Multiple Criteria Decision Making Models in Group Decision Support

Use of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) models to aid the group decision process was tested. Two multiple criteria group decision support systems (MCGDSS) were studied, one using the AHP/Tchebycheff method of Iz and the other using Kersten's NEGO system. These systems were compared with a commercial GDSS, VisionQuest. VisionQuest does not include multiple criteria tools. To make the study comparable, VisionQuest was augmented with an ad hoc linear programming model that could generate solutions with specified characteristics requested by the using group. The three systems were compared on the dimensions of solution quality and decision support effectiveness.One of the hypotheses was that MCDM models would force participants to examine criteria, preferences, and aspirations more thoroughly, thus leading to decisions of better quality. Subjects using the MCGDSSs were expected to have higher mean quality and effectiveness values. However, the quality and effectiveness values of the VisionQuest/ad hoc system were found to be better on the dimension of effectiveness. Explanations for this result are included in the paper.Another hypothesis was that the AHP/Tchebycheff method of Iz, a value-oriented system, would yield more effective group support than the goal-oriented NEGO system. However, the NEGO system was found to yield solutions with better quality measures than the solutions obtained with the AHP/Tchebycheff system.Observation of the groups using the MCDM systems indicate that both the AHP/Tchebycheff and NEGO methods can be revised to enhance their effectiveness. The primary difficulty encountered with the AHP/Tchebycheff method was in the large number of pairwise comparisons required by AHP. The NEGO method can be enhanced by including specification of desired attainment levels in the first stage of the method. Both MCDM techniques have potential to benefit group decision support by giving using groups a means to design better solutions.     

Regulatory Reform and Bureaucratic Responsiveness to Firms: the Impact of User Fees in the FDA

This paper examines the impact of user fees on the speed of new-drug review and on the responsiveness of FDA reviewers to pharmaceutical firms. User fees are expected to alter FDA behavior and responsiveness to pharmaceutical firms because they give regulators a financial incentive to process more new-drug applications and because they convey information to regulators that may reduce type I error. The analysis examines the variation in FDA review times for new drugs approved between 1990 and 1995 as a function of differences that exist among firms and drugs. Specifically, it compares estimates of regulator responsiveness to several firm and drug characteristics before and after the introduction of user fees. The results show that user fees produced a significant change in FDA behavior. Regulators have become less responsive to the differences among firms since the introduction of user fees, which suggests that the reform has led to more equity in the new-drug review process. In addition, the FDA has expedited the review of new drugs, especially the most therapeutically novel drugs, which suggests that politicians have been fairly successful in designing a reform to realign regulatory incentives in the FDA.     

The attitudes of interior design students towards sustainability

To measure attitudes toward environmental issues, interior design students responded to a four-part survey: demographics, ecology, sustainability, and comments. The ecology section was composed of modifications of questions from the New Ecological Paradigm Scale (Dunlap et al. Journal of Environmental Education, 9:10–19, 2000). The researchers composed the items in the sustainable section to reflect perceptions related to the use of sustainable products and solutions in interior design scenarios. Although the ecology and sustainability survey results exhibited great variability, responses to individual items mostly averaged towards the more pro-environmental and pro-sustainability sides of the scales. While average scores on the ecology section of the survey showed the respondents as a group to be moderately pro-environmental, most items revealed a considerable amount of undecided ratings and quite a few students who perceived the environment to be somewhat invincible. The data also indicated a discrepancy between what students think they know (sustainability section) and what the students actually reveal in their open-ended answers (comments section). The survey results imply that educators, who themselves are likely to be pro-environment, cannot merely assume that their students share the same values and attitudes. Beginning instruction with explanations and examples of sustainable methods and products will not be sufficient to communicate the delicate balance between Human use of resources and Nature’s ability to replenish. Design educators need to set the stage for sustainability rather than just assume that students will embrace the concept. Hopefully, more research studies will inspire others to evaluate their own students’ feelings about the environment.     

Economic evaluation of a pharmacogenomic multi-gene panel test to optimize anti-hypertension therapy: simulation study

Abstract

Aims: Hypertension is the strongest modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, affecting 80 million individuals in the US and responsible for ～360,000 deaths, at total annual costs of $93.5 billion. Antihypertension therapies guided by single genotypes are clinically more effective and may avert more adverse events than the standard of care of layering anti-hypertensive drug therapies, thus potentially decreasing costs. This study aimed to determine the economic benefits of the implementation of multi-gene panel guided therapies for hypertension from the payer perspective within a 3-year time horizon.

Materials and methods: A simulation analysis was conducted for a panel of 10 million insured patients categorized clinically as untreated, treated but uncontrolled, and treated and controlled over a 3-year treatment period. Inputs included research data; empirical data from a 11-gene panel with known functional, heart, blood vessel, and kidney genotypes; and therapy efficacy and safety estimates from literature. Cost estimates were categorized as related to genetic testing, evaluation and management, medication, or adverse events.

Results: Multi-gene panel guided therapy yielding savings of $6,256,607,500 for evaluation and management, $908,160,000 for medications, and $37,467,508,716 for adverse events, after accounting for incremental genetic testing costs of $2,355,540,000. This represents total 3-year savings of $42,276,736,216, or a 47% reduction, and 3-year savings of $4,228 and annual savings of $1,409 per covered patient.

Conclusions: A precision medicine approach to genetically guided therapy for hypertension patients using a multi-gene panel reduced total 3-year costs by 47%, yielding savings exceeding $42.3 billion in an insured panel of 10 million patients. Importantly, 89% of these savings are generated by averting specific adverse events and, thus, optimizing choice of therapy in function of both safety and efficacy.     

The Changing Face of Economics: Conversations with Cutting Edge Economists

How we treat each other says a lot about us. It will, most likely, determine the future of our organization. Femecon is a haven for many women scholars in a male-dominated field. May it remain so.     

Defensive and expansion responses to environmental shocks in China: Interpreting the 2008 economic crisis

We tested organizational actions as a result of interpreting the 2008 crisis with a sample of 80 firms in mainland China collected in 2009. Our findings indicate that threat and urgency interpretations positively affect defensive responses, while controllability and feasibility interpretations positively affect expansion responses. Moreover, we find that strategic flexibility and risk‐taking orientation moderate the relationships between controllability/feasibility interpretations and expansion responses. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

RISK PREFERENCES AND INFORMATION FLOWS IN RACETRACK BETTING MARKETS

Racetrack betting markets provide a unique environment to study risk preferences of investors. In this paper, we define the effects of different risk preferences on the subjective and objective probabilities of winning at racetracks. Our results indicate that up to three groups of bettors participate in these markets: risk loving, risk averse with an entertainment value in their utility functions, and risk averse with superior information or analytical ability. We find that information flows from the tote board concerning the three groups' behavior may be used to earn abnormal and possibly positive returns.     

Implementing the lead user method in a high technology firm: A longitudinal study of intentions versus actions

The customer or user's role in the new product development process is limited or nonexistent in many high technology firms, despite evidence that suggests customers are frequently an excellent source for new product ideas with great market potential. This article examines the implementation of the Lead User method for gathering new product ideas from leading edge customers by an IT firm that had not previously done much customer research during their new product development efforts. This case study follows the decision‐makers of the firm through the process, where the end result is the generation of a number of useful product concepts. Besides the ideas generated, management at the firm is also impressed with the way the method makes their new product development process more cross‐functional and they plan to make it a part of their future new product development practices. Approximately one year later the firm is revisited to find out if the Lead User method has become a permanent part of their new product development process. The authors find, however, that the firm has abandoned research on the customer despite the fact that several of the lead‐user derived product concepts had been successfully implemented. Management explanations for their return to a technology push process for developing new products include personnel turnover and lack of time. Using organizational learning theory to examine the case, the authors suggest that the nontechnology specific product concepts generated by the lead users were seen as ambiguous and hence overly simplistic and less valuable by the new product development personnel. The technical language spoken by the new product personnel also increased the inertia of old technology push development process by making it more prestigious and comfortable to plan new products with their technology suppliers. The fact that the firm was doing well throughout this process also decreased the pressure to change from their established new product development routine. The implications for these finding are that: 1) it is necessary to pressure or reward personnel in order to make permanent changes to established routines, and 2) researchers should be careful at taking managers at their word when asking them about their future intentions.     

Patterns of cooperation during new product development among marketing, operations and R&D: Implications for project performance

Successful new product development is fundamentally a multidisciplinary process. While this view has helped lead management to the wide‐spread adoption of cross‐functional new product development teams, in this study we question whether simply increasing the level of functional integration is truly a guarantee for enhancing the performance of new products. To assess this we examined patterns of cooperation between marketing, R&D, and operations at both early and late stages of the new product development process for 34 recently developed products whose level of innovativeness ranged from high to low. A unique feature of this study is that data were collected from four sources for each project. This included personal interviews with a project leader and written surveys from marketing, operations, and R&D personnel on each project. Findings from this study reveal that: (1) functional cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (2) cooperation between marketing and R&D is highest during early stages of the process, but for marketing and operations, and for R&D and operations, cooperation typically increases as the process moves from early to late stages; (3) higher project performance — irrespective of the level of project innovation — is demonstrated when cooperation between marketing and R&D, and cooperation between operations and R&D is high during early stages; (4) late stage cooperation between marketing and operations, and R&D and operations is a key determinant in project performance for innovative products but not for noninnovative products, and; (5) that early stage cooperation between marketing and operations is associated with superior performance for low innovation projects but is also associated with poor performance for innovative projects. Findings from this study demonstrate that the importance of cooperation between specific functional dyads (i.e., marketing — R&D; R&D — operations; operations ‐ marketing) indeed varies by time (i.e., early vs. late stages), and by the level of innovativeness (i.e., new‐to‐the‐world vs. modifications) associated with the new product being developed.     

Conducting Event Studies on a Small Stock Exchange

Abstract

This paper analyses whether it is possible to perform an event study on a small stock exchange with thinly trade stocks. The main conclusion is that event studies can be performed provided that certain adjustments are made. First, a minimum of 25 events appears necessary to obtain acceptable size and power in statistical tests. Second, trade to trade returns should be used. Third, one should not expect to consistently detect abnormal performance of less than about 1% (or perhaps even 2%), unless the sample contains primarily thickly traded stocks. Fourth, nonparametric tests are generally preferable to parametric tests of abnormal performance. Fifth, researchers should present separate results for thickly and thinly traded stock groups. Finally, when nonnormality, event induced variance, unknown event day, and problems of very thin trading are all considered simultaneously, no one test statistic or type of test statistic dominates the others.