LOGISTICS SALIENCE IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

The primary purpose of this paper was to empirically explore some of the reasons that logistics has become more important, or salient, in comparison to other functions within the firm. A survey of 296 managers across multiple industries in the U.S. found logistics becomes more important within the firm when the industry increases in uncertainty, when there is an emphasis on time‐based competition, when there is greater adoption of information technology, and when there is an emphasis on cross‐functional integration.     

How to improve the university–industry collaboration in Taiwan's animation industry? Academic vs. industrial perspectives

This study demonstrates the use of importance–performance analysis (IPA) to prioritise the motivators that can facilitate university–industry collaboration in the animation industry in Taiwan. This study confirms that financial supports and education are still major reasons for academia to participate in the university–industry collaboration. Reducing costs and obtaining human training are the reasons for animation firms to join the university–industry collaboration. However, by comparing the results of IPA for academia and industry, this study recommends four common interest motivators from both academic and industrial perspectives and where efforts should be concentrated. Research facilities, external competencies, talents, and innovation capacity are very important for the animation industry of Taiwan.     

基于粗糙主成分分析法的铁路网客运节点重要度决策

通过阐述铁路网客运节点的定义和节点重要度的概念,建立客运节点重要度评价指标体系,利用粗糙集理论与主成分分析法的结合,提出利用主成分分析法和基于信息量方法,计算客运节点的客观权重,结合主观权重得到科学合理的客运节点综合权重。经过实例分析,表明了基于粗糙主成分分析法的客运节点评判结果的有效性。     

新时期基层党务工作者做好干部职工思想政治工作的几点思考

社会形势的不断发展,对基层干部职工的思想政治工作提出了更新更高的要求,同时也为基层党务工作者搭建了更为广阔的展示平台。本文针对新时期基层干部职工思想政治工作存在的主要问题提出了若干对策建议。     

会计人员职业道德修养问题探讨

造假账、会计信息失真已成为当前一个热点问题,其危害性极大。,提高会计人员职业道德修养应从八个方面入手,多方共同努力,才能实现以法理财与以德理财相结合,保证会计工作的质量和社会经济的健康发展。     

Importance Performance Competitor Analysis (IPCA): A study of hospitality companies

Although Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) is a popularly used method in many research areas, academics mainly criticise it because of its relative structure and lack of consideration of competitors. In the present study, the author proposes an extended version of IPA, which is called Importance Performance Competitor Analysis (IPCA), to address these shortcomings. The proposed method considers the GAP score, which is obtained by the comparison of an attribute’s importance and the focal company’s performance in the same attribute. Moreover, it uses focal and competing companies’ performance differences score. IPCA offers different strategies for each attribute depending on the quadrant that it is positioned in. Absolute structure and consideration of competitors are the advantages of IPCA. Another characteristic of the IPCA is its simplicity, like IPA, there is no necessity to have advanced level statistical knowledge.     

Predictors of customer service training in hospitality firms

Small hospitality firms have a reluctance to embrace business improvement activities in general and customer service training in particular. In a survey of 255 hospitality firms, this study investigated a range of predictors for owner–managers to adopt specific customer service training activities, in a series of regression equations. It was found that, in general, those firms that placed more importance on customer service training were willing to take up more training activity. In addition, it was found that predictors for specific customer service training activities, such as benchmarking best practice or mystery shopping, varied between types of activity and with a general intention to consider customer service training.     

关于在天然气公司内部开展思想教育的重要性

思想政治工作是一切工作的生命线。随着我国天然气产业的发展,加强天然气公司内部的思想教育工作就显得尤为重要了。     

U. S. winter migrants' park community attributes: An importance–performance analysis

North American seasonal migrants, who are usually retired, typically live in recreational vehicle/mobile home park communities in the southern U. S. during the winter months. This study examines the importance of specific park characteristics in the park selection process and uses the case of winter migrants in south Texas to demonstrate how parks may use a modified approach of importance–performance analysis and the promoter–detractor methodology to assess how well the parks perform on selected attributes. The analysis of survey responses from 1429 winter Texans categorized attributes based on the attributes' impact range and asymmetrical impact on park recommendation likelihood. Overall, seasonal migrants based their choice of location for their winter home largely on physical appearance (e.g., cleanliness) and affect (i.e., friendliness and caring management). Wireless Internet access and low rates were also of high importance. But park recommendation likelihood varies depending on the migrants' satisfaction with important attributes' performance.     

Reduced-bias tail index estimation and the jackknife methodology

In the context of regularly varying tails, we first analyze a generalization of the classical Hill estimator of a positive tail index, with members that are not asymptotically more efficient than the original one. This has led us to propose alternative classical tail index estimators, that may perform asymptotically better than the Hill estimator. As the improvement is not really significant, we also propose generalized jackknife estimators based on any two members of these two classes. These generalized jackknife estimators are compared with the Hill estimator and other reduced-bias estimators available in the literature, asymptotically, and for finite samples, through the use of Monte Carlo simulation. The finite-sample behaviour of the new reduced-bias estimators is also illustrated through a practical example in the field of finance.