Ambiguous professionalism: managing efficiency and service quality in an Israeli call centre

This case study examines the management of frontline employees in an Israeli call centre by focusing on the organisational rhetoric of 'professionalism' and the implementation of integrative human resource practices (debriefing, covert call monitoring, information and technology software, and a monthly bonus). This culture is critically explored as a ceremonial facade that covers the conventional quantity/quality tension.     

Mixed signals: A dynamic analysis of warranty provision in the automotive industry, 1960–2008

Often, signaling research in the strategy and economics literature postulates the existence of an ostensible signal and then empirically tests its veracity, utilizing cross‐sectional data. We argue that this static approach does not allow researchers to fully incorporate the concept of equilibrium in their analysis, thereby potentially violating a key axiom of signaling theory. We propose that a dynamic analysis of signals can address this omission, and then conduct such an analysis. We use empirical data on warranty coverage offered by automobile manufacturers in the U.S. market extending from the first warranty offered by the industry in 1960 through to 2008. Our findings support the notion that signaling behavior differs in periods of equilibrium and disequilibrium, in turn influencing signal accuracy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What to maximize if you must

The assumption that decision makers choose actions to maximize their preferences is a central tenet in economics, often justified formally or informally by appealing to evolutionary arguments. In contrast, we show that in almost every game and for almost every family of distortions of a player's actual payoffs, some degree of this distortion is beneficial to the player, and will not be driven out by any evolutionary process involving payoff-monotonic selection dynamics. Consequently, under any such selection dynamics the population will not converge to payoff-maximizing behavior. We also show that payoff-maximizing behavior need not prevail when preferences are imperfectly observed.     

Interactive unawareness

The standard state-spaces of asymmetric information preclude non-trivial forms of unawareness (Modica and Rustichini (Theory Decision 37 (1994) 107–124); Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini (Econometrica 66 (1998) 159–173)). We introduce a generalized state-space model that allows for non-trivial unawareness among several individuals, and which satisfies strong properties of knowledge as well as all the desiderata on unawareness proposed this far in the literature.     

Leading change, overcoming chaos--making change succeed in your organization

The recent emphasis on reengineering has brought a lot of attention to the need to create a compelling vision. It has also forced management to face the realities of making a grand vision a concrete reality. This article focuses on the pragmatic elements--strategic tools and practical solutions--of implementing the change necessary to make your organization succeed.     

Non-well-founded-Type Spaces

In a Harsanyi-types space, states become circular, self-referring objects if one tries to make the types an explicit part of the states' structure. To make such a definition rigorous, we suggest the use ofnon-well-founded setsthat may be members of themselves, members of their members, etc. We show how to define the non-well-founded version of a types space in a way that preserves nature and the mutual uncertainties. This non-well-founded version is isomorphic to a beliefs subspace of the Mertens–Zamir hierarchic construction, although its definition involves no inductive process.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: D82.     

Firm exits as a determinant of new entry: Is there evidence of local creative destruction?

This study posits that a local process of creative destruction provides an impetus to regional industrial renewal. We argue that exits of older firms release resources that stimulate local entry. New entrants add value to these resources by redeploying them in more productive uses. We test our hypotheses with a unique longitudinal database encompassing the entry and exit of Canadian manufacturing enterprises. We find that exits of old firms increase entry and that on average new entrants are more productive. Persistent high local rates of exit, however, deter entry.     

An Exploratory Approach to Evaluating Performance Measures: The Managers' Perspective

It is commonly agreed that firm performance is a multi-faceted construct. Lacking a single accepted method for performance, managers are often judged by a mechanism they do not know or understand. This paper utilises a bottom-up approach to investigate manager perceptions of the important dimensions of performance in the hotel industry, and their evaluations of achievements in these dimensions. The paper offers a qualitative technique that characterises the managers' profile in a two-dimensional space of performance. One dimension is a composite of production-oriented indicators of performance, and the other is a composite of service-oriented indicators of performance. The findings indicate that most managers lack a focus and do not differentiate between production and service indicators of performance. The qualitative technique can be utilised for gauging manager perceptions of performance and for evaluation and feedback for manager performance.