Product innovation charters: Mission statements for new products

This article presents findings from an exploratory study into the content and impact of product innovation charters (PICs) in 86 North American corporations. The findings demonstrate that managers have some distinct preferences in terms of the items that they choose to include in a PIC and that certain components seem to be more important to mention than others. The findings also make evident the relationship that PICs have with selected performance measures. The results suggest that product innovation charters, like their mission statement 'cousins', may be of more value than most managers realize.     

Inferring Public and Private Information from Trades and Quotes

We propose a new model that uses nonsynchronous, ultra‐high frequency data to analyze the sequential impact of trades and quotes on the price process. Private information is related to the impact of trades and public information to the impact of quotes. The model is extended to include various other factors that affect public and private information. For 20 active Nasdaq stocks, private information causes, on average, 9.43% of daily stock price movements. Additionally, quotes are more informative when (1) many dealers set the best price and (2) traditional market makers rather than Electronic Communication Networks set the best price.     

Policies to stimulate regional innovation capabilities via university–industry collaboration: an analysis and an assessment

In this paper, we demonstrate how regional economic policies to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation, can lead to successes. More specifically, through a detailed theoretical and empirical analysis, we discuss the critical ingredients that can lead to regional innovation and economic success. These critical ingredients consist of a balanced mix based on the presence of research institutes, a texture of endogenous knowledge–intensive start–ups coupled to larger R&D–intensive incumbents, all of them embedded in a professional environment that supports business advice and services. We illustrate the effects of this mix using empirical material from various innovative regions around the world.     

Mixing of direct, ratio, and product method estimators

In a paper by S rivenkataramana T racy [4], four methods of estimating a population total Y with the use of an auxiliary variable were introduced, given a random sample without replacement from that population. These methods were "built around the idea that estimating the population total is essentially equivalent to estimating the total corresponding to the non-sample units, since that corresponding to the sample units is known once the sample is drawn and measurements are made on it."
However, in the case of small sampling fractions the nonsample units constitute most of the population and no great improvement over the traditional estimators is to be expected. Therefore the methods are compared with the existing estimators and it turns out that they are special cases of the "mixing estimators", introduced in this paper. The latter estimators can be made asymptotically equivalent to the regression estimator and are therefore asymptotically superior to all other estimators. An exact comparison is carried out on the artificial example given in [4]. The statement in this paper that "the proposed estimators are to be preferred to the regression estimator for., superiority of performance in the case of small samples" is evidently misleading. Finally a comparison is made with other "mixing-type" estimators, that can prove very useful in practice.     

Analysis,modeling, and assessing performances of supply chains served by long-distance freight transport corridors

This article deals with an analysis, modeling, and assessing performances of supply chains served by long-distance intercontinental intermodal rail/road- and sea-shipping freight transport corridor(s). For such a purpose, the supply chains are defined and the methodology for assessing their performances under given conditions is developed. The methodology consists of the analytical models of indicators of the operational, economic, environmental and social performances of particular corridors and corresponding supply chains assumed to be dependent on the infrastructural and technical/technological capabilities. The models of particular indicators have been applied according to “what-if” scenario approach to assessing performances of the long-distance intercontinental inland and maritime freight transport corridors spreading between China and Europe in the scope of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “A New Maritime Silk Road” policy initiative. The results prove that the intermodal inland rail/road alternative could act as a serious competitive alternative to its maritime deep-sea counterpart under given conditions. Nevertheless, in order to realize the opportunities, large investments in the inland rail/road infrastructure are required to appropriately connect China with Europe.