Literature-related discovery (LRD): Lessons learned, and future research directions

Literature-related discovery (LRD) is the linking of two or more literature concepts that have heretofore not been linked (i.e., disjoint), in order to produce novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge (i.e., potential discovery). The open discovery systems (ODS) component of LRD starts with a problem to be solved, and generates solutions to that problem through potential discovery. We have been using ODS LRD to identify potential treatments or preventative actions for challenging medical problems, among myriad other applications. The five immediately preceding papers in this Special Issue describe the application of ODS LRD to Raynaud's Phenomenon (RP), cataracts, Parkinson's Disease (PD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Water Purification (WP). We describe the lessons learned from each application, and how the techniques can be improved further.Generation of much potential discovery using ODS LRD is possible when the conceptual roadblocks to discovery are removed. Some of these roadblocks include use of numerical filters that are unrelated to generating discovery, and excessive reliance on literatures directly related to the problem literature of interest. The issue of how to handle large amounts of potential discovery has not been addressed in the literature, since most ODS LRD researchers have tried to find a relatively few potential discovery items. We present a development strategy that capitalizes on the large amounts of potential discovery we have identified.     

Management Ethics and Corporate Policy: A Cross-cultural Comparison

This paper reports the results of a cross-cultural empirical study that investigated differences in the clarity of corporate attitudes towards ethical 'grey areas' and their influences on managers' ethical decision making. The study encompassed managers in France, Germany, Britain, Spain and the USA working in over 200 companies operating in these countries. Comparisons are made at both individual manager level and at corporate level. At the former level significant differences are found among nationalities of managers themselves. For the latter, differences are found among companies according to the nationality of their home country rather than the host country. Despite identifying national differences in areas of gift giving and receiving, loyalty to company, loyalty to one's group, and reporting others' violations of corporate policy, the study presents evidence that clarity of corporate policy has little influence on managers' reported ethical decision making. The perceived behaviour of managers' colleagues is far more important in predicting attitudes towards decision making of managers across the nationalities surveyed. This has implications for the efficacy of the growing popularity of corporate codes across Europe. Companies should place more emphasis on intervening in peer dynamics rather than trying to legislate for managers' ethical conduct.     

Project management systems: Moving project management from an operational to a strategic discipline

This article illustrates one aspect of the concept of “fit” between an organization's implementation of project management and its organizational context by exploring how the underlying drivers of an organization's strategy might influence not only the nature of the projects that it undertakes, but also the appropriateness of the arrangements that it makes to manage those projects. Using a model conceptualized from the literature on strategic management, an analysis of four organizations that have made significant investments in project management over the past 5 years supports the hypothesis that the degree of “fit” between an organization's strategic drivers of value and the configuration of its project management system influences the value it obtains from project management.     

The management of people across cultures: Valuing people differently

Ethnocentric and parochial human resource systems have been called into question as obstacles to globalization. This is addressed here by examining the way value is attached to people in organizations across cultures. Western managers and HR practitioners who work with affiliates in non‐Western emerging countries should particularly be aware of differences in “locus of human value.” Policies and practices developed in the West along instrumental lines see people primarily as a means to an end. This may be directly opposed to a humanistic view of human value that sees people as having a value in themselves. To provide support for these assumptions, an exploratory study across seven nations was carried out. Its findings indicate potentially important implications for global HRM policies and practices. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An Analysis of the Deposit-taking Market of Hong Kong

This paper analyzes the deposit-takingmarket in Hong Kong prior to the deregulation ofinterest rates in 1994. We argue that bankingregulations, in the forms of branching restrictionsand interest-rate ceilings, had created amonopsonistic market for short-term bank deposits. Asa result, banks in Hong Kong had earned asubstantially wider interest-rate margin than banks inother Asia-Pacific countries and the United States. We provide procedures to estimate the economicsignificance of the foregone interest and find themonopsonistic rent to be in the order of 1% of theGross Domestic Product of Hong Kong for the period1987 through 1994.     

Who determines the trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental quality? An evolutionary perspective from rural eastern China

We explore the evolutionary nature of interactions between government policy, farm decision-making and ecosystem services in Shucheng County, Anhui Province, 1950–2015. Analyses of ecological, social and economic trends are complemented by interviews with local farmers. Since the Household Responsibility System started in 1980, there has been a trade-off between rising levels of provisioning services and falling levels of regulating services with evidence that critical thresholds have been passed for water quality. Using a Framework for Ecosystem Service Provision, we argue that farmers have acted only as ecosystem service providers and have not influenced the policies that have brought about the trade-offs. Over the period, ecological degradation is best described as an example of ‘creeping normalcy’ where cumulative conventional actions by individual farmers produce unsustainable losses in regulating services. The Chinese government should act to balance the various ecosystem services through valuation and national policy. In this respect, there is a need for agencies that can provide place-based advice to farmers that will allow them to maintain productivity levels while pursuing restorative actions. Even with new policies, the draw of urban employment, high production costs and an ageing population threaten the viability of farming in these marginal agricultural areas.