Constructing a knowledge‐based system to aid scenario‐based strategic planning: an application to the European airline industry

This paper explores the use of scenario planning and the design of a knowledge‐based system in strategic decision making, in the context of the European airline industry. Several innovative strategies were derived, as well as other key recommendations based on sound strategic reasoning, and participants testified to the effectiveness of the approach in stretching their thinking. The requirement to draft strategies as expert system rules, with reasons, was useful in clarifying thinking and achieving group consensus. This methodology, therefore, aids effectiveness of the scenario planning process itself, while providing a dynamic, accessible means of storing the resulting strategic thinking. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Controlling business? Agency and constraint in call centre working

Studies of call centre working have focused almost exclusively on the sophistication of technological and bureaucratic systems of labour control. The commercial context in which firms operate remains relatively under-researched, despite exerting a significant influence on job structures and the working out of labour relations.     

Toward Equitable and Sustainable Rural Water Supplies: A Contingent Valuation Study in Brazil

Because many rural people are poor, it is usually assumed thatrural water supplies must be financed by government agencies.It is now widely recognized, however, that many rural peoplecan and will pay for improved water supplies, and that sustainingand extending services depends on mobilizing this willingnessto pay. This article describes a study of willingness to payfor water in Brazil. The study shows that surveys of actualand hypothetical water-use practices can provide policy-relevantinformation on willingness to pay, which is shown to vary accordingto household socioeconomic characteristics and the characteristicsof the existing and new supplies of water. In rural Brazil,tariffs for yard taps can be increased substantially beforesignificant numbers of households would choose not to connectto an improved system, whereas provision of free water at publictaps can protect the poor without jeopardizing the financialviability of the scheme.     

Market size and pharmaceutical innovation

This article quantifies the relationship between market size and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry using improved, and newer, methods and data. We find significant elasticities of innovation to expected market size with a point estimate under our preferred specification of 0.23. This suggests that, on average, $2.5 billion is required in additional revenue to support the invention of one new chemical entity. This magnitude is plausible given recent accounting estimates of the cost of innovation of $800 million to $1 billion per drug, and marginal costs of manufacture and distribution near 50%.     

Technologically Reflective Individuals as Enablers of Social Innovation*

This paper identifies technologically reflective individuals and demonstrates their ability to develop innovations that benefit society. Technological reflectiveness (TR) is the tendency to think about the societal impact of an innovation, and those who display this capability in public are individuals who participate in online idea competitions focused on technical solutions for social problems (such as General Electric's eco‐challenge, the James Dyson Award, and the BOSCH Technology Horizon Award). However, technologically reflective individuals also reflect in private settings (e.g., when reading news updates), thus requiring a scale to identify them. This paper describes the systematic development of an easy‐to‐administer multi‐item scale to measure an individual's level of TR. Applying the TR scale in an empirical study on a health monitoring system confirmed that individuals' degree of TR relates positively to their ability to generate (1) more new product features and uses, (2) features with higher levels of societal impact, and (3) features that are more elaborated. This scale allows firms seeking to implement co‐creation in their new product development (NPD) process and sustainable solutions to identify such individuals. Thus, this paper indicates that companies wishing to introduce new technological products with a positive societal impact may profit from involving technologically reflective individuals in the NPD process.     

Detecting gender item bias and differential manifest response behavior: A Rasch-based solution

Although gender is a salient variable in consumer research, researchers largely overlook whether, and how, it influences consumer response to indicators measuring latent variables. The authors therefore extend the framework of measurement equivalence assessment to the largely overlooked issue of differential item response behavior between men and women. This paper demonstrates the efficacy of using item response theory to investigate the presence of gender item bias. This methodological approach affords researchers the means of objectively disentangling actual gender differences and gender bias. Ignoring the possibility of gender item bias has the potential to bias means and thereby compromise any substantive gender-based mean comparisons. The authors conclude with solutions to address gender item bias both pre and post survey construction.     

Consumer involvement in health research: a UK scoping and survey

Consumer involvement or patient and public involvement (PPI) in health research is a UK policy imperative and a prerequisite for many funders. PPI in research is defined as research carried out with or being carried out by the public (or service users), rather than research on patients and public as subjects or participants. Despite the clear policy driver, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the extent, processes and impact of user involvement in research. This paper aims to add to the international evidence base on PPI in research by providing a key overview of current trends and impacts. In order to understand the current extent and variation of PPI in research, a scoping exercise and survey were carried out on selected UK studies. Six research topic areas (cystic fibrosis, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and public health) were selected to ensure a range of designs, study populations and histories of PPI in research. A total of 838 studies (non‐commercial studies and not older than 2 years) were contacted. The response rate for the scoping was 38% and the survey 28%. In the scoping, 51% of studies had some evidence of PPI and in the survey 79%. The most common PPI activity was steering committee membership and reviewing patient information leaflets. There appeared to be some blurred roles with patients participating as research subjects as well as carrying out patient involvement roles. A major finding was the limited amount of available information about PPI in publicly accessible research documents. We suggest that the invisibility of this type of involvement and the lack of routinely collected information about PPI results in a lack of shared understanding of what optimal PPI in a study should look like, with important implications for practice. Furthermore, without a framework to review PPI it is difficult to know if different approaches to PPI have a different impact on key outcomes of the research.     

How Decoupled are Decoupled Payments? The Evidence from Ireland

This article explores the production effects of the EU's system of decoupled payments and the implications for WTO negotiations. We compare survey data on Irish farmers' production plans post decoupling to the optimal outputs predicted by a farm-level profit maximisation model. The results show that, post decoupling, a significant number of farmers plan to use their decoupled payments to continue or expand economically non-viable production. An econometric analysis reveals that the decision to maintain or expand production levels post decoupling is not significantly influenced by current or future projected profitability levels. The analysis suggests likely widespread cross subsidisation of unprofitable production post decoupling but that aggregate production is still likely to decline relative to the traditional coupled, but production-limiting, blue box payments. If the EU wants to claim in the current WTO negotiations that decoupled payments amount to green box support, then the argument must be made that the payments have no, or at most minimal, trade distorting effects or effects on production. If it becomes apparent to members of the WTO that European farmers are using their decoupled income to subsidise market loss production, then the green boxing of the EU's decoupled payment scheme may come up for debate at the negotiations.