Theory of constraints and the combinatorial complexity of the product-mix decision

The theory of constraints (TOC) proposes that, when production is bounded by a single bottleneck, the best product mix heuristic is to select products based on their ratio of throughput per constraint use. This, however, is not true for cases when production is limited to integer quantities of final products. Four facts that go against current thought in the TOC literature are demonstrated in this paper. For example, there are cases in which the optimum product mix includes products with the lowest product margin and the lowest ratio of throughput per constraint time, simultaneously violating the margin heuristic and the TOC-derived heuristic. Such failures are due to the non-polynomial completeness (NP-completeness) of the product-mix decision problem, also demonstrated here.     

Quantifying the effects of product family decisions on material selection: A process-based costing approach

Product designers must continually assess trade-offs among various performance attributes and cost. Materials choice can play an important role in that decision-making process. Product platforms are used to meet the demand for increased product variety, while also managing costs. Because of their interdependent effects, it is possible that platforming strategies may alter preferred material choice. This paper examines the interrelationship of these early stage design choices through the application of process-based cost modeling.A case study is detailed concerning two alternative material options for an automotive instrument panel beam: a die-cast magnesium design and a conventional design (i.e., discrete stamped steel components) which allows for more component sharing than the integrated magnesium design. The effects of component sharing on product family costs are analyzed. It is shown that the magnesium design is less competitive in platformed scenarios.     

A multi-criteria game theory and real-options model for irreversible ICT investment decisions

The information and communication technology (ICT) industry is one of the most capital intensive among the high-technology industries. ICT business analysis, especially after the industry deregulation, has become a difficult task. Traditional quantitative cost–benefit analysis concerning investment decisions is by no means sufficient for capturing the complexity of the problem in its entirety. This work combines quantitative and qualitative analyses for modeling competitive interactions between players in the ICT business field. The proposed decision analysis model combines real options, game theory, and analytic hierarchy process for analyzing ICT business alternatives under the threat of competition. The proposed model is applied to a real broadband technology business case, showing how it can be formulated and solved.     

A comparative study of the adoption and implementation of target costing in the UK, Australia and New Zealand

Most of the studies on target costing (TC) only provide insight into the adoption and perceived benefits of TC, and do not address the levels of implementation of the technique. These studies also assume that TC is only relevant to manufacturing firms and therefore do not investigate the adoption of this technique in service firms, and consequently exclude service firms from their surveys and analysis. Furthermore, most studies do not examine factors influencing the adoption of TC systems. Contributing to these gaps in the literature, this paper reports the results of a survey among CIMA-qualified management accountants working in manufacturing and service firms in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on the adoption and implementation of TC. The study examines the importance of attributes of TC (namely relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use, result demonstrability, trialability) for decision makers to adopt and implement such cost and management accounting innovation. The survey indicates that TC is equally prevalent among manufacturing and service firms while in terms of the levels of implementation there is a significant difference between manufacturing and service firms. The study shows that there is a growing interest in the examination of all cost-reducing strategies at the planning stage and adoption of value engineering to incorporate customer requirements rather than focusing on the adoption of cost-cutting strategies at the production stage.     

Virtual forms for the organization of production: A comparative analysis

In the present competitive environment, excellence in each phase of the productive process and flexibility are critical requirements in every business. Virtual enterprises have been proposed as an inter-organizational model characterized by both strong incentives to suppliers’ performance and high flexibility. Nonetheless, virtual enterprises are not ubiquitous as some suggest they should be. This paper compares virtual enterprises with other models for the organization of production: Markets, vertically integrated firms and networks. We formulate hypotheses that virtual enterprises are suitable for firms producing complex, modular products, with frequent changes in components, but low knowledge specificity. Virtual enterprises are suitable for a group of industries that is limited, but of growing importance.     

A comparative analysis of the internationalization of Chinese and Japanese firms

This paper integrates institution-, industry-, and resource-based views of internationalization and demonstrates that industrial characteristics, firm resources, and institutional factors can significantly explain the differences and similarities of international expansion of Chinese and Japanese multinational enterprises (MNEs). In particular, this paper maps the growth of Chinese MNEs since economic reforms in 1978 and that of Japanese MNEs after World War II. We illustrate the similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese MNEs with two case studies: foreign direct investment (FDI) of Haier and Matsushita. We suggest that how firms internationalize, in addition to being influenced by industry- and resource-based considerations, is inherently shaped by the domestic and international institutional frameworks governing these endeavors.

A consistent analysis of diversification decisions with non-observable firm effects

The empirical analyses of firm diversification decisions, both for new activities (new products) and markets (for example, new routes for airlines), have usually estimated a binary dependent variable model for each of the decisions the firm makes. To obtain consistent estimators, every relevant effect must be considered in the specification. As this will hardly happen, the presence of nonobserved firm effects (either because such data do not exist or because it is impossible to obtain them) must be econometrically treated, because it causes inconsistency in the estimations. In this paper we propose to use the estimators provided by the maximization of the conditional likelihood function in problems of this kind because they give consistent results even when unobserved firm effects are present. Finally, we apply this technique to an example of diversification among Spanish manufacturers. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The paradigm of utilizing robots in the teaching process: a comparative study

This paper discusses a comparative study of the effects of using a humanoid robot for introducing students to personal robotics. Even if a humanoid robot is one of the more complicated types of robots, comprehension was not an issue. The study highlighted the importance of using real hardware for teaching such complex subjects as opposed to relatively cheap simulation environments. While the field of robotics is still in its infancy it benefits from a “wow” effect that can be utilized to positively influence the education of new specialists in this field. This comparative study, done at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, highlights the educational benefits of this idea. Two groups of students took part on a completely volunteer basis in an “introduction to personal robotics” workshop. While one group only worked with simulators on computers, the other group was also given access to real robots in addition to the simulators. This allowed them to test their programs on a real platform and tweak them to compensate for differences between the virtual world and the real world. This second group had consistently and considerably better results than the first group.     

Regulation of the Canadian cable industry: A comparative analysis

The Canadian and US cable television industries have similar economic characteristics and market structures, yet each has a distinct mix of programme services and a different history of development. These differences are largely due to a different economic status in each country, cultural peculiarities and contrasting theories of regulation. The US regulatory environment is gradually moving toward a laissez-faire market approach while in Canada more traditional and formal rules still apply which constrict economic behaviour. This difference in regulatory philosophy is most evident in the treatment of pay television. Canadian regulatory policy has given rise to rules which are at variance with economic incentives and efficiency.     

An econometric analysis of the European Commission's merger decisions

Using a sample of 96 mergers notified to the European Commission and logit regression techniques, we analyse the Commission's decision process. We find that the probability of a phase-2 investigation and of a prohibition of the merger increases with the parties' market shares. The probabilities increase also when the Commission finds high entry barriers or that the post-merger market structure is conducive to collusion. We do not find significant effects of “political” variables, such as the nationality of the merging firms.     

An analysis of buying center decisions through the salesforce

In this paper we examine whether classical customer surveys that are used to predict group buying decisions can be replaced by the method of interviewing the salesforce. We set up a two-step research approach. In the first step, we examined the predictive performance of different measurement processes in a salesforce survey (self-explicated approach and limit conjoint analysis for the preferences and constant sum scale and for the influence measurement limit conjoint analysis). In the second step, we conducted a classical customer survey using limit conjoint analysis and compared it with the predictions derived from the salesforce survey. Our results show that when surveying the salesforce (1) limit conjoint analysis is superior to the self-explicated approach in measuring preferences. With regard to the measurement of influence, we did not find any significant differences between the two procedures. (2) Our major findings are that the predictions derived from the salesforce survey are not only more practical because of the relatively low costs but that they also outperform those from the customer survey.     

企业所有权分析理论框架

一、企业所有权理论:资本雇用劳动还是劳动雇用资本? 现代企业理论的核心内容之一就是讨论企业的产权安排问题。对企业产权安排问题的分析包括两个层次:第一个层次分析企业作为一个独立的经济主体,拥有哪些产权,拥有多少产权,以及在什么时间里拥有这些产权,这一个层次实质上就是界定企业与外     

A systematic comparative analysis and synthesis of two business-level strategic typologies

Two important business-level strategic typologies were systematically evaluated, analyzed and compared in this study: Porter'S Overall Cost Leadership, Differentiation, Focus, and ‘Stuck in the Middle’ generic competitive strategies, and Miles and Snow'S Defender, Prospector, Analyzer, and Reactor types of organizational adaptation. On the basis of strategic theory, and following a pilot study, 31 strategic variables were evaluated by judges on a seven-point maximum-minimum scale, for each strategy, within its typology. Analysis of variances and concordance among judges regarding the ranking of the strategies on each variable were examined, and a strategic profile was built for each strategy. Proximities between strategies of the two typologies were analyzed using monotonic multidimensional scaling. The analysis indicated similarities and differences between the two typologies. A synthesis of the two typologies is suggested along two dimensions: internal consistency of the strategy, and level of proactiveness.     

Land constraints and agricultural intensification in Ethiopia: A village-level analysis of high-potential areas

Highland Ethiopia is one of the most densely populated regions of Africa and has long been associated with both Malthusian disasters and Boserupian agricultural intensification. This paper explores the race between these two countervailing forces, with the goal of inform two important policy questions. First, how do rural Ethiopians adapt to land constraints? And second, do land constraints significantly influence welfare outcomes in rural Ethiopia? To answer these questions we use a recent household survey of high-potential areas. We first show that farm sizes are generally very small in the Ethiopian highlands and declining over time, with young rural households facing particularly severe land constraints. We then ask whether smaller and declining farm sizes are inducing agricultural intensification, and if so, how. We find strong evidence in favor of the Boserupian hypothesis that land-constrained villages typically use significantly more purchased input costs per hectare and more family labor, and achieve higher maize and teff yields and higher gross income per hectare. However, although these higher inputs raise gross revenue, we find no substantial impact of greater land constraints on net farm income per hectare once family labor costs are accounted for. Moreover, farm sizes are strongly positively correlated with net farm income, suggesting that land constraints are an important cause of rural poverty. We conclude with some broad policy implications of our results.     

A practical approach to sensitivity analysis in linear programming under degeneracy for management decision making

Linear programming (LP) is a widely used tool in management decision making. Theoretically, sensitivity analysis of LP problems provides useful information for the decision maker. In practice, however, most LP software provides misleading sensitivity information if the optimal solution is degenerate. The paper shows how sensitivity analysis of LP problems can be done correctly when the optimal solution is degenerate. A production planning example is presented to illustrate the incorrect sensitivity analysis results automatically provided by most LP solvers. The general characteristics of the misleading results and the possible effects of this incorrect information on management decisions are also discussed.     

欧洲主要国家药品定价和补偿制度的比较分析

通过比较分析的方法深入探讨欧洲各主要国家药品定价和补偿制度的特点以及经济学评价的应用情况。如何评价新药的创新性已成为各国政府在规制药品市场时共同面临的关键性问题,而与创新水平评价密切相关的带有“双重定价”意味的定价体制值得我国政府在平衡控制药品费用和激发医药产业创新实力这一矛盾时借鉴学习。     

国内外天然气价格水平比较分析

通过对天然气价格水平进行国际比较和等热值比较,证实我国天然气出厂价格偏低,住宅用气价格偏低,工业用气价格偏高;分析了我国天然气价格水平背后的福利含义和效率含义,认为价格扭曲会带来需求的急剧膨胀和供给短缺。建议在政府规制框架内不断完善天然气价格改革,形成灵活的、考虑市场竞争因素的定价机制;改变目前使用的成本加成法,逐步过渡到净值回推定价方法。     

A comparative analysis of R&D project evaluation methods

A large number of methodologies for Research and Development (R&D) project evaluation have been developed and reported in the literature over the last few decades. Almost all of this literature focused on the mechanisms and underlying theoretical foundation on which the evaluation methods are based. Very little attention has been paid to the effectiveness and suitability of the techniques, especially a comparison of the techniques. This paper presents a comparative study on a number of classes of R&D evaluation methods based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process. We look into the various factors and characteristics of R&D evaluation methods that affect their suitability. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to determine the critical factors.     

A comparative analysis of greening policies across supply chain structures

In this paper, we examine an apparel serial supply chain whose players initiate product “greening.” We consider situations in which the players cooperate or act individually. Our problem is motivated by recent developments in the supply chains of global apparel players. We build game theoretic models and show how greening levels, prices and profits are influenced by channel structures. We also study the impact of greening costs and consumer sensitivity towards green apparels. We propose a two-part tariff contract to coordinate the green channel. Our key contribution lies in the model of decision making of various supply chain structures and analyzing its impact on the players and supply chain. The problem throws interesting insights into the strategies of apparel players and their key decisions.