The Delphi technique as a forecasting tool: issues and analysis

This paper systematically reviews empirical studies looking at the effectiveness of the Delphi technique, and provides a critique of this research. Findings suggest that Delphi groups outperform statistical groups (by 12 studies to two with two ‘ties’) and standard interacting groups (by five studies to one with two ‘ties’), although there is no consistent evidence that the technique outperforms other structured group procedures. However, important differences exist between the typical laboratory version of the technique and the original concept of Delphi, which make generalisations about ‘Delphi’ per se difficult. These differences derive from a lack of control of important group, task, and technique characteristics (such as the relative level of panellist expertise and the nature of feedback used). Indeed, there are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that a Delphi conducted according to ‘ideal’ specifications might perform better than the standard laboratory interpretations. It is concluded that a different focus of research is required to answer questions on Delphi effectiveness, focusing on an analysis of the process of judgment change within nominal groups.     

A theory of formal conceptual definitions: developing theory-building measurement instruments

This study develops the need for formal conceptual definitions (sometimes called nominal definitions) and how to develop better measurement instruments for theory-building. It develops the underlying theory for ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions by defining terms, demonstrating that formal conceptual definitions are needed for all theory-building empirical research, explains how and why ‘good’ formal conceptual definitions are used to develop properties and their measures, and last, it logically explains that good formal conceptual definitions are necessary conditions for construct validity (content validity, criterion validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity) while statistical tests are sufficient conditions for validity. This theory development explains why formal conceptual definitions are necessary before any traditional statistical empirical validity tests are performed. This study suggests that any statistical validity tests are not meaningful if the concept is not formally defined.In short, the theory of formal conceptual definitions provides a structure to develop ‘good’ measures of the formal theory that leads to ‘good’ empirical theory-building.     

Patents for genetic inventions: a tool to promote technological advance or a limitation for upstream inventions?

Today's conventional wisdom among economists and lawyers is heavily weighted toward the proposition that strong and broad patent rights are conducive to economic progress. Concerns have been raised as to the extent to which strong patent rights could build up barriers to follow-up research and thus hinder technological advance. This poses a number of difficulties particularly in the area of genetics with respect to the scope of protection and the definition of what is patentable. This article considers the problems of ‘anti-commons’, limitations for upstream inventions, patent thickets and royalty stacking with licenses for genetic inventions. A survey of 53 biotechnology companies in Switzerland builds the empirical basis of the investigation. The survey results confirm that the concepts of ‘anti-commons’, ‘patent thickets’ and ‘royalty stacking’ are indeed relevant. However, they are not highly relevant for the Swiss biotechnology industry from an economic point of view. A broad research exemption combined with a protection limited to concrete disclosure functions of DNA patents and compulsory licensing arrangements are considered as feasible remedies for overcoming certain difficulties with gene patents.     

A critical evaluation of alternative methods and paradigms for conducting mediation analysis in operations management research

Mediation as a theory testing approach has witnessed considerable adoption among Operations Management (OM) researchers. Although mediation-testing methods have evolved tremendously in the past decade, their dissemination in the OM field has not seen parallel growth. These advanced techniques facilitate the testing of existing and complex hypotheses in a more precise manner. With the intent of critically evaluating existing and alternative methods for conducting mediation analysis needed to support sophisticated empirical research, this paper first reviews OM studies that tested for mediation in the past eleven years (2002–2012) from top-tier OM journals. Four commonly used mediation approaches were identified. Based on principles of good theory building, type of mediation model, and properties of empirical data, we evaluate the existing methodologies and make recommendations on how to improve the rigor of OM mediation testing. Using published OM studies in top journals as examples, we then illustrate the relevance and advantages of these recommendations, as well as their ease of use. Furthermore, we empirically show that more robust and insightful results can be achieved by adopting these techniques, which in turn have the promise of leading to better theory building and testing in the field of operations management.     

Service Guarantee Strength: The key to service quality

While most authors describe a service guarantee as a “zero-one variable” indicating the presence or absence of an explicit written service guarantee, this paper develops a construct called “Service Guarantee Strength” (SGS) that is a continuous variable. This construct measures the degree to which a firm sets clear service quality standards for itself on dimensions that customers care about, and has an formal policy for quickly giving meaningful compensation to customers when these standards are not met.The paper builds upon established micro-level behavioral theory to develop the “Service Guarantee Strength Framework”. This framework posits that high Service Guarantee Strength leads to improved service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty through three intervening variables—marketing communications impact, employee motivation and vision, and learning through service failure.An empirical investigation was conducted to test the SGS Framework using both employee and customer data from three pairs of firms, with each pair in a different industry. None of these firms had an explicit service guarantee. Unlike many behavioral research studies, this study measured both employee and customer perceptual data and compared the two. The research finds that Service Guarantee Strength is positively related to customer perceptions of service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.     

National policies towards biotechnology

The ‘new biotechnology’ is still a very young technology - half-in, half-out of the research laboratory. This paper surveys the policies that have been emerging towards this new technology from six governments - those of the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany and the Netherlands. It suggests that the publicity ‘hype’ associated with the new biotechnology firms of the U.S., and the naming of biotechnology as a ‘next generation base technology’ by the Japanese government, together played a seminal role in pressurising governments into a positive policy stance. Looking across national policies, eight common characteristics of policy are identified: substantial support for basic research; increasing emphasis on applied research; expansion of traditional policies for supporting R & D; a new emphasis on linkage between academic and industrial research; gradual convergence towards corporatist or quasi-corporatist policies; the popularity of the collaborative approach; the promotion of small firms and the venture capital market; concern with the regulatory environment.     

Lean service operations: Reflections and new directions for capacity expansion in outpatient clinics

This field research in outpatient service operations examines original quantitative data on appointments and analyzes a lean process improvement project that was conducted to increase capacity to admit new patients into a healthcare service operation system. Analysis of 1726 intake appointments for the year preceding and the full year following the lean project showed a 27% increase in service capacity to intake new patients and a 12% reduction in the no-show rate as a result of the transformation of service processes achieved by the lean project. This study's action research methodology leverages the researcher's involvement in redesigning a service system that greatly improved performance and led to reflection on traditional operations management (OM) approaches to appointment scheduling. The study generates insights about effective alignment of resources, develops new strategies for service operations to respond to no-shows, reveals time-related variables that have been overlooked in appointment scheduling research, and challenges traditional OM scheduling performance measures. We provide recommendations for effective and appropriate use of overbooking and identify avenues for future research to continuously improve and increase the capacity of service operations.     

Purchasing strategies in the Kraljic matrix—A power and dependence perspective

Kraljic's purchasing portfolio approach has inspired many academics to undertake further research into purchasing portfolio models. Refined models typically recommend one purchasing strategy for each portfolio quadrant. Yet, it has been shown that purchasers make a clear distinction between alternative purchasing strategies within each quadrant. The fundamental assumption of portfolio models seems to be that differences in power and dependence between buyers and suppliers exist. Still, little is known about how these concepts influence the choice for a specific purchasing strategy. In this paper, ‘relative power’ and ‘total interdependence’ for a number of portfolio-based purchasing strategies have been quantified empirically, using data from a comprehensive survey among Dutch purchasing professionals. The survey data largely confirmed the hypotheses that were deduced from the literature.     

Towards a common understanding of the differences between purchasing, procurement and commissioning in the UK public sector

This paper recognises that commissioning has now become an important term in the lexicon of UK public policy but the term ‘commissioning’ is taking on a different meaning than that traditionally used within the purchasing and supply management community. The frequent inter-changeability of the terms ‘commissioning’, ‘procurement’ and ‘purchasing’ is now causing confusion and means different things to different people. Therefore the academic community needs to help practitioners understand the differences and implications. A document analysis of various UK Central Government departments’ commissioning frameworks was used to establish the key themes and compare commissioning, procurement and purchasing. This paper discusses the similarities and differences, and argues that commissioning is different from procurement, but that commissioning offers major opportunities for Procurement practitioners to make a strategic contribution.     

Linear-quadratic approximation, external habit and targeting rules

We examine the linear-quadratic approximation of nonlinear dynamic stochastic optimization problems. A discrete-time version of Magill [1977a. A local analysis of N-sector capital accumulation under uncertainty. Journal of Economic Theory 15(2), 211–219] is generalized to models with forward-looking variables paying special attention to second-order conditions. This is the ‘large distortions’ case in the literature. We apply the approach to monetary policy in a DSGE model with external habit in consumption. We then develop a condition for ‘target-implementability’, a concept related to ‘targeting rules’. Finally, we extend the approach to a comparison between cooperative and non-cooperative equilibria in a two-country model and show that the ‘small distortions’ approximation is inappropriate for this exercise.     

A typology of de-coupling strategies in mixed services

A typology of a class of service systems is proposed. The typology links strategic operational objectives to the decision to de-couple work between the front and back offices of a service system. Four specific ideal types of a strategy/de-coupling mix are described; each of which has distinct operational, marketing and human resource ramifications. A type that has had significant representation in traditional literature is the “Cost Leader” type, where back-office activities are de-coupled from the front office for the purpose of lowering costs. Another traditional type representative of the craftsman legacy is the “Personal Service” type, which retains back-office tasks in the front office to pursue non-cost-oriented strategic goals. Theoretical and empirical evidence is also given for two non-traditional types: the “Kiosk” type, where all tasks remain in the front office to achieve lower costs, and the “Focused Professional” type, which de-couples front- and back-office activities to enable front-office workers to provide higher service, rather than to reduce costs. Empirically, retail bank lending systems are analyzed to support the typology.     

Site competence dynamics in international manufacturing networks: instrument development and a test in Eastern European factories

The objective of this paper is to introduce an instrument that enables the measurement of dynamics in the roles of factories in international networks. Starting from Ferdows’ framework on strategic factory roles, a clear definition and more precise operationalization of ‘site competence’ is provided. Our proposed instrument is tested in a context, being the Eastern European factories of Dutch multinationals, where it is plausible to expect changes in the strategic factory roles over time. This test comprises four exploratory case studies that provide the basis for future, more extensive empirical work. At the same time, they contribute to the under-researched area of company and industry case studies with respect to the international context of operations management.     

A note on comparative statics and stochastic dominance

This is a bibliographical note which points out the applicability of some existing results to the development of a sort of Stochastic Dominance ‘algebra’. The ‘more risk averse’ relation of Ross (1981) is established within a general framework.     

精益物流研究综述

精益思想的理论产生以后,在物流领域得到迅速发展与应用,并取得较好的成效。文章在总结国内外精益物流相关理论及运作方面的研究成果基础上,从精益物流的概念、运作、供应商、库存和成本管理等方面分别进行了归纳阐述,强调指出供应商评价与选择的方法、JIT库存管理及成本管理在实施精益化过程中至关重要,这对于减少浪费、降低成本、提高顾客满意度等有重要作用,同时提出精益物流的未来发展趋势及研究展望,将绿色和电子商务融入精益物流的研究中,增强柔性和敏捷性,最终实现物流的精益化。     

Economic, organizational, and political influences on biases in forecasting state sales tax receipts

This paper investigates factors influencing fixed bias in forecasting state sales taxes revenues. By extending an existing model used to explain forecast accuracy to include a series of complex interactions related to the potential political and policy use of revenue forecasts, the paper extends our understanding of the forecasting process in government. Exploratory empirical analysis based on survey data is used to provide evidence that bias in forecasting results, at least in part, from political and policy manipulation. There is also evidence that institutional reforms associated with ‘good management’ practices affect forecast bias, but in complex ways depending upon the extent to which political competition exists within the state.     

The organizing vision of application service provision: a process-oriented analysis

The processes by which information systems (IS) innovations become institutionalized are the subjects of much debate within the field of organization theory. Yet few empirical studies exist which examine how IS innovations come to be adopted and diffused across organizations. This paper draws from neo-institutional theory by extending the work of Swanson and Ramiller, using their concept of the organizing vision as a lens for observing and analysing an emerging information systems innovation targeted at small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which came to be known as application services provisioning (ASP). We observe that over time, the initial euphoria and ‘hype’ which surrounded the organizing vision of ASP was replaced by scepticism and distrust, as powerful institutional interests in the form of leading technology firms, industry analysts and IT consultancies were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts to disseminate ASP throughout the wider business and not-for profit IS user communities. The lessons from this research suggest that a processes-oriented analysis of how organizing visions are interpreted, legitimised and mobilized is critical for understanding and explaining how underdevelopment of an organizing vision at an early stage, may inhibit its later adoption and institutionalization.     

Dynamic programming for non-additive stochastic objectives

We derive the existence of an optimum and the techniques of dynamic programming for non-additive stochastic objectives. Our key assumption for non-negative objectives is that asymptotic impatience exceeds asymptotic ‘mean’ growth, where ‘mean’ growth is derived not only from intertemporal inelasticity and the random return on investment but also from the curvature of the non-additive stochastic aggregator (i.e. the ‘certainty equivalent’). We provide broad families of new, interesting, and tractable examples. They illustrate that ‘mean’ growth can exist even when the distribution of returns has unbounded support, that power discounting often implies infinite asymptotic impatience, and that non-positive objectives are easily handled with few restrictions on growth.     

A meta-analysis model of manufacturing capabilities

Recent research in operations strategy has focused on showing the extent to which manufacturing's competence in developing and executing one or more competitive capabilities affects the organization's overall business performance. Several of those efforts have produced models, such as the ‘sand cone’, that suggest an ideal sequence in which manufacturing capabilities should be developed. However, efforts to empirically validate such sequential models, except for one recent study, have been inconclusive. This paper takes a different approach to examining the relationships among competitive capabilities. The existing cross-sectional studies of manufacturing capabilities are integrated to synthesize a proposed model of: (1) the relationships among manufacturing capabilities, and (2) the relationships between those capabilities and business performance. The proposed model is synthesized using data from previous studies, other models and theoretical arguments. Meta-analysis is used to identify aspects of the model that appear better supported by empirical research and those that require further study. The implications of this proposed model with regard to research, practice and future research in operations strategy are discussed.