisation; expectations that may not be met. PSM organisations’ change processes are subjected to a range of situational and contextual power relations which must be considered in order to advance the specific PSM organisation roles and responsibilities.     

Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

Chinese banking reforms in perspective: towards global alignment or national specificity?

The reforms of the banking sector in China conducted so far have been seeking to accomplish, simultaneously, two conflicting goals. On the one hand, the objective was to prepare Chinese banks for international competition and put them at the pace with the transformations observed in its overall economy. On the other, there is a social-driven agenda concerning employment and regional inequalities. Using principal component analysis, this article explores the impact of the ongoing reforms in the Chinese banking sector on the performance of individual banks. The results show that despite identical regulation, business practices can be dissimilar at the individual level. Taken collectively, the results also show the increasing influence of Western management standards in the Chinese banking sector.     

稻鳅共生种养模式试验研究

[目的]稻鳅共生是典型的稻田综合利用模式,符合生态农业发展方向。通过对稻鳅共生生态系统的生理生态学机制开展试验研究,为进一步推广稻鳅共生种养模式提供科学依据。[方法]采用田间试验方法,以水稻单作为对照,研究了不同泥鳅养殖密度下的稻鳅共生对水稻农艺性状、土壤理化性质、水稻产量构成的影响,并对稻鳅共生种养模式进行了经济效益分析。[结果]与对照处理相比,水稻长势在株高、有效分蘖率、根长等方面有一定提高。养殖田水稻株高增高了3%,有效分蘖率提高了8%~11%,根长提高了8.8%~31.3%。在土壤理化性质方面,与对照相比,土壤容重降低了7.1%~21.2%,孔隙度增加了4.1%~14.7%。实验前后养殖田内土壤有机质增加了3.5%~26.5%,对照田降低了2.5%~5.8%。土壤肥力(氮、磷、钾)减少,但减少幅度小于对照处理。稻鳅共生种养模式下水稻产量提高了5%~25%,同时稻田增收泥鳅1 725~3 375kg/hm2,净收入为1.836 0万~2.307 0万元/hm2,经济效益提高了3.65~4.84倍。稻鳅共生种养模式中泥鳅的养殖密度为30万尾/hm2时稻田的生态效益和经济效益最佳。[结论]稻鳅共生有效改善了土壤理化性质,促进了水稻的生长,提高了稻田产量和产值。     

水源地突发水污染政府应急预留水量需求预测

近年来,随着工业化和产业化的快速发展,水源地突发水污染事件频发。为应对紧急情况下的水资源非常规需求,保障经济社会稳定发展,政府需要安排一部分应急预留水量。如何合理预测政府应急预留水量的规模是一个值得探讨的课题。提出了一种基于案例推理技术的政府应急预留水量需求预测方法,具体思路是:借助于案例库,利用主成分分析法从众多影响水源地突发水污染事件的因素中提取出两两不相关的因子,以此作为案例的特征属性,基于加权曼哈顿距离测算相似度,依此得到匹配案例,进而测算政府应急预留水量。以太湖流域常州地区水源地为例,进行政府预留水量需求量的预测与分析。该方法可以为政府应急预留水量的配置、储备等提供相关理论知识。     

A Multicriteria Approach for Modeling Small Enterprise Credit Rating: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

As the engine of China’s economy, small enterprises have been the central to the country’s economic development. However, given the characteristics of the small enterprises loan (i.e., short borrowing period, large volume, small amount and incomplete information), it is extremely challenging for financial institutions to assess their creditworthiness. Thus, it seriously delays and restricts the financing access for small enterprises. In an attempt to relieve the financing difficulty of small enterprises, this article makes use of 687 small wholesale and retail enterprises in a regional commercial bank in China, to establish a credit rating indicator system composed of 17 indicators by using both partial correlation analysis and probit regression. It then utilizes TOPSIS together with fuzzy C-means to score the credit ratings of our sample of small enterprises. With the dual test of default discrimination and ROC curve, the prediction accuracy of the established indicator system has reached 80.10% and 0.917, respectively, indicating the robustness and validity of our credit rating system.     

The German labor market during the Great Recession: Shocks and institutions

This paper analyzes Germany's unusual labor market experience during the Great Recession. We estimate a general equilibrium model with a detailed labor market block for post-unification Germany. This allows us to disentangle the role of institutions (short-time work, government spending rules) and shocks (aggregate, labor market, and policy shocks) and to perform counterfactual exercises. We identify positive labor market performance shocks (likely caused by labor market reforms) as the key driver for the “German labor market miracle” during the Great Recession.     

通胀目标制与汇率目标制不能共存吗

基于汇率传递的风险溢价渠道，本文将我国利率调控通胀、外汇储备对冲干预汇率纳入新凯恩斯政策模型，构建双目标双工具政策分析框架，比较泰勒规则与双目标双工具规则下通胀目标与汇率目标共存的经济机制与效应。本文模拟显示：（1）双目标双工具政策框架下通胀目标与汇率目标能够共存，此时通过影响汇率风险溢价来盯住汇率不影响通胀；而单工具政策下两目标无法共存，此时降低国内资产的收益率盯住汇率会刺激居民的消费行为引起通胀。（2）国际资本冲击下，双目标双工具政策在固定汇率的同时能保证经济稳定；而当贸易条件恶化时，选择完全浮动汇率制度最优。央行政策损失分析进一步验证了以上结论。（3）随着金融市场化改革深入，外汇储备稳定汇率的有效性将下降，冲销成本会大幅提升。资本账户开放下，双目标双工具政策仍是央行抵御外部资本冲击的首选政策；但是汇率市场化后，通胀目标制与双目标双工具政策效果基本无差异。本文结论的启示是：面对国际资本，需必要的汇率管制；但是面对贸易冲击，可适度提升汇率弹性来减少冲击对产出和通胀的影响。     

Use and misuse of information in supply chain forecasting of promotion effects

Demand forecasting is critical to sales and operations planning (S&OP), but the effects of sales promotions can be difficult to forecast. Typically, a baseline statistical forecast is judgmentally adjusted on receipt of information from different departments. However, much of this information either has no predictive value or its value is unknown. Research into base rate discounting has suggested that such information may distract forecasters from the average uplift and reduce accuracy. This has been investigated in situations in which forecasters were able to adjust the statistical forecasts for promotions via a forecasting support system (FSS). In two ecologically valid experiments, forecasters were provided with the mean level of promotion uplift, a baseline statistical forecast, and quantitative and qualitative information. However, the forecasters were distracted from the base rate and misinterpreted the information available to them. These findings have important implications for the design of organizational S&OP processes, and for the implementation of FSSs.