Imputation of Missing Values in the Fundamental Data: Using MICE Framework

Revolutionary developments in the field of big data analytics and machine learning algorithms have transformed the business strategies of industries such as banking, financial services, asset management, and e-commerce. The most common problems these firms face while utilizing data is the presence of missing values in the dataset. The objective of this study is to impute fundamental data that is missing in financial statements. The study uses ‘Multiple Imputation by Chained Equations’ (MICE) framework by utilizing the interdependency among the variables that wholly comply with accounting rules. The proposed framework has two stages. The initial imputation is based on predictive mean matching in the first stage and resolving financial constraints in the second stage. The MICE framework allows us to incorporate accounting constraints in the imputation process. The performance tests conducted on the imputed dataset indicate that the imputed values for the 177 line items are good and in line with the expectations of subject matter experts.

     

Technology assessment: Impact of high-tech engineering research on energy consumption

A technology assessment (TA) program was launched in Switzerland in 1991. One project in the series of pilot projects was meant to assess the impact of so-called LESIT technologies on energy consumption. (LESIT was a priority research program and a German acronym for power electronics, systems and information technology.) In this paper the institutional environment, applied methods and main results of the TA study are summarised. One of the questions that arose was whether it is reasonable to expect a high-tech engineering research program to serve any societal goals other than the more immediate technical and economic goals the research partners in university and industry are accustomed to follow. It was found that without special efforts this expectation was not realistic. Politically desirable goals are best served when enough emphasis, time, and money are given to the process of bringing together research partners from academia and industry who all have a (self-serving) interest in furthering the politically desirable goal and then support their collaboration.     

Real-time decentralized information processing and returns to scale

We use a model of real-time decentralized information processing to understand how constraints on human information processing affect the returns to scale of organizations. We identify three informational (dis)economies of scale: diversification of heterogeneous risks (positive), sharing of information and of costs (positive), and crowding out of recent information due to information processing delay (negative). Because decision rules are endogenous, delay does not inexorably lead to decreasing returns to scale. However, returns are more likely to be decreasing when computation constraints, rather than sampling costs, limit the information upon which decisions are conditioned. The results illustrate how information processing constraints together with the requirement of informational integration cause a breakdown of the replication arguments that have been used to establish nondecreasing technological returns to scale. November 24, 1999; revised version: March 14, 2000     

Technological change and future growth: Issues and opportunities

Over the next three decades we may anticipate major technological advances and changes in American society in the area of electronics, automation, information handling, food, and biological manipulations, as well as in the more commonplace areas of industry, commerce, and domestic devices. Dominant elements driving these changes are fundamental shifts in the availability of energy and materials, which will stimulate major innovation in substitutions, extended service life, and easier maintainability; and the increasing role of science as a well-spring of new technologies. Furthermore, the movement of U.S. society into a post-industrial society with its emphasis on knowledge based industries will stimulate major shifts in the nature and location of work, land use, and information-associated technologies. This will be accompanied by a flourishing of social, institutional, and psychological technologies.Market forces will play a dominant role in the realization of these new technological developments. In addition to these forces, technological needs and opportunities will arise which lie outside the market system, such as developments with regard to geophysical manipulation, earthquake control, and weather modification.The principal role of government in assuring continuing benefits from technology is guiding the socially effective interplay of the basic variables: land, labor, capital, resource availability and knowledge. To be socially useful, the interplay must be future-oriented, flexible, and information driven. One specific role for government is setting reliable boundary conditions on private and public endeavors with some clarity and incisiveness to permit market and non-market forces to operate. Put differently, a principal role for government is the more effective management of uncertainties with regard to future potential opportunities and risks in order to encourage new and needed developments and innovations.A principal limitation on technological and scientific decision-making is the inadequacy of knowledge gathered and organized for the purpose of illuminating public policy. Meeting these information needs is a second specific role for government. Since most information is collected for other purposes, modifications which explicity generate and collect policy-related information would effect a major improvement in public and private decisionmaking.The wider practice of the concept of technology assessment as a means to better understand options, alternatives, and consequences for technology should be encouraged in and out of government.Many major regulatory agencies of government reflect needs and problems decades old which are no longer of primary importance. A third specific role for government in guiding technology, the reform of the regulatory agencies through their restructing, offers major opportunities for more effective management of technology. Primary candidates for this specific role of government include agencies regulating communications, drugs, banking, securities, energy, health care, transportation, and marine and oceanographic affairs.The fourth major role for government, research and development, should be driven by several convergent factors. There are opportunities for new and expanded technological developments with regard to: (a)The wiring of metropolitan and rural areas for fuller telecommunications; (b)the introduction of major new energy sources such as solar, geothermal, and ocean technologies; (c)the reformulation of education technologies, welfare, and health delivery systems; and (d) the reconstruction of cities and other habitats. Furthermore, the economically mature society implies not less but different technology emphasizing: social and biological as well as physical technology; personal improvement and fulfillment, and accomplishing more with less. There also are numerous problems of a high-growth society such as the propensity to maximize bureaucratic efficiency at the expense of social effectiveness; alienation of workers; adverse effects of excessive size and integration; societal needs not accommodated by market forces, and the negative side effects of technology. Each of these clusters of problems and opportunities could be profoundly influenced by research and experimentation.     

Consumer perception,information provision,and regulation of insurance markets

Available evidence shows that consumers overinsure against modest risks. For instance, a majority of consumers tend to choose too low a level of deductible for homeowners insurance and automobile insurance, and purchase excessive warranties for electronics and other durable products such as automobiles and furniture. The analysis demonstrates that overinsurance decreases consumer welfare and increases insurers’ profits. This tendency of overinsurance stems from lack of information about the probability and magnitude of loss, and it calls for policies that require insurers or third-party organizations to provide more, albeit not perfect, information and data for consumers before they make insurance-purchase decisions. The implications of the analysis for other financial products such as stocks and deposits are discussed.     

Business process re-engineering: experiences in R&D

This study presents information drawn from leading transnational organizations headquartered in the US that are, to different degrees, involved in restructuring their R&D. Interviews were conducted with three companies in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry and three in electronics/information technology. All companies interviewed agreed on the need to organize their R&D more effectively in order to meet consumer demands and respond to competitive pressure. There are significant differences in the extent to which each company is involved in organizational change as well as their approach to such changes. The interview findings indicate that global re-engineering and business transformation programmes are being carried out. We identify the application of such approachs, men though thg may be initiated under other names.     

以美国授权专利为视角浅析中国大陆创新能力

专利数量和质量是一个国家科技创新能力的重要表征。以在华机构获得的美国授权专利为研究对象,从专利数量、技术领域、区域分布、专利质量等多个角度进行了深入研究,探讨了我国大陆地区创新能力的发展态势。我国创新能力基础虽然薄弱,但发展迅速,尤其电子、信息、控制领域技术发展迅猛;内陆地区与沿海地区创新能力差距悬殊;台控股企业创新优势明显;大陆地区获得美国授权专利的质量分布不均衡。建议:我国在创新政策的制定上,应认识到专利数量和质量不是对立的;政府在资源配置的时候,应充分考虑区域之间存在的不均衡性;在对待创新能力在技术领域分布的不均衡性问题上,应充分尊重市场规律;应从基础领域和重点领域两方面,扩大我国专利的产业布局。     

Sources Of Technical Progress: Empirical Evidence From Swiss Industry

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the sources of technological opportunities. The analysis is based on a survey conducted among 358 Swiss R&D executives in 1988. The most important results can be summarized as follows: 1. Market organizations are perceived as the most important source of contributions to technical progress. The most important source is firms within the same industry; second is product users; and third, suppliers of materials and equipment used in manufacturing. 2. The contribution of non-market organizations seems relatively unimportant. University research, other government research institutions, state companies and agencies, professional and technical associations and individual inventors make small contributions. 3. Science also contributes to technical progress, even if only selectively. Education and training in physics, computer science, materials science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and applied chemistry are all considered relevant to technical progress in Switzerland. 4. Generally, university research is not considered as relevant to technical progress in the industries surveyed. In certain fields, such as computer science, materials science and electrical engineering, university research does, however, seem relevant to technical progress.     

Converging technologies at the nanoscale: The making of a new world?

The design of artefacts commonly involves the convergence of many technologies and this remains true for artefacts being created at the nanoscale. However, since 2000 the phrase 'converging technologies' has acquired a special interpretation related to the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (acronym NBIC) for the improvement of 'human performance', raising the visibility of what has colloquially been called 'nanotechnology'. Exaggerated forecasts soon followed for the value of innovatory markets for nano-artefacts or artefacts highly dependent on the various emergent nanoscale technologies. Many of these activities have resulted from a creative collision between chemistry and biology, and engineering and physics, especially where the latter have been related to micromechanical devices and electronics. The outcome has been rising expectations that the field, now designated as converging technologies, may be the beginnings of a 'new world' within a notional time horizon of 2030. The paper considers the possibility, feasibility and desirability of nanoscale artefacts (nano-artefacts) in contributing to a 'new world'. By distinguishing between nano-artefacts and nanotechnology, some of the more unrealistic expectations surrounding the possibilities can be discouraged, facilitating investment decisions by business and informed debate by stakeholders regarding the future development and diffusion of nano-artefacts. The paper concludes that nano-artefacts are likely to have pervasive, radical effects by 2030, particularly in the fields that underpin life on the planet, including energy and food and the possibility of improving human performance. However, the effects are unlikely to be on the scale seen in the industrial revolution.     

Heterogeneous Mortgage Markets: Implications for Business Cycles and Welfare in the EMU

This paper evaluates business cycle effects of asymmetric cross‐country mortgage market developments in a monetary union. By employing a two‐country New Keynesian DSGE model with collateral constraints tied to housing values, we show that a change in institutional characteristics of mortgage markets, such as the loan‐to‐value (LTV) ratio, is an important driver of asymmetric developments in housing markets and economic activity. Our analysis suggests that the home country where credit standards are lax booms, while the rest of European Monetary Union faces a negative output gap. Overall welfare is lower if LTV ratios are higher.     

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: FMS, Flexibility and Socio-organizational Constraints

In contrast to arguments that flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are highly versatile configurations that are only prevented from machining a wide range of parts by extrinsic constraints, this article contends that FMS are a genre of configurations that combine flexibility and intrinsic constraints in a variety of permutations, depending on a user's intended objectives. Empirical evidence is used to identify the factors that shape the levels of constraint in particular FMS and to identify instances where intrinsic constraints impede performance. Suggestions are made for initiatives to facilitate the continued use of FMS with the highest levels of intrinsic constraints that have hitherto hindered performance when the FMS users' manufacturing needs changed. Occupational structures that promote a polarization between staff with engineering knowledge and those responsible for defining general strategic objectives are suggested as a potential obstacle to such initiatives.     

Localized Technological Search And Multi-Technology Companies

Two major themes that have emerged from recent theoretical and empirical studies of technology at the firm level have been the tendencies on the one hand to localization of technological search and on the other hand to the spread of multi-technology companies, required to incorporate an ever-growing extent of advanced technologies. These trends appear contradictory. This paper analyses the contradictions through the use of patents data as an indicator of technological specialization. Two industries and some of their leading corporations are singled out for analysis - the electronics industry (especially in Europe). as an upstream ‘high-tech’ industry. and the food-processing industry, a downstream sector that is now having to make use of a burgeoning range of technologies. The paper examines their major corporate changes in the light of the technological data, through the use of concentration indices. It shows that both industries are trying to reconcile the contradiction with greater specialization taking place in sub-units of the firms. though the effect is more muted in food-processing where demand factors predominate. The need to command multiple diverse technologies is being targeted by restructuring firms in terms of both external relationships and internal reorganizations, but the basic contradiction still remains and may bc insoluble.     

Advances in evolution and genetics: Implications for technology strategy

Genetic and evolutionary principles are of great importance to technology strategists, both directly (as in the forecasting of genetic engineering technologies) and as a source of metaphor and perspective on socio-technical change. Recent rapid progress in the molecular sciences have revealed new genetic mechanisms of evolution, and introduced new controversies of interpretation. How do these recent developments affect technology forecasting and our view of technological evolution? This paper provides a quick primer for TFSC readers on several new developments in evolution and genetics, comments upon a number of common misconceptions and pitfalls in evolutionary thinking, and critically describes some controversies and open questions, introducing key readings and sources. It relates genetic and evolutionary knowledge, analogies and metaphors to areas of interest to researchers in technology forecasting and assessment, noting possible future directions. The paper concludes with an overview of the other papers in this special section.     

信息系统工程监理取费标准测算的方法

本文分析了建设监理取费新标准，通过数学模型分析获该取费标准中投资额与收费比例之间的函数关系。利用该函数关系，结合信息系统工程监理的典型取费基数，拟合出不同类型信息系统工程监理取费遵循的函数曲线。根据此曲线，计算出一些典型投资额点上的信息系统工程监理取费比例数。     

Incorporating Delphi results in system dynamics models: A case of Indian tea industry

The results of a Delphi study on the future of the Indian tea industry are presented. Most of the information obtained for the study helps in formulating and validating a system dynamics model. The model also considers the occurrence of new events as visualized by the panelists. It is shown, however, that the policies recommended by the panelists yield poor industry behavior when Delphi-predicted new events operate in the environment. This may be due to lack of comprehension of the complexity of interaction between policies proposed and new events visualized by the panelists. On the basis of this investigation, it is proposed that Delphi and system dynamics studies should complement each other in arriving at viable policy decisions.     

The impact of IT investment on firm performance in China: An empirical investigation of the Chinese electronics industry

Over the past three decades, the impact of information technology (IT) investments on firm performance has been the subject of active research. Although many studies have shown positive and significant benefits derived from IT investment, the findings of almost all these studies are based on data collected in developed countries. Few studies have been conducted to validate these results and to determine whether or not they are still applicable in developing countries. This study tries to investigate the effects of IT investment on firm financial performance in the electronics industry of China, still classified as a developing country, and compare it with the United States. Findings show that IT investment has a positive impact on firm performance in China. Moreover, the impact in China is not different from what occurred in the United States in terms of direction and the size against the assertion of previous studies and expectations.     

The impact of culture and ecology on cooperation in a common-pool resource experiment

Context affects decision-making in many ways. In this paper we explore differences in cooperation behaviour between communal farmers in Namibia and South Africa, who share the same ethnic origin but have had different historical and ecological constraints. We report on a series of field experiments based on a common-pool resource model. Our experimental design is framed according to the grazing situation in semi-arid rangelands. Dependent on the behaviour in previous rounds, participants are facing different states of resource availability with varying need to cooperate, coordinate and to be patient. While only 4% of the grazing areas in South Africa remain in good quality, Namibians achieve a level of 42%. We analyse the different experimental states and find that Namibians behave in all states more cooperatively. We argue that the large difference between the two regions is due to a combination of different historical developments and ecological preconditions: Namibian resource users have a longer experience in cooperative resource management and intact traditional norms. Moreover, the real-life payoffs to cooperation are higher in Namibia stemming from ecological factors.     

Optimal collective dichotomous choice under quota constraints

Summary. This paper presents optimal collective dichotomous choices under quota constraints. We focus on committees that have to decide whether to accept or reject a set of projects under quota constraints. We provide a method for optimal ranking of projects which is suitable for solving this problem. The main result generalizes a number of earlier results in the subject. To outline the applicability of our method, we demonstrate its usage in the area of information filtering. Received: February 14, 2000; revised version: January 19, 2001     

Strategic management: The state-of-the-art and beyond

A study of 25 major corporations assesses the state-of-the-art in strategic planning, and explores future prospects for developing a more powerful form of strategic management to cope with the transition to a new economic era. Current planning practices show that large corporations have developed complex strategic information systems, a decision-making process that is inherently organic, and planning operations that embody cybernetic principles. However, the prevailing approach to strategic planning is severely limited because it is based upon an old model of corporate management that has become outmoded: a restricted focus on hard technology leaves critical soft issues unresolved, authoritarian hierarchies produce the typical disadvantages of bureaucracy, and a closed-system orientation isolates the firm from its environment. New approaches to business management seem to be evolving now to overcome these constraints: the frontier of economic progress is shifting to a new form of soft growth, organizational structures are being transformed into entrepreneurial networks, and the institutional role of business is expanding to include its external constituencies. These trends represent key features of a new model of strategic management—the “strategically managed corporation”— that is specifically suited for fostering strategic change.     

The effects of households’ and firms’ borrowing constraints on economic growth

This paper considers an endogenous growth model with asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers, that leads to credit-rationing a proportion of borrowers. However, in contrast to the existing literature, in this model, both firms and consumers face borrowing constraints. Nonetheless, the borrowing constraints facing a firm and those encountered by a consumer have opposing effects on growth. Relaxing borrowing constraints on firms is growth-promoting, as more funds become available for productive investment. In contrast, relaxing borrowing constraints facing consumers has a detrimental effect, as funds are diverted from productive investment to consumption. Such an adverse effect may offset the externality effect present in the production function that would otherwise ensure perpetual growth. Furthermore, it is shown that the interaction between households’ and firms’ borrowing constraints may give rise to endogenous cycles.