Strategies for best practice in research and technology institutes: an overview of a benchmarking exercise

Many technology institutes have been criticised for their dislocation from, or lack of relevance to, industry. This paper provides an overview of a major benchmaking study which analyzed in depth the most successful technology institutes from eight nations (four in Europe and four in East Asia). Institutes selected for study met a criterion which included a combination of dynamism, relevance to industry, contribution to the national science and technology infrastructure, independent fund-raising capability, innovative organizational structures, and effective management. The paper examines the activities engaged in by the eight institutes, the principal challenges they face, and identifies the main success factors underlying their achievements. The paper attempts to illustrate practical, best practice strategies by showing how leading technology institutes have successfully contributed to their national system of innovation. To this end, success factors have been categorized into those factors which are under the direct control of the institutes (internal), which are outside of their influence (external), and those which can be affected to a lesser or greater extent.     

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change: Denial, Inaction and Repression

An extensive theoretical and research literature on organizational change and its implementation has been accumulating over the past fifty years. It is customary in this literature to find resistance to change mentioned as an inevitable consequence of organizational change initiatives. Yet there has been little discussion of the nature and forms of resistance that is institutionalized in organizational structure and processes. Furthermore, organization development perspectives on organizational change address management-initiated change, but not change proposed by advocates for the powerless and disadvantaged. Focussing on institutionalized resistance from the standpoint of the advocate of fundamental change, this discussion proposes a typology consisting of a sequence of forms of active resistance to change, from denial through inaction to repression. The typology is illustrated by referring to responses of organizational decision makers to the efforts of employment equity change agents to address issues of systemic discrimination in the work place. The purpose of the typology is to assist change advocates, such as equality seekers, to name, analyze and think strategically about the institutionalized resistance they encounter, and about effective responses to the resistance.     

Translation Exposure Hedging Post SFAS No. 52

Translation exposure hedging is frequently said to have begun after firms adopted SFAS No. 8 and assumed to have ceased–or at least decreased–after adoption of SFAS No. 52 due to different treatments of translation gains (losses). Based on proprietary data, this study presents evidence from a small sample of firms which would be predicted to cease hedging translation exposure, but of which the majority did not.
The study focuses on eighteen firms which exclude at least 50% and up to 100% of the translation gains (losses) from the income statement after adopting SFAS No. 52. Of those eighteen firms, only seven ceased hedging. The other eleven firms not only continued hedging translation exposure, but hedged translation exposure of only those subsidiaries whose translation gains (losses) are now excluded from the income statement.
Characteristics which might explain the different decision are investigated: proportion of assets which are nonmonetary; the proportion of net assets located abroad; the geographic dispersion of subsidiaries; and the estimated effect on the balance sheet and income statement of changing from the temporal method to the current rate method of translation.
Univariate test results indicate that the geographic dispersion of die foreign subsidiaries as well as the proportion of net assets located abroad differ significantly between firms which ceased hedging and those which continued hedging after adopting the standard. Weak evidence of differential effects of the change to the current rate method on individual firm income statements and of different composition of assets between the two groups also was found. Multivariate analysis, using a linear probability model as well as a randomization procedure, provided weak results corroborating the significance of the proportion of net foreign assets to consolidated assets in differentiating between firms which ceased hedging and those which continued.     

National science foundation funding in economics and chemistry

Conclusion Despite equivalent success rates, the probability of obtaining an NSF grant is substantially higher for chemists than for economists. The evidence indicates that NSF funds are more scarce for economists and that the quality of funded proposals as measured by institutional affiliation is greater for economists than for chemists. Administrators should be aware that when the supply of funds varies among disciplines, the probability of being funded and the expected value of an award will also vary among departments.     

Nursing career fulfillment: statistics and statements from registered nurses

A state-level survey of registered nurses confirmed national findings and raised new issues. Findings revealed that while nurses love the intrinsic reward of nursing, they report workplace, relationship, and stress issues which contribute to frustration and exhaustion. These issues may prevent registered nurses from giving the nursing care they desire to deliver, hastening preventable retirement and costly turnover decisions.     

Artificial Neural Networks Applied to Ratio Analysis in the Analytical Review Process

Experts claim that artificial neural network (ANN) technology can outperform standard statistical methods when applied to examine actual financial data. Researchers have used ANNs to analyze bankruptcy prediction, bond rating and the going-concern problem. Financial firms have employed ANNs commercially to predict commercial bank failures, detect credit card fraud and verify signatures. For accounting and auditing problems, however, application of ANN technology has been limited. Preliminary experiments tested whether an ANN offered improved performance in recognizing material misstatements during the analytical review process of auditing. Four years of audited financial data from a medium-sized distributor were input as data streams to calibrate the ANN across fifteen financial accounts. Researchers compared a presumed lack of actual errors and certain seeded material errors with signals from the ANN analytical review process to evaluate performance. Results were compared to analyses where financial ratios and regression methods were employed as analytical review techniques. Results tentatively suggest that the ANN method recognized patterns within financial accounts more effectively than did financial ratio and regression methods. ANNs applied as a forecasting tool seem useful for identifying patterns that can indicate potential investigations of a firm's unaudited financial data in the current year.