Knowledge centres: A technology & engineering hybrid

A Knowledge Centre is defined as a group of experts in a specific field, with some designated equipment and software.
Such groups were recognized for the first time (in a given matrix organization) as the real carriers of the accumulated knowledge of science and technology disciplines.
To be reckoned as a knowledge centre (K.C.), the group has to be ready to participate in development projects, as well as to lead research for improved technologies and advance knowledge in its field.
It was found that by nurturing knowledge centres, the organization has succeeded in per-forming an interdisciplinary R&D while at the same time maintaining and advancing a strong technology base. The K.C. has some distinctive lifecycle phases. Consequently, the organization applies different considerations and different planning and control methods for each phase. An emerging K.C. needs sensitive care and support. A mature K.C. calls for firm guidance and control, a declining K.C. should be directed to another field, or be dismantled.
This report also describes some of the procedures employed by the organization to maintain and control its K.C.s, and a management attempt to use them as a tool for managing the advancement of technology within the organization. The authors predict that a system of K.C.s may be defined and serve other R&D laboratories in a similar way. This thesis has to be verified by additional studies. Some additional areas for further research are identified, too.     

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.     

Time series patterns in credit ratings

This article offers a substitute setting to simulate credit rating migrations. The internal correlations model tracks time-series movements within credit rating entries, rather than cross-ratings correlations. The proposed nonhomogeneous process is authenticated through the likelihood ratio Dickey–Fuller test, and is found to be statistically and economically significant, by better fitting observed cumulative default rates. Several nonlinear regression models assist to better identify these time-related patterns. The economic structure underlying the time dependency often corresponds to changes in GDP, business cycles, and market risk. Furthermore, significant positive autocorrelation is detected mostly among downgrade probabilities.     

The cost allocation issue in joint replenishment

Joint replenishment for several products to achieve a lower inventory logistics cost has been a topic of extensive studies. Less attention has been paid to the issue of deciding how the joint replenishment costs should be allocated across the individual products. Ideally, when items are ordered together one would require a stable cost allocation, such that no subset of products subsidizes another subset. When part of each product's ordering cost is product specific and part can be shared with other products (like in a 3PL setting of Anily and Haviv), it has been shown that even when a stable allocation exists, such an allocation might be difficult to compute. In addition, usually the components of ordering costs are partially determined using estimates and accounting discretion. This paper provides two main insights for determining an appropriate cost allocation. It provides the means to test how sensitive a stable cost allocation is to a range of cost parameter values. Then, in a computational study, it is shown how to obtain a stable cost allocation without excessive computation.     

Technology Innovation Indicators

Abstract
A survey of the US patent database has yielded indicators to trends in technology innovations. Three types of indicator were developed, namely technology maturity, growth potential and product vs process innovations. The patent data show how innovations in one technology area are linked to other technologies and a measure of these links was incorporated into the above trend indicators. Results have a wide range of applications, including assessment of technological opportunities and helping a company in the analysis of strategic alternatives.     

On preserving the reservation wage property in a continuous job search model

The purpose of this article is to examine a continuous model of job search. Job offers are received randomly over time according to a renewal process. The wage offers are assumed to be positive, independent, and identically distributed random variables. There is a search cost of c monetary units per unit time. The only decision the searcher must make is when to stop searching and accept an offer. It is shown that the optimal stopping strategy which maximizes the searcher's expected net return over the class of all stopping times possesses the reservation wage property, provided that the interarrival time between two successive job offers in NBUE (new better than used in expectation).     

The prediction of political feasibility

Some methods are proposed for the more systematic exploration of the feasibility of alternative government policies in a way operationally useful as part of policy analysis. The variables shaping political feasibility are investigated, and a method for its prediction is suggested