Profit oriented and decision time market segmentation

The authors report a refinement of their Survey Implemented Market Segmentation (SIMS) algorithm that adds decisiontime implementation by retailers. The analysis incorporates more completely the complexity of practical market segmentation policy alternatives. Two retailing executives aided in classifying variables that characterize potential market segments in terms of their temporal implementability. The result is an ability to formulate a segmentation policy applicable to long-range, medium-range, or short-range planning horizons.     

Market power and efficiency

This paper introduces new measures of the mean and variance of inflation and growth expectations, based on tendency survey data from four major European economies. The expectations measures are technically ‘irrational’, but more accurate than naive alternatives; expectations errors do not persist for more than a year. Unexpected inflation, and uncertainties about inflation and growth, play the roles assigned them by New Classical macroeconomic theory, respectively raising and lowering real activity. All the expectations, uncertainties and errors appear more closely correlated across countries than experience would justify, suggesting that unpredictable disturbances typically have an internal rather than an international origin.     

EOQ application in a pharmaceutical environment: A case study

This paper describes a successful application of classical inventory theory at a drug manufacturing plant located in Montreal that has resulted in annual savings in the order of $110,800 and assisted management in its decision to invest in larger production equipment. The basic assumptions underlying EOQ models are reviewed and dealt with. For instance, an algorithm was devised to handle the peaks in the demand of many A class items. Following the implementation of this algorithm, buffer stocks were reduced signifi cantly while maintaining the same high levels of service.     

Commodity and equity markets: Some stylized facts from a copula approach

In this paper, we propose to identify the dependence structure that exists between returns on equity and commodity futures and its development over the past 20 years. The key point is that we do not impose any dependence structure, but let the data select it. To do so, we model the dependence between commodity (metal, agriculture and energy) and stock markets using a flexible approach that allows us to investigate whether the co-movement is: (i) symmetrical and frequent, (ii) (a) symmetrical and mostly present during extreme events and (iii) asymmetrical and mostly present during extreme events. We also allow for this dependence to be time-varying from January 1990 to February 2012. Our analysis uncovers three major stylised facts. First, we find that the dependence between commodity and stock markets is time-varying, symmetrical and occurs most of the time (as opposed to mostly during extreme events). Second, not allowing for time-varying parameters in the dependence distribution generates a bias towards an evidence of tail dependence. Similarly, considering only tail dependence may lead to false evidence of asymmetry. Third, a growing co-movement between industrial metals and equity markets is identified as early as 2003; this co-movement spreads to all commodity classes and becomes unambiguously stronger with the global financial crisis after Fall 2008.     

Contradictions in fsQCA

The lack of support for contradictions in fsQCA limits the method’s usefulness for conducting inductive research. In this paper, I describe how to extend fsQCA to accommodate contradictory conditions. I review kirq (Reichert and Rubinson 2011), a new software package for QCA that includes support for fuzzy-set contradictions. For researchers using software that does not support fuzzy-set contradictions, I describe how to identify them by hand.     

Contextualized Project Management Practice: A Cluster Analysis of Practices and Best Practices

The specificity of project management in different contexts and industries is recognized, but little empirical research encompasses a sufficiently broad range of contexts and project types to precisely identify these specificities. This article adopts such a wide perspective based on a large sample of data from an ongoing empirical investigation of project management practice. Contextual archetypes are identified (i.e., clusters of experienced practitioners that share similar organizational and project contexts). Archetypes of contextualized practice are then investigated through the study of the extent of use of empirically identified toolsets in each cluster. The results empirically confirm some well‐known assumptions about practice but also sharpen the knowledge and understanding of practice in real complex multidimensional contexts. A new concept of “performing‐maturity” emerged from the data. This concept sheds light on the entangled imbrications of maturity, competence, and success. Practices are regressed against performing‐maturity to reveal best contextualized practices.