The dual ladder: motivational solution or managerial delusion?

The 'Dual Ladder' reward system has been used for years by industry as an incentive system to motivate technical performance. Its effectiveness has been called into question on many occasions. The paper will report the results of a survey of nearly 1,500 engineers and scientists in nine U.S. organizations. In this survey, engineers were asked to indicate their career preferences in terms of increasing managerial responsibility, technical ladder advancement or more interesting technical work. Responses indicate marked age-dependent differences in response, particularly a strong increase in the proportion preferring more interesting project work over either form of advancement.
Conversations which one of the authors has had recently with managers of the thirteenth company question its status as an exception.     

Understanding sales force automation outcomes: A managerial perspective

Despite the growing importance and potential of sales force automation (SFA), failure rates for SFA implementations have been reported to be as high as 55-80%. Given the growth of SFA programs, the potential effectiveness and efficiency SFA can bring to the sales force, and the magnitude of SFA failures, it is surprising that relatively few studies have addressed this important and timely topic. Many of the early studies have focused on the adoption and diffusion/infusion of SFA programs from an information technology perspective. The results of these studies have been inconclusive in explaining SFA implementation failures. The purpose of this study is to add to our understanding of SFA failures by investigating a broader set of implementation factors than those typically included in acceptance of technology studies. We conducted in-depth personal interviews with executives from three global organizations who were responsible for SFA initiatives in their firm. Results from the in-depth analyses yield recommendations and a proposed model to assist managers in the implementation of their SFA as well as getting their salespeople to “buy-in” to the SFA, and ultimately reduce SFA failures.     

A queueing-inventory system with two classes of customers

We consider a queueing-inventory system with two classes of customers. Customers arrive at a service facility according to Poisson processes. Service times follow exponential distributions. Each service uses one item in the attached inventory supplied by an outside supplier with exponentially distributed lead time. We find a priority service rule to minimize the long-run expected waiting cost by dynamic programming method and obtain the necessary and sufficient condition for the priority queueing-inventory system being stable. Formulating the model as a level-dependent quasi-birth-and-death (QBD) process, we can compute the steady state probability distribution by Bright–Taylor algorithm. Useful analytical properties for the cost function are identified and extensive computations are conducted to examine the impact of different parameters to the system performance measures.     

Global account management: a supply-side managerial view

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theory-based explanation for the adaptive variations in a supply manager's role within a global account management (GAM) relationship. The variations in a supply-side manager's role are explained using a combined knowledge-based view and relational contracting theoretical perspective. The demands of the global customer, which constrain the supply managers' role adaptation, present a unique set of challenges to organizations supplying in global accounts. The new managerial competencies, required for effective global account supply management under global customer's constraints, are described. In conclusion, specific managerial actions are recommended for effective global account supply management, which are intended to engender the development of trust and social capital in the global customer-supplier relationship.     

柔性版印刷工艺"catch 22"弊端的解决方案

由于柔性版印刷工艺具有投资少、成本低、生产效率高等优势，受到了广大印刷者的青睐，并得到了广泛的应用。经过几十年的发展，尽管已经有了很大的提高和改进，但是，柔版印刷者们至今仍面临着一大基本挑战，那就是：如何获得最佳的实地密度，并能够复制出理想的暗调细节，同时高光部分的细微层次也能够得到忠实的再现，这也是柔性版印刷工艺本身所存在的一种缺陷和弊端，我们把它称为catch２２弊端。由于柔性版印刷工艺自身的一些特点（与胶印和凹印工艺有很大的差别），使得操作者很难对油墨向承印物材料上的转移以及转移的方向进行控制…     

The impact of managerial values on decision-making behaviour: A comparison of the United States and Hong Kong

This study addresses cross-national value differences and how values held by managers influence their decision-making behaviour. A two-by-two research design was used to examine values held by practising managers and future business leaders in the United States and Hong Kong. Machiavellianism, locus of control, intolerance of ambiguity, and dogmatism were the measures used to assess these values. Social desirability scores were used as covariants to help control for cultural differences. The findings indicate that differences exist to affect decision-making behaviour. Consequently, managers in both environments must make adaptations to accommodate the values of those involved in transnational businesses.The authors thank Michael H Bond for his many helpful comments. Also, we thank Priscilla Elass for her assistance with data collection.     

The EEC green paper : A faltering step in the right direction

This paper comments on the EEC Green Paper on the Development of the Common Market for Telecommunications Services and Equipment. Jonathan Solomon argues that only a radical change in European political thinking about telecommunications can prevent Europe from being left behind in the information race. The Green Paper represents a step in a long process of readjustment, though perhaps somewhat lacking in potency.     

Artificial neural networks: A new methodology for industrial market segmentation

Neural networks are a type of artificial intelligence computing that have generated considerable interest across many disciplines during the past few years. The authors explore the potential of artificial neural networks in assisting industrial marketers faced with a segmentation problem by comparing their classification ability with discriminant analysis and logistic regression. The neural networks achieve higher hit ratios on holdout samples than the other methodologies. A marketer in a business-to-business situation may be able to segment a market more accurately, thereby improving efficiency for sales forces and other promotional activities, by using artificial neural networks.     

Cartel formation and pricing: The effect of managerial decision-making rules

We experimentally investigate how the managerial decision-making process affects choices in a Bertrand pricing game with an opportunity to form non-binding cartels. To do so we compare the effects of three decision-making rules for the firm (decisions by CEOs, majority rule and consensus) to each other and to decisions in a benchmark consisting of single-individual firms. It has been argued elsewhere that groups behave more competitively than individuals. In this setting this predicts that for all three decision-making rules we should observe fewer cartels and lower prices. This is not what we find. For the formation of cartels, there are no differences across treatments. For prices asked, we find that first, cartels lead to higher prices in all treatments, despite the fact that they are non-binding. Second, the decision-making rules strongly affect the prices asked. One thing that stands out is that firms run by CEOs ask higher prices (i.e., defect less often from the cartel) than observed in the other treatments.     

Creating shared views of customers: Individuals as sense-makers in multinational companies

Global suppliers' relationships with their global customers tend to be complex, as each consists of multiple geographical, technological and functional units. For a supplier to manage these customer relationships, some shared views of each relationship are likely to be needed for consistency of activities. This creates a need within supplier MNCs to make sense of customers. This research focuses on sense-making by individuals in supplier MNCs. It considers individuals acting in the sense-making process a means of creating shared views. A qualitative process research strategy is utilized to uncover this process. As a result, this research recognizes four mechanisms, defined as individual-level behavioral patterns, for creating shared supplier views of the customer: defining, linking, triggering and creating. Furthermore, the study defines the triggers that cause individuals increasingly to share similar or dissimilar views of the customer. These triggers are recognized at different levels of management: within the MNC (i.e., internal cooperation, shared projects, limited customer contacts), at the customer-relationship level (i.e., previous cooperation with the customer) and at the network level (i.e., involvement of third parties).     

'We have the values': customers, control and corporate ideology in call centre operations

This article analyses the use of normative control through recruitment, work organisation, social events, and bargaining processes within two Australian telecommunication call centres. Rather than arguing that such control reduced employees to 'self-disciplining subjects', it suggests that these control mechanisms embodied significant levels of managerial coercion and therefore attracted varying levels of resistance.     

Learning from leading-edge customers at The Sims: opening up the innovation process using toolkits

Recently, toolkits for user innovation and design have been proposed as a promising means of opening up the innovation process to customers. Using these tools, customers can take on problem-solving tasks and design products to fit their individual needs. To date, arguments in favor of this new concept have been limited to the idea of satisfying each user's needs in a highly efficient and valuable way. The aim of this empirical study is to extend our knowledge of how users deal with 'the invitation to innovate' and how attractive individual user designs might be to other users. In studying the users of toolkits for the immensely popular computer game The Sims , we found that (1) users are not 'one-time shoppers'– in fact, their innovative engagement is rather long-lasting, continuous, evolving, and intense. We also found that (2) leading-edge users do not merely content themselves with the official toolkits provided by the manufacturer. They employ user-created tools to push design possibilities even further. (3) Moreover, individual user designs are not only attractive to the creators themselves; instead, certain innovative solutions are in high demand among other users. Based on our findings, we discuss how toolkits and their users might add to the process of innovation in general. We argue that toolkits could serve as a promising market research tool for guiding a firm's new product development efforts. Furthermore, toolkits may serve as a crèche for interested but inexperienced users who could evolve into leading-edge users over time. These innovative users might then be integrated into more radical product development efforts.     

Application of the DIERS methodology to the study of runaway polymerization: Validation of the DIERS methodology using blow-down tests

The Design Institute for Emergency Relief Systems (DIERS) and more recently the DIERS Users Group have been investigating various aspects of emergency relief for more than 12 years. The DIERS programs have given rise to an in-depth understanding of the basic mechanism of how runaway thermal reactions are safely vented. In concert with the development of the understanding of the venting mechanism, DIERS also developed experimental procedures and computational techniques for estimating emergency vent sizes.     

Upward and downward influence tactics in managerial networks: A comparative study of Hong Kong Chinese and Americans

This paper reports an empirical investigation of individual preferences in the use of managerial influence tactics by Hong Kong Chinese and Americans. Subjects in a cross-cultural scenario study were asked to evaluate alternative upward and downward influence tactics in terms of their preferred usage. The findings indicate a main effect for culture and for direction of influence attempt. In addition, direction of influence attempt interacts with subject gender and culture on a tactic-by-tactic basis to reveal differences in influence preferences. Implications of the findings and directions for future studies are discussed.This research was supported by The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The special assistance of Mimi Kam and Ricky Lam in back-translation of the research instruments is appreciated, as are the contributions of Joseph Raelin of Boston College and Harold Welsch of Depaul University in data collection.     

Research Note: Identifying the Invisible Colleges of the British Journal of Industrial Relations: A Bibliometric and Social Network Approach

The academic field of industrial relations has gone through much change in the last 20 years. On account of the rapid decline in union membership in the USA and the UK, industrial relations, which historically has focused on the employment relationship, has been searching for a new intellectual base. By conducting a bibliometric analysis of the journal British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR), we uncover the intellectual bases for that publication outlet for two time periods, 1986–1995 and 1996–2005. From the late 1980s to the mid‐1990s, BJIR's articles relied on the economics literature, while in the later period, it moved to the human resource and management journals, authors and articles. The possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Mergers,acquisitions, and the pruning of managerial deadwood

This research investigates the role that mergers and acquisitions may play in the disciplining of entrenched and inefficient managers. The relationship between a company's performance history and its subsequent top management turnover is assessed for a sample of target companies, their parents, and a control group of companies not involved in merger and acquisition activity. The results reveal that target company top management turnover is higher than ‘normal’ in the 2 years immediately following a merger or acquisition, but there is no relationship between previous target company performance and its subsequent top management turnover. Further analyses indicate that first-year target company turnover rates are associated with a history of relatively poor parent company performance, while second-year turnover rates are associated with a history of relatively good parent company performance.     

Culture's consequences: A methodology for comparative management studies in Southeast Asia?

Hofstede's model of culture and many reviews of his work are discussed to investigate the relevance of his paradigm to management research, particularly in the culturally diverse region of Southeast Asia. The issue is analyzed with the results of a replication carried out by the authors, applying Hofstede's questionnaire to 170 Hong Kong, Malaysian and Singapore managers.     

Developing an expert system on project evaluation: Part III: The managerial questions raised by the work

Abstract
This is the third paper to arise from the same piece of research concerned with the development of Expert Systems (ES's) in the management of R&D. The first paper described the overall approach to the work and summarised the problems encountered, whilst the second focused on the software side of the work and the problems it entailed.
In this paper the focus is on the process of project evaluation itself. The simple purpose of creating an ES is to capture the expertise of those well versed in a particular field and try to reproduce it in the ES. In this work, however, the hypotheses on which the development of the ES was based, and their subsequent support by considering actual projects, cast doubt on the theoretical background of project evaluation as reviewed in literature. The basis of these doubts is set out in this paper together with discussion on what is necessary to improve the situation. It was necessary to come to these conclusions prior to the development of a final ES on project evaluation, and is here published not only because of its interest in its own right, but so that others who have already worked in the field might reconsider their data in the light of the criticisms. By this means they would have a contribution to make to a better understanding of evaluation and of the on-going work on a new ES, now developed and operational, which has been designed as a research tool as well as its normal function of giving managerial advice.