Ein Nachruf auf Emil Sax (gest. am 25. März 1927)

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Incentive Indexes for Regulated Industries

A range of performance measures are suggested and evaluated in the context of regulated industries with multiple inputs and/or multiple outputs. These measures are intended to induce optimizing behavior, i.e., to induce unit cost minimization or productivity growth maximization. Intertemporal and practical implementation issues are also considered.     

Disruption management in flight gate scheduling

This paper introduces models of robustness in flight gate assignments at airports. We briefly repeat the general flight gate assignment problem and disruptions occurring in airline scheduling. Recovery strategies and robust scheduling are surveyed as the main methods in disruption management. We present a non-robust flight gate assignment model and incorporate two approaches of robustness.     

Cattle and Wildlife Competition for Forage: Budget Versus Bioeconomic Analyses of Public Range Improvements in British Columbia

We analyze the gains of public investments in range productivity when cattle compete for forage with wildlife herbivores. Ignoring extra-market values by applying conventional budget analyses leads to higher cattle stocking rates and lower overall social benefits of public range improvements. This is demonstrated numerically for public forage in British Columbia, where privately profitable cattle stocking rates on newly seeded range exceed those that are socially optimal, perhaps by as much as double depending on the assumptions one makes about marginal preservation benefits. This highlights the importance of applying dynamic optimization, bioeconomic models to analyze investments in public range.
Les auteurs analysent quel gain on tire des sommes publiques investies dans la productivité des grands parcours quand les bovins et les herbivores sauvages se livrent concurrence pour les fourrages. Ne pas tenir compte des valeurs extérieures au marché en recourant à des analyses budgétaires ordinaires entraîne une hausse du taux de chargement et une réduction des avantages sociaux globaux issus de la bonification des grands parcours. Il est possible d'en faire la preuve numérique avec les pâturages publics de la Colombie-Britannique, où les parcours nouvellement ensemencés supportent une population de bovins lucrative pour l'éleveur mais supérieure au taux de chargement optimal socialement, parfois même du double, selon les hypothèses qu'on formule sur les avantages d'une préservation marginale. l'étude souligne bien qu'il est important de recourir à une optimisation dynamique, soit d'utiliser les modèles bio-économiques pour analyser les sommes investies dans l'amélioration des pâturages publics.     

The impact of globalisation on local government in South Africa

Globalisation has been defined as a continuous evolutionary process whereby functions and influences cross boundaries from one state to another. The question is often raised as to whether a country such as South Africa can ignore global influences after years of isolation and integrate positively with the international community as a global player. The South African government has initiated the debate on the possible benefits of globalisation, especially in the local government sphere. Globalisation could, it is believed, facilitate economic and social upliftment in the communities served by local government. Whether it has the expertise and capacity needed to actualise these benefits is, however, debatable. The larger local authorities, or Category A municipalities, have supported the idea of globalisation and have begun formulating policies on international relations. The purpose of this article is, first, to determine the implications of globalisation for South African local authorities. Secondly, based on these findings, an attempt has been made to identify the criteria for integrating successfully into the international local government system. On the basis of these responses, a qualitative evaluation of the identified criteria was undertaken in order to determine the extent to which they have been met in South African local government.     

The congruence of actual and perceived person–organization fit

Person–organization fit (P–O fit) is an important and often-researched variable, which sheds light on the way employees perceive their relationship with the organization they work for. In this study, two different assessments of P–O fit are compared, i.e. actual fit (an indirect measurement based on the comparison of organizational and personal values or characteristics) and perceived fit (a direct measurement involving employees' own estimations of their P–O fit). The four quadrants of the Competing Values Framework (CVF) are used to investigate which values have the strongest influence on employees' fit perceptions. In a polynomial regression analysis, the predictive power of the indirect fit measure on the direct fit measure is tested in a sample of two organizations (hospital n1 = 222; chemical plant n2 = 550). The results show that of the four CVF quadrants human relations values have the strongest predictive power for employees' fit perceptions and rational goal values contribute least. In the discussion section, special attention will be paid to the measurement of individual values as the results raise important methodological questions.     

Roadmapping: (Missed) opportunities to overcome strategic challenges

Firms face various critical challenges when pursuing a coherent course of action that seeks to create value for the long term. They are required to balance myopic and hyperopic behavior. They must ensure coordination, adopt a holistic view of various functional perspectives, and foster commitment among key decision makers. They need to develop a credible and compelling line of reasoning that employees understand and can act on. Adopting the perspective of roadmapping as a strategy tool, this article advances the argument that roadmapping is especially suitable in helping firms to surmount these three critical strategic challenges. This article distills three core features of the roadmap: graphical representation, multi-disciplinary integration, and scaling. It then reviews the three critical strategic challenges and shows how roadmapping can help to overcome each of these. Following this explanation, the article describes ten key principles for effective strategic roadmapping that support firms in obtaining the strategic benefits promised. The article concludes with additional insights for practice with the intent of encouraging further exploitation of roadmapping’s potential.     

Wage Differentials and Workers’ Effort: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

We organize a real-effort field experiment with varying piece rates to assess the impact of wages and social comparisons on productivity. In addition to analyzing how piece rates and social comparisons affect productivity during the ‘paid stage’ of the experiment, we also consider how they affect effort supply during a voluntary and unpaid follow-up task. Our main results are that effort supply is relatively unresponsive to variation in own earnings, but responds strongly to pay inequality. While we obtain weak support for the hypothesis that positive social comparisons invite extra effort during paid stages of the experiment, our most important finding is that social comparisons matter for voluntary tasks when shirking is cheap. Specifically, positive social comparisons positively affect productivity during unpaid tasks, and negative comparisons have the opposite impact.     

DOES FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY REDUCE INVESTMENT DISTORTIONS?

The average U.S. firm has less leverage than one would expect based on the trade‐off between tax shields and bankruptcy costs. We focus on firms’ financial flexibility and examine whether firms preserve debt capacity to reduce investment distortions in the future. We find that firms with high unused debt capacity invest more in future years than do firms with low unused debt capacity. Furthermore, firms that are reluctant to borrow in unconstrained periods are more likely to issue debt in periods in which access to capital markets is more constrained.