Factors Affecting the Process of Collaborative Product Development: A Study of UK Manufacturers of Information and Communications Technology Products

Product development is inherently risky, particularly when new technology is involved. Although collaborative product development is promoted as a means for reducing or at least sharing risk, such partnerships present their own challenges. Collaboration can also accentuate many of the risks inherent in product development. For example, any product development project requires effective communication among development team members. In a collaborative effort, this challenge is even greater because the development team spans organizational as well as functional boundaries. Dale Littler, Fiona Leverick, and Margaret Bruce describe the results of a survey that was conducted to identify the risks and benefits of collaborative product development as well as the key success factors for such relationships. The main reasons cited for collaborating on product development projects include satisfying customer requirements, taking advantage of market opportunities for which the firm lacks necessary skills and technical expertise, and responding to changes in technology. Other reasons for collaboration include reducing the cost and risk of product R&D, improving time to market, and gaining access to new markets. In addition to the risks associated with product development by a single company, the partners in a collaborative effort face several other challenges. For example, one company might gain inside knowledge of its partner's unique skills and expertise. Despite the cost and time involved in managing the collaboration, such a relationship usually results in less direct control over product development. Of particular concern are the difficulties of coordinating the divergent management styles and budgeting processes of the collaborating firms. Collaboration requires frequent communication among all involved parties. The likelihood of success is greatly enhanced by the presence of a product or collaboration champion. Other success factors include ensuring that partners contribute as expected, creating the perception of equal benefits among partners, and building trust between partners. Firms that are more experienced with collaboration also cite the importance of flexibility in corporate systems and management style, fit with existing businesses, and the choice of a partner.     

Rainfall or Rainmaking? Lawyers,Courts, and the Price of Mold Insurance in Texas

In well‐functioning property‐‐liability insurance markets, the price of coverage reflects the impact of the legal environment on the frequency and severity of claims. This article presents a case study of the Texas mold insurance crisis of 2001–2002. We provide a narrative of the controversy in Texas over insurance coverage for household mold and use county‐level data from a single Texas insurer to assess the determinants of postcrisis prices for supplemental mold, slab, and extended water loss coverages. We find that more attorneys per capita and more heavily Democratic courts were both associated with higher prices for mold and slab coverage.     

An employee-centred analysis: professionals' experiences and reactions to HRM

A key premise underlying research efforts about human resource management (HRM) is that it leads to improved performance through bolstering employee attitudes. The value of assessing employee reactions to HRM practices is now widely recognised. Using process models of strategic HRM, we adopt an employee-centred focus to explore the perceptions of a sample of New Zealand professionals with regard to HRM practice, attitudes, reactions and performance. Our findings provide support for some elements in this model, but not all. Although the relationship between practices and attitudes is strong, the relationship between reactions and performance is not. We conclude that the employee experience of practice is still a murky concept and suggest greater clarity about what this means, and how this could, and indeed should, be assessed is urgently required.     

Circular business models in high value manufacturing: Five industry cases to bridge theory and practice

The transition to a circular economy (CE) requires companies to evaluate their resource flows, supply chains, and business models and to question the ways in which value is created. In the high value manufacturing (HVM) sector, this evaluation is critical, as HVM enables value in nonconventional forms, beyond profit, including unique production processes, brand recognition, rapid delivery times, and highly customized services. We investigate the role of value, cost, and other factors of influence in the selection of a circular business model (CBM) for HVM. Explored through five case studies using a qualitative evaluation of circularity, we then contribute to the emerging field of CBMs by modifying the CBM canvas that can capture the nontraditional value, traditional value, cost, and other influencing factors enabled via CBM adoption in HVM. Finally, the important role of digital technologies for incentivizing and enabling CBM adoption, is clarified.     

A comparison of stochastic frontier approaches for estimating technical inefficiency and total factor productivity

This article compares standard stochastic frontier models for panel data with a number of recently developed models which attempt to control for unobserved heterogeneity in the inefficiency component. Results are used to construct a generalized Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index for the Irish tillage sector. While our application yields similar general TFP trends across models, it is evident that this new class of model leads to fewer theoretical inconsistencies in the production frontier. Furthermore, inefficiency estimates across models are critically compared and the potential benefits of controlling for unobserved heterogeneity are highlighted.     

经济变迁的过程

非常高兴再次来到中国经济研究中心.能再次来到中国也令人非常愉快,因为中国是世界上最有意思、最富挑战性的国家,尤其与我的研究兴趣相关--经济和社会变迁的过程,这正是我要与你们谈的话题.传统的经济学理论是静态的,它提供了理论分析的框架,解释市场或经济的各个部分在某一时刻是如何运行的.但它不能解释经济随着时间的推     

Managing absenteeism in local government

Managing sickness absence effectively can produce significant cost savings as well as other, less tangible, benefits. This article shows why it is vital that local authorities provide tailor-made training on absence management for first line managers (FLMs) to develop ‘soft skills’, as well as acknowledging their specific organizational context. Development in this area should be an ongoing process which is reinforced with appropriate support from human resources (HR) professionals, and should be monitored as part of an overall absence management strategy.     

Duration Measures for Corporate Project Valuation

Sensitivity analysis is a very common exercise performed with the forecasting of project cash flows. In this article, a duration-type measure is generated that provides a single number for the assessment of project cash flows relative to changes in the discount rate (or adjusted for changes in a particular cash flow model parameter). The calculation is no more difficult than the duration measures that already exist for bonds. Yet, the calculation provides valuable insight that many times is lost when performing sensitivity analysis. Further, at a minimum, the measure provides a gauge for the consequences of misspecifiying the discount rate for a project.     

Generation Tourism: towards a common identity

The purpose of this article is to highlight the implications of the indiscipline of tourism academia for a new generation of tourism academics. Generation Tourism is characterised by scholars with a multi-disciplinary education associated with a broad field of study and commonly considered to lack the advantages of a discipline-focused education with its strong theoretical and methodological foundations. The problem this article addresses relates to how new generations of scholars and their views on knowledge creation achieve ascendancy in ways that move on from existing paradigms and earlier cohorts of scholars. Our main argument is that Generation Tourism scholars would benefit from a more clearly developed and common academic identity. To begin the critical conversation around the identity of Generation Tourism we outline five possible points of departure. These points are: (1) learning from historical developments in parent disciplines; (2) spearheading inter-disciplinary scholarship; (3) working towards theoretical developments; (4) embracing mediating methodologies and (5) forming tourism nodes and networks. Recognising these as starting points rather than final statements, we hope that the conversation about Generation Tourism identity will continue in other forums.