中国《经济》发展联盟《企业诊断》系列讲座之一德西蒙公司如何帮跨国公司改进质量管理?质量创造价值——全球顶级航空制造企业的质量改进案例

项目准备最高管理层全情参与质量改进无论在哪个行业,企业的最高执行官参与产品单件设计的现象都非常少见;而最高执行官参与供应商选择以及基层的其他改进工作的做法更是少之又少。我们只是最近才在航天领域的知名企业通用电气(GE)和霍尼韦尔(Honeywell)公司见到这种由上而下进行“管理层承诺”的做法。本文中提到的这家全球知名的制造业巨头(以下简称B公司)旗下拥有一家大型飞机制造公司和一家大型人造卫星制造公司,两家公司的管理层都以突出的领导能力著称。在他们的带领下,公司的各部门保持了高度的步调一致,为企业的总体战略目标——…     

Treasury auctions: Uniform or discriminatory?

There has been much discussion of the relative merits of selling government bonds using a uniform-price auction rather than the traditional discriminatory-price auction. Arguments in favor of the former have won the day in respect of the newly instituted auctions of index-linked bonds in the USA and UK. This short paper assesses the evidence and concludes that the advantages of uniform-price auctions have been oversold. Received: 28 May 1999 / Accepted: 27 September 1999     

The october 1979 federal reserve policy shift: An analysis using variance decomposition

Conclusions Subsequent to the announced October 1979 policy shift, many economists voiced doubt about whether the Federal Reserve was sincerely committed to the execution of an NBR's targeting strategy. However, the charge that the central bank continued to accommodate as vigorously after the announced policy shift as before is not borne out by these results. Pre- and post-1979 comparisons of the FFR and NBR decompositions suggest a conscious policy alteration aimed at tightening control over NBR while allowing the FFR to respond to money market conditions.The evidence also indicates continuedM1 endogeneity in the second period, with feedback occurring between this variable and the FFR. While the measuredM1 aggregate used in the VAR's does not allow a precise identification of money demand forces, it is reasonable to relate this endogeneity to the erratic shifts in money demand which are known to have occurred over the 1979–82 period.Thus, while the analysis does indicate the central bank did alter its behavior with respect to the NBR policy instrument, the results do not show the Fed was able to control the volatility ofM1 over the NBR targeting period.Funded by the NTSU Office of Research, grant no. 34475. Ken Smith and Doug McMillin offered helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.     

Researching marketing problems and opportunities with focus groups

Focus group research is a popular and effective qualitative research method for generating ideas and assessing marketing programs and concepts. This article provides marketers with insights about implementing focus groups in the industrial environment. It presents a specific procedure for conducting focus groups, potential industrial applications for the research technique, guidelines for making decisions about selecting moderators, establishing objectives, recruiting study participants, and controlling costs.     

Organizational harm,legal condemnation and stakeholder retaliation: A typology,research agenda and application

The essence of the ethical issues pertinent to business activities is the harm or benefit that occurs as part of a company's resource transformation process. A typology is developed that sorts ethical issues according to three variables: (1) the nature of the harm, (2) the nature of those harmed and (3) the transformation stage where the harm occurs. Propositions are formulated that would enable analysts and practitioners to predict the degree of legal condemnation of, and stakeholder retaliation to, harms generated by questionable moral reasoning. An organizational harm analysis is then constructed as a decision making tool that could supplement cost/benefit analysis.Denis Collins is a Doctoral Candidate at the Katz Graduate School of Business of the University of Pittsburgh and a Research Associate with the BG Productivity and Gainsharing Institute. He has published several articles in the areas of business ethics, social philosophy and participatory management.     

Quantiles of the Euler Scheme for Diffusion Processes and Financial Applications

In this paper we briefly present the results obtained in our paper ( Talay and Zheng 2002a ) on the convergence rate of the approximation of quantiles of the law of one component of  ( X_t )  , where  ( X_t )  is a diffusion process, when one uses a Monte Carlo method combined with the Euler discretization scheme. We consider the case where  ( X_t )  is uniformly hypoelliptic (in the sense of Condition (UH) below), or the inverse of the Malliavin covariance of the component under consideration satisfies the condition (M) below. We then show that Condition (M) seems widely satisfied in applied contexts. We particularly study financial applications: the computation of quantiles of models with stochastic volatility, the computation of the VaR of a portfolio, and the computation of a model risk measurement for the profit and loss of a misspecified hedging strategy.     

Short reviews

Bynner, J. and Roberts, K. (eds), 1991: Youth and Work: Transition to Employment in England and Germany, London: Anglo-German Foundation, £17 paper. Available from BEBC, 15 Albion Close, Parkstone, Poole, Dorset BH12 3LL

Brah, A. and Shaw, S. 1992: Working Choices: South Asian Young Muslim Women and the Labour Market, Sheffield: Department of Employment Research Paper No 91, free.