Evolution in a General Equilibrium framework

In this paper, we consider a general equilibrium model in which the economies are characterized by the distribution of firms on a set of branches of production; we will show that based on the decisions of the managers of the firms, it is possible to build a dynamic system whose solutions reproduce the possible trajectories of the economy. Once the initial state of an economy is known, that is, the initial distribution of firms, we will have a unique solution for this dynamic system, which will coincide with the evolution of the economy, that is, the evolution of prices and equilibrium allocations.The investment decisions of the administrators of the companies will change the distribution over the set of existing productive branches, which in turn will produce changes in the wealth of consumers who are also shareholders of the companies and then as a consequence, their demand will change, and therefore the equilibrium allocations and prices will too.In most cases, these decisions lead to an improvement in the efficiency of the productive side of the economy and an increase in the welfare of the economy as a whole, but, as we will show, under some particular circumstances, even when it comes to rational decisions from the point of view of administrators, this can lead to undesirable repercussions on the welfare of consumers. Besides, in a neighborhood of a critical economy, even when these decisions may involve small changes in the distribution of companies, they can cause abrupt and unexpected changes in the behavior of the economy, or in other words, they can cause an economic crisis. These are characterized by large changes in the prices, in the demand, and in the supply of goods. In contrast, in a sufficiently small neighborhood of a regular economy, small changes in the distribution of firms produced by the investment decisions of managers do not lead to large changes in the subsequent behavior of the economy. We will exemplify these statements with several numerical examples.     

A systematic way of identifying and forecasting technological reverse salients using QFD,bibliometrics, and trend impact analysis: A carbon nanotube biosensor case

Experts have more difficulty identifying reverse salients in R&D because of increasing technological complexity and a shortened technology lifecycle. As an alternative, we suggest a new and systematic method of identifying and forecasting reverse salients using QFD (quality function deployment), bibliometric analysis, and TIA (trend impact analysis). QFD allows users to systematically identify and prioritize reverse salients. An integration of QFD, bibliometric analysis, and TIA makes it possible to specify key performance indicators of reverse salient in order to identify the performance gap between current and market-required performance and to make a probabilistic forecast about when reverse salients will be corrected. Our method will help managers identify a top priority reverse salient, forecast its future, and thus make better R&D decisions with regard to market requirements. A carbon nanotube biosensor technology is used as an example.     

Choosing strategic responses to address emerging environmental regulations: size,perceived influence and uncertainty

How companies respond to impending regulations is a significant aspect of corporate strategy. Regulations, especially environmental regulations, are expanding quickly and increasingly important to firm success. The threat of impending environmental regulation forces companies to choose levels of strategic responses on a continuum from passive to active. Using practitioner oriented research and existing theoretical models of corporate response, this study finds that the type of strategic response is negatively related to size, positively related to state uncertainty and negatively related to effect/response uncertainty. Based on existing literature and the results of this study, the paper suggests that simplifying the uncertainty construct could lead to more definitive findings in future research. The study results also suggest that a curvilinear relationship may exist between managerial perception of influence and level of strategic response. Most importantly, the findings could have a significant impact on firm decision making regarding environmental investments. For example, it is hoped that firms will be able to use the findings of this study to further understand and anticipate their competitors' decisions. Practitioners may also benefit from the conclusions on uncertainty in that they may be able to more cleanly parse the types of uncertainty immersed in impending environmental regulations. Finally, firms may be better able to understand decisions by their own managers and their competitors' managers in terms of their perceived influence over the regulatory process. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Delegation and strategic incentives for managers in contests

Owners usually want their managers to maximize profits. As the literature on strategic delegation has shown it may be beneficial to owners to put a positive weight on sales in the optimal linear incentive scheme for managers to make them behave more aggressively in the market. This paper shows that if the competition between the managers can be characterized as a contest, owners may induce their managers to maximize sales. Moreover, there is a first‐mover advantage for owners when choosing their incentive schemes. If delegation is endogenous the type of contest will determine whether all owners delegate their decisions to managers or not. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

股权激励与投资行为:以光明乳业为例

投资决策是决定公司价值创造的重要因素之一,作为公司价值和经济增长的源泉,必然也受到管理层动机的影响。由所有权和经营权分离所导致的代理问题会影响高管人员的投资决策,导致公司过度投资或投资不足。由于投资对经理人兼具私人收益与私人成本,股权激励作为解决代理问题的一种长期激励方式,可能改变上述成本与收益的对比,其设计、实施是否合理会直接影响高管人员的行为,进而影响公司的投资行为。本文以光明乳业为例,分析股权激励如何影响国有上市公司的投资行为,并给出对策性建议。     

Matching managers to strategies: Point and counterpoint

In recent years, an emerging and increasingly popular theme in the strategic management literature has been that the selection of general managers should be tied directly to the strategies of business units they will oversee. Because different strategies imply different priorities and the need for different skills, such a proposition has obvious intuitive appeal. Beyond intuitive appeal and supporting conceptual arguments, recent empirical research on whether matching general managers to strategies “pays off” in terms of more effective strategy implementation has also yielded positive results. Despite this evidence, several arguments exist for why it may not always be feasible, necessary, or desirable to match general managers to strategies. Thus, there is need for a point-counterpoint “debate” on the subject of matching general managers to strategies. Based on a review of the relvant literature, logical reasoning, as well as some case evidence, this paper is intended to be such a debate undertaken by the author with himself. It is hoped that such a dialectical analysis will open up new avenues for productive research and also enable corporate executives to make better “managerial selection” decisions.     

Human Resource Management in Africa: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Africa is not a dream but in many ways, human resource management (HRM) in Africa could be a dreamlike experience. This appearance of managing in Africa as being surreal is particularly evident with many Western human resource managers. The sheer complexity and diversity found there can make the HRM process one of the more vexing decisions that management may have to undertake when doing business in Africa. In an effort to dramatize the complex nature of HRM decisions in African context, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will be used as a metaphor throughout the paper. Just as Wonderland held many surprises for Alice during her adventure, Africa holds many surprises for Western HRM, not only in the form of the alien nature of the 'rules, regulations and laws' of many African nations but also in the extent to which many African organizations/employees ignore or bend the rules It is the intent of this paper to demonstrate a means to develop a classification scheme from which categories of African countries can evolve into more or less homogeneous groupings. These categories can then be used to develop customized HRM policies, strategies and tactics. The classification schema is based upon the European colonization of Africa, the history of leadership in African nations since decolonization, the economic/infrastructure development differences among African economies and the cultural differences among these same countries. It is envisioned that the African HRM decision matrix could provide the basis for making 'informed' HRM decisions by Western managers in an African context, although these Western managers must always be ever mindful of the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland nature of the HRM in Africa.     

Accounting information,salesforce compensation and acquisition of new customers

The need for the management accounting system (MAS) to support marketing decisions has been identified in literature and practice. Accordingly, several improvements have been suggested with the main intention of providing more detailed information on marketing segments. Yet, even with respect to these improved systems it has to be acknowledged that the quality of the information provided will not be identical for all marketing segments: it can be assumed that it will be more precise for existing segments, which are already served by the firm, than for new ones, with which the firm has comparatively little experience. Further, it has to be considered that the MAS will seldom be the only source of useful information, as the example of the good salesforce having gained a ‘deep understanding’ of the market while doing his job shows. A problem arises if the acquisition of this additional information is (personally) costly and unobservable and therefore has to be motivated by incentive compensation schemes. This paper emphasizes that standard compensation contracts, as recommended by literature and practice, may fail to induce goal-congruent behaviour. It is shown that ranking commission rates according to the profitabilities reported by the MAS may be dysfunctional and that a non-intuitive rank order may be necessary to motivate the salesforce to become better informed and to use this knowledge appropriately.     

管理者过度自信与企业投资现金敏感度——基于英国上市公司的实证研究

本文以英国上市公司为样本,发现融资约束公司普遍表现出管理者过度自信与投资现金流敏感性之间显著的正相关关系。与此相反,这种积极的关系不能在融资无约束公司中找到。这个结果和预期相一致,即在融资约束公司中过度自信的管理者的投资决策应该比非过度自信的管理者投资决策对现金流更加敏感。因为,现金流的增加能够促使过度自信的管理者加大投资并达到他们想要的水平。     

基于数据仓库的生产物流决策管理系统研究

传统的操作型数据库存在数据分散、数据规范不统一、数据可分析能力较差等缺点，所以论文引入数据仓库技术，在分析其系统体系结构的基础上，提出基于数据仓库的生产物流决策管理系统，同时构建生产物流决策管理系统的数据仓库体系结构，通过对数据仓库的多维分析和数据挖掘形成有效数据，从而有利于生产物流决策管理人员做出科学的决策，提高自身在市场竞争中的地位。     

Strategic Decision Making for the Triple Bottom Line

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a mandate for strategic managers and is often an important element of a differentiation strategy, but there is little research on how managers can make socially responsible decisions within the context of competitive strategy. In this study we explain how data envelopment analysis (DEA) results can be used to determine the trade‐offs inherent in managing the triple bottom line of profits, people and the planet. Once the trade‐offs are well understood, managers can implement sustainable competitive strategies that incorporate socially responsible decisions. Using public data from the electric power generation industry, we demonstrate how DEA can be utilized to determine the trade‐offs between efficiency, costs and pollution reduction, allowing managers to make and champion socially responsible decisions. We discuss the general applicability of our method for making strategic decisions incorporating the triple bottom line. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

FROM APATHY TO ALACRITY: MANAGERS AND NEW TECHNOLOGY IN PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS

The article explores why provincial newspaper managers have shifted from a position of reluctance and uncertainty about new technology to enthusiasm and zeal for the process and product development opportunities it offers. the transformation is assessed in terms of changes in the industrial relations context, market conditions and technological developments between the late 1970s and early 1990s. This can be characterized as moving from reactive management to proactive management, and the article examines how the latter reflects the development of new business opportunities through application of new technology to the information-gathering process, the pre-press production process and the product. Data are drawn from case study interviews and trade/professional publications. The analysis suggests that there is evidence of three prime managerial objectives/motives for introducing new technology: cost, control and market. Each of these were of varying importance for managers at different times, and were affected by technological uncertainty and ignorance. Attitudes transformed because of the changing context and the pursuit of functional interest, with the result that newspaper managers are now in a better position to exploit new technology for competitive advantage.     

数据挖掘技术在高校教学管理中的应用

高校在教学和管理中逐渐聚集了相当数量的数据资料,要充分的使用好这些数据资料研究技术对这些数据进行分析和挖掘,从中找出相对于教育教学和监督管理有关的知识,帮助管理者更好的做出决策,与此同时也能够促进学校合理设置课程、制定培养方案和有效管理学生,从而推动学校的全面发展。     

上海家化联合股份有限公司股权激励优化问题研究

我国的股权激励制度尚不完善,实施该制度的上市公司均不同程度地出现了一些问题和风险。上海家化联合股份有限公司(以下简称“上海家化”)近年中层管理人员和核心骨干离职率较高,公司内部矛盾日渐突出,因而需要将现有股权激励制度完善成为一个科学有效、实用性强的股权激励方案来凝聚公司管理者和核心骨干的力量,更好地进行科学决策,提升企业的盈利能力。     

Entrepreneurial attributes for success in the small hotel sector: a fuzzy-set QCA approach

By examining small hotels in Spain, this research contributes to understanding how human capital, social capital, and contingency factors interact to build a success model based on high hotel occupancy rates, profit, and profit per employee. Human capital theory, social capital theory, and multilevel theory provide the theoretical basis for this research. The study used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis applied to a sample of 51 small Spanish hotels. The results reveal the existence of different configurations that lead to the desired performance outcomes. Each configuration combines two or three causal conditions. The results also reflect the difficulties that small hotels may face in reconciling different performance objectives. This paper thus provides solutions for managers, who must make strategic decisions based on existing conditions both inside and outside their organisations. The findings discussed herein can thus help small hotels better define their performance objectives by considering their individual characteristics. The findings can also help new small hotel entrepreneurs better understand the conditions required for success in this highly competitive market.     

论中小企业技术创新的价值管理

中小企业是为数众多的市场经济重要主体,其活力大小和发展状况将直接影响到国民经济能否长期稳定健康增长。企业核心竞争力水平的提高,极其重要的方面在于企业技术创新能力的增强。中小企业由于自身规模小、实力弱、资源相当有限的特点,在面对技术创新可能发生的技术风险、商务风险、市场风险等压力下,其技术创新的过程及其管理显得格外谨慎。将VE引入中小企业的技术创新工作,实施技术创新的价值管理,能够切实保障企业技术创新的顺利进行,帮助中小企业在是否技术创新、如何创新等方面进行正确决策,以提高技术创新的成功率,改善企业技术创新的成效。     

Stretch Goals,Factual/Counterfactual Reflection Strategies,and Firm Performance

Popular business press and academic publications have advocated for stretch goals, particularly to enhance firm performance. The general assumption is that stretch goals can create a more challenging task environment that upsets complacency, inspires motivation, encourages outside-the-box thinking, stimulates search and innovation, and guides efforts and persistence. Surprisingly few systematic empirical studies have been conducted to support stretch goal deployment, such as when and how to use them. This study introduces two reflection strategies – counterfactual reflection (managers confront performance feedback and create possible alternatives) and factual reflection (managers analyse their own decisions and explain performance feedback) – and uses two experimental laboratory studies to test how different reflection strategies contribute to the stretch goal-performance relationship. The results indicated that using stretch goals does not affect firm performance, although theoretically, using stretch goals can create a more challenging task environment and enhance performance. Rather, it is the combination of the type of goal and reflection strategy that affects performance. I suspect that under stretch goals, managers may be unable to implement new ideas as expected, leading to growing performance gaps and perceived continuous failures over time. Consequently, their motivation to search for alternative solutions declines, and they may fall into a spiral of self-constrained thinking. The results demonstrate that under stretch goals, managers use factual reflection strategies to deliberately reflect on performance feedback to achieve higher performance. In contrast, managers who are assigned moderate goals perform better if they use a counterfactual reflection strategy. I suggest that by using a different reflection strategy, managers can further improve performance by encouraging directed search behaviour and avoiding self-constrained thinking spirals. My study provides a richer theoretical and empirical appreciation of the effect of reflection strategy depending on the task environment and goal-setting.     

别让现代教育技术在高校教学中走弯路——走出“多媒体教学”误区

伴随着多媒体的广泛应用,也对多媒体的管理者和使用者提出了更高的要求。在这个过程中,很容易出现混淆概念、滥用技术甚至反作用于教学活动的情况发生。只有走出多媒体教学误区,正确有效的使用多媒体技术进行教学活动,才能保证多媒体更好的为教学服务。