The influence of position and gender on personal networks in a UK professional service

This paper presents empirical findings regarding the content and process of personal contact or social networks and networking of practitioners in a professional service. The focus of the study is public relations practitioners operating in seven consultancies across the UK, in Manchester, London, Yorkshire and Cheshire. Using qualitative methodologies including in-depth interviews and network mapping, the study reveals practitioners' network size and variety of contacts, and their role in client acquisition and retention. In particular, the study suggests that position and gender are two key influences on practitioners' personal networks. The study appears to identify that managers may have the smallest networks compared to their colleagues and especially lack weak tie contacts in the form of friends, and that female practitioners may have larger and more varied personal contact networks than men. The study thus offers an insight into personal network membership for public relations practitioners, hitherto unexplored, plus a deeper understanding of interactional dimensions of social networks and the gendered nature of networking in the UK public relations sector.     

Creating customer knowledge competence: managing customer relationship management programs strategically

While increasingly demanding customers have prompted many firms to implement customer relationship management (CRM) programs, little is known about the internal processes that assist organization-wide learning about individual customer relationships. This research proposes a conceptual framework about the internal processes involved in creating customer knowledge competence, which allow firms to strategically manage their CRM programs. The framework is discussed based on five case studies of Canadian financial services firms that have implemented customer relationship programs.     

Managing in complex business networks

For many years, research and management thinking has focused on understanding business relationships and networks. Now, the focus is shifting to managing business relationships and networks. This new approach focus poses two questions. Since networks are loosely coupled systems, to what extent are business networks manageable? Furthermore, how can a firm's ability to manage a network be characterized and measured? This paper addresses these two questions by synthesizing the current state of knowledge on management issues in networks and the contribution to managerial abilities in complex relationships. The discussion leads to a set of propositions describing the abilities firms will need to successfully manage complex business networks.     

The case for ethical technology assessment (eTA)

New technologies often give rise to previously unknown ethical problems, and it often takes many years to fully integrate them in society. We propose a new form of technology assessment that will focus on the ethical implications of new technologies; ethical technology assessment (eTA). Ethical technology assessment will serve as a tool for identifying adverse effects of new technologies at an early stage. It should be undertaken in dialogue with technology developers and have the form of a continuous dialogue rather than a single evaluation at a specific point in time. eTA can be conducted on the basis of a check-list that refers to nine crucial ethical aspects of technology; (1) Dissemination and use of information, (2) Control, influence and power, (3) Impact on social contact patterns, (4) Privacy, (5) Sustainability, (6) Human reproduction, (7) Gender, minorities and justice, (8) International relations, and (9) Impact on human values. Ethical technology assessments should not be committed to any particular moral theory. Instead they should be open to different perspectives and solutions.     

Forecasting and explaining aggregate consumer credit delinquency behaviour

We model aggregate delinquency behaviour for consumer credit (including credit card loans and other consumer loans) and for residential real estate loans using data up until 2008. We test for cointegrating relationships and then estimate short run error correction models. We find evidence to support the portfolio explanations of declines in credit quality for consumer and for real estate loans, but support for the reduced stigma explanation was restricted to real estate loans. Evidence supportive of household-level explanations of irrational borrowing and unexpected net income shocks was found for consumer and real estate loans, but evidence of strategic default was restricted to the volume of consumer loans and real estate loans, and not for credit cards. We also found that the error correction model gave forecasts of the volume of delinquent consumer debt which were of an accuracy comparable to that of an ARIMA model.     

Non-linearity of scorecard log-odds

The use of linear and log-linear models for scorecard construction is nearly universal. In this paper we address the question of non-linearity in the distribution of a scorecard’s inferred log-odds to score relationship. Linear scorecards are excellent and robust ranking tools, but the inferred default probabilities are increasingly used in day-to-day business operations — within account-level strategies, for cutoff setting, and for capital allocation. All of these uses are dependent upon the accurate estimation of the probability of default, which is a quality independent of a model’s ranking performance.In this paper we illustrate this phenomenon of a misaligned log-odds relationship within a model built using a method which is standard in retail banking. The sequential elimination of correlated variable bins results in an improved estimation, at the cost of the model’s ranking performance. A post-hoc quadratic transformation of the scores improves the model fit without affecting the ranking performance, but may prove difficult to apply in current operational systems.     

Designing a forecasting analysis to understand the diffusion of open source software in the year 2010

Open source software (OSS) is being considered the new paradigm of software distribution. As contrasted with the traditional software marketing model, OSS pursues the freedom to have access to open source and offers several advantages to enterprises. These advantages include saving costs related to Information Systems and Technologies (IS/IT) and the possibility of adapting to changing organizational requirements. However, the recent forthcoming of OSS prevents us from knowing the real impact it has today on social and organizational fields. Having considered this obstacle, the authors have defined a foreseeable setting for OSS diffusion and adoption by means of a forecasting study based on the Delphi method for the year 2010. The findings reveal the levels of OSS diffusion for this year according to the main applications, geographic regions and industries. In a complementary manner, the authors have studied the elements of success as well as the most relevant obstacles for diffusing and adopting technological solutions based on OSS.