Individualism–collectivism as predictors of BPO employee attitudes toward union membership in India

Drawing on data from a survey of 342 employees from three BPO organizations in Mumbai (India), this study examined whether cultural variables of individual cultural orientation and organizational culture, and their interaction were predictive of employees’ attitudes toward union membership in BPO organizations in India where unionization has hitherto not taken place. Using regression analysis, the researcher found that over and above the effects of demographic and job-related variable, and work stress and job satisfaction, horizontal individualism could predict union attitudes significantly and negatively whereas vertical individualism and collectivism could predict the attitudes significantly and positively. Similarly, organizational collectivism could predict employees’ attitudes toward union membership significantly and negatively. Using the univariate analysis of variance, the researcher found that the contrast between personal value and organizational culture of an individualist working in a collectivistic organizational culture or collectivist working in an individualistic culture are found to have stronger influence on union attitudes compared to the congruence of an individualist working in an individualistic culture or collectivist working in a collectivistic culture. The results and implications of findings are discussed in the paper with reference to the literature on role of cultural and attitudinal variables in relation to organizational outcomes like union membership.

Investigating the intertwining impact of wholesale access pricing and the commitment to net neutrality principle on European next-generation access networks private investment plans: An options-game application for capturing market players' competitive interactions

Whilst the deployment of next generation access networks (NGANs) is undoubtedly beneficial to the economy, new legal developments in the United States (US) regarding the issue of net neutrality (NN) pose a new challenge not only to policy makers but to telecommunication providers as well, that could justify a fresh approach when assessing NGANs investments. In particular, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subverted extant NN rules in the US and if the European Union (EU) decides to follow a similar deregulatory path in the future it could change the way telecommunications providers on both sides of the Atlantic lay down their optical-fibre network infrastructure investment plans. For instance, if traffic prioritization is allowed then diversification of revenue sources can be achieved by charging customers for privileged data delivery to their premises. Currently, NGANs roll-out throughout EU is an ongoing process in a setting whereby access regulation in the form of network element unbundling is already imposed. As a result, these legal developments form a new context within which it makes sense to assess the role of NGANs wholesale access pricing in tandem with the degree of commitment to NN rules so as to i) determine their combinatorial impact on private telecommunications operators' financial figures and ii) capture their competitive interactions. Towards this end, an important aspect of particular value to market players (i.e. incumbents and competitive providers – CPs), and policy makers (i.e. National Regulatory Authorities – NRAs) that this article aims to examine is how to employ the option-game (OG) analysis, that reflects the intersection of game theory (GT) and real options (ROs), to model the competitive interactions between participants in a particular competition game set-up by means of deriving possible Nash-equilibrium (NE) outcomes within a regulatory setting part of which is the commitment or non-commitment to the NN principle. This, hybrid, evaluation tool is applied on top of a conventional discounted cash flow (DCF) techno-economic analysis assessment of an NGAN investment opportunity.     

Entrepreneurial team's risk-based decision-making: A dynamic game analysis

It is well-known that some cognitive factors such as opportunity perception and risk perception influence entrepreneurial risk-based decision-making (RBDM). This paper proposes some rules of entrepreneur's risk decision-learning to address this RBDM taking cognitive factors into consideration. The learning mechanisms of entrepreneurial team's RBDM is derived based on entrepreneur's perception evolution. The paper employs a system dynamics model to analyze the entrepreneurial team's risk decision-learning. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the entrepreneurial RBDM process with cognitive factors.     

A knowledge-enabled procedure for customer relationship management

The value of knowledge management and customer relationship management is well recognized by many leading companies. This study presents a proposed model of Knowledge-enabled Customer Relationship Management and demonstrates the way in which the presented model can facilitate the identification of important factors that have key impacts on business performance in particular settings. The results show that employees in the steel industry indicate that to provide product and service information for customers and to share internally the best practice information can have benefits for hard measures such as market share, repeat purchases, and customer retention and for soft measures such as customer satisfaction, market leadership and customer loyalty. Employees in the textile industry report that to provide customer complaint information of customers and to share internally the best practice information can have benefits for hard measures such as customer retention, cost savings, and market share and for soft measures such as customer satisfaction, market leadership, customer loyalty, and customer and employee productivity.     

工程建设企业应重视项目后评价学习

基于项目后评价基础上的组织学习，是一种系统地提高项目管理能力的方法。目前项目后评价中存在着主体缺失、目的不明确和只评价面缺少学习等问题，工程建设企业应重视项目后评价学习。评价学习质量和效果应借鉴能力成熟模型，它提供了一种评估和改进项目后评价学习的程序，以及确定成功学习实践的基本原则，可作为推动项目向评价学习的有力工具。     

Why Are Quit Rates Lower Among Defense Contractors?

This paper presents empirical evidence of lower quit rates at small manufacturers with defense contracts and examines whether this is associated with differences in their human resource policies and organizational practices and strategies. We take advantage of an original data set to compare labor quits, workforce skills, and occupational structure between defense‐contracting and noncontracting small manufacturers in eastern Pennsylvania. We find that the remarkably large defense contractor advantage in quit rates—7 percentage points—is almost totally explained by differences in skills, operational strategies, and workforce management and training practices, suggesting a mediation effect through these HR practices. Defense‐contracting status emerges as an important overlooked variable in HRM studies.     

红外监测三坐标平移动物实验台的研制

演化硬件研究将进化思想应用于电子系统内部结构的设计和调整,以实现硬件电路的自组织、自适应和自修复,从而提高系统的可靠性。介绍了演化硬件的概念、基本原理和实现方法,对国内外研究动态及已取得的成果进行了总结,并指出了目前研究存在的主要问题。     

UBD/MPD技术标准现状分析

针对欠平衡钻井(UBD)和控制压力钻井(MPD)的石油行业标准、IADC标准、API标准进行了综述,着重讨论了目前欠平衡钻井和控制压力的标准现状,探讨了以后我国石油行业可能建立控制压力标准所包含的主要内容。     

工程纠纷ADR解决方式的研究

传统的诉讼解决纠纷机制由于费用高、时间长受到愈来愈多的批评和指责,而替代性纠纷解决机制（ADR）因其灵活、高效、友善引起关注,迅速在各行各业广泛使用。ADR的实质是一程序群,主要类型包括有协商、调解、调停、裁决、小型审理和租借法官等。通过国际工程中主要使用的ADR程序,对ADR机制的几种办法与诉讼进行比较,分析了ADR机制的关键成功因素,并对我国工程领域实施ADR机制提出了建议。     

动态网页制作及ASP技术应用

ASP作为目前一种比较成熟的服务器端脚本编写环境,在网页制作中得到广泛的应用。ASP结合ADO能快速地实现对数据库的访问。本文介绍了ASP同数据库建立连接的两种方法,一种是通过OLE DB连接ODBC驱动程序,在ODBC的系统DSN中指定数据源进行连接;另一种是通过快速的OLE DB Provider技术连接数据库;同时介绍了动态网页分页功能的实现方法,增强了页面的可视化效果,实现了页面间的快速跳转,方便查询。     

先进制造技术的系统模式

概述了先进制造技术含义的演进 ,当前国内外各种先进的生产组织观念、生产管理模式、生产制造策略 (统称为先进制造系统技术 )的特点和应用状况。     

Race to the top: Does competition in the DSL market matter for fibre penetration?

High speed broadband creates potential productivity gains and has a positive impact on economic growth. Achieving Europe's broadband access objectives will require large scale investment in next generation broadband networks, and it is imperative that an appropriate investment climate is created to encourage fibre network rollout. This study considers whether and how competition in the DSL market affects the incentives of operators to invest in the deployment of high-end fibre optic networks. Most earlier research on the drivers of investment in broadband technology has focused on the effect of mandatory access policies, such as local loop unbundling, or competing infrastructures. We posit that competition in the DSL sector may also influence fibre penetration, possibly to a considerable extent. We find that the relationship between service-based competition and fibre penetration is non-linear: a lack of or severe DSL competition is correlated with a negative effect on fibre penetration, but if a moderate degree of competition is already present in the market, more service-based competition may positively influence fibre penetration. The scale of these effects however varies with the openness of the DSL market: operators' incentives to invest in fibre appear to be more sensitive to changes in DSL competition if there is extensive local loop unbundling.     

设施管理研究的进展

针对目前设施管理行业巨大的发展潜力以及国内设施管理研究相对滞后的现状，在分析大量国外资料的基础上，回顾了设施管理的发展历程，介绍了设施管理的范围、内容、涉及的主要问题及其绩效评估的研究进展，探讨了设施管理的未来研究方向。     

Competition and regulation in China's 3G/4G mobile communications industry—Institutions,governance, and telecom SOEs

When it comes to the analysis of the intrinsic mechanism of market behaviors and hence competition development and regulatory imperatives in the Chinese telecommunications industry, currently there is no consistent pattern offered in the literature. In China's emergent 3G/4G era, market behaviors can be affected by various institutional factors, along with various forms of informal forces, which may translate into different implications for competition regulation. Based on extensive archival research and interview, this current study aims to bridge the gap by following an interpretive approach. An input–output model was substantiated for pattern-matching in the Chinese context base on the postulation of a series of propositions and hence Industry-Gray-Box. Accordingly, two categories of market behaviors, that is, market-driven vs. institutions-driven, were arguably delineated as being underpinning the competition development. Policy implications and future reform imperatives were discussed. This study may advance knowledge in terms of: (1) the establishment of a relatively consistent pattern for mapping the landscape of China's communications industry; (2) the substantiation of the inner working mechanism of China's SOE system in the telecommunications sector; and (3) original first attempt in identifying different roles of telecom SOEs and the governing forces that affect them. The paper also offers extensive and cohesive insights on China's formal and informal institutional environment in general and for telecommunications in particular. Measurements developed in this study may serve as basis for future study.     

Willingness to pay for over-the-top services in China and Korea

The increasing penetration of broadband and multiscreen availability has encouraged the development of premium video consumption through over-the-top (OTT) services. Netflix, the leading global OTT provider, is aggressively expanding its international operations and has ambitiously entered the Asian market. To prepare for the shift that the streaming service giant will bring, a proper understanding of consumer acceptance and intent to pay for OTT services is crucial. Therefore, this empirical study uses conjoint analysis to investigate the key attributes and to examine consumers’ marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for OTT services. We identified recommendation systems, resolution, and viewing options as important product attributes of OTT services that influence the WTP of Chinese and Korean consumers. The most important attribute for Chinese consumers of OTT services was resolution, followed by the recommendation system and viewing options. For Korean consumers, the recommendation system was ranked as the most valuable attribute, followed by viewing options and resolution. The overall WTP of Chinese consumers was 22.6 yuan (3.4 USD) per month, while Korean consumers’ intent to pay amounted to a total of 3530 won (3.1 USD) for OTT services.     

针对AES算法的差分功耗分析研究与实现

为研究AES算法面对差分功耗分析(DPA)的安全性,在指令级分析了微控制器的功耗模型,讨论了差分功耗分析中D函数的选择问题,成功地运用DPA方法攻击了在微控制器上实现的AES算法。最少只需300个明文样本在20 min内即可获取完整的密钥,从而实证了AES算法面对DPA方法攻击时的脆弱性,并揭示了该算法在微控制器实现中的密钥信息泄露点。     

Deregulation without apology: A truncated survivor analysis of long-run efficiency gains in the U.S. trucking industry

Deregulation of the U.S. trucking industry is found to have promoted long-run technical efficiency among less-than-truckload carriers of general commodity freight. It did so by exposing all carriers to competition which caused the very largest group, hauling more than five billion ton-miles annually, to lose output share to smaller carrier groups. Their inability to survive in-full implies that efficiency gains were achieved by reducing the extent of operation under decreasing returns to scale. This conclusion conflicts with other recent findings that deregulation promoted long-run efficiency by creating new ways for all carriers, even the very largest, to achieve economies of scale. The discrepancy in conclusions is significant in that previous findings of continuous scale economies, post-deregulation, leave open the possibility of rising industry concentration with all due repercussions on consumer welfare. A more encouraging outlook emerges from the present survivor analysis which finds the minimum efficient size to be below one billion ton-miles annually. This finding strongly supports a prediction of vigorous competition in the future, at least for this one segment of the trucking industry.This study was funded by a Faculty Summer Research Grant from Villanova University. The author acknowledges and appreciates the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects at Villanova for its support.     

Market orientation, guanxi, and business performance

The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of guanxi in the relation between market orientation (MO) and business performance (financial and strategic). In this study, based on prior findings, we have proposed that an interaction between MO and business guanxi is likely to be positively related to both financial and strategic performance. The interaction between MO and political guanxi is proposed to be negatively associated with financial and strategic performance. In this study we focus on the competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination of the MO components. Our findings advance the existing guanxi and MO-performance literature by revealing that; (a) business guanxi has both positive and negative effects on business performance (financial and strategic), (b) political guanxi has both positive and negative moderation effect on financial performance and a negative influence on strategic performance, (c) the alignment of guanxi and MO can be extended to the MO competitor and interfunctional coordination components, and (d) a proper match between guanxi and the MO elements is important. The outcomes of this study have implications for marketing managers and research concerning MO, guanxi, and business performance.     

网络新产物“博客”初探

对近年出现的网络新产物"博客"进行了初步的探讨,围绕何为博客、博客的由来、博客的类型、博客的思想理念、博客的运作模式及博客的社会影响力6个方面进行了较详细的阐述,以期使人们对还陌生的网络新产物"博客"有一个较全面初步的了解。     

合成对二氧环己酮

从工业化的制备角度考虑,通过对工艺路线的选择,确定了工业化合成对二氧环己酮(PDO)单体的最佳工艺路线——由β-羟基乙氧基乙酸盐合成,以氢氧化钠、乙二醇、氯乙酸钠为起始原料,合成的β-羟基乙氧基乙酸钠收率可达80.8%。通过对工艺条件的优化,确定了合成PDO关键步骤的最优条件,即盐酸与β-羟基乙氧基乙酸盐物质的量比为0.95∶1,反应温度为25℃,反应时间为40 min时,产物PDO收率最高。对产物的定性和定量分析表明,通过实验得到了PDO产品,最高收率可达66.2%,但纯度还未达到聚合条件,以后还需对其纯化方法作进一步的探索和研究。