Groupware and teamwork in R&D: limits to learning and innovation

In recent years the re-engineering of R&D functions in large multinationals has often been accompanied by the emergence of groupware applications as strategic decision-making tools, while the organization of work has shifted towards various forms of teamworking. There is however, little empirical evidence on the conditions and processes through which groupware and teamworking practices can be efficiently linked. This paper examines the experience in groupware adoption by two large multinationals, Hoffmann la Roche and Unilever, in selected areas of new product development: the final New Drug Application phase for a new anti AIDS drug in Roche and the development along an 'innovation funnel' of new oral care products in Unilever. Despite the variety of tasks, organizations, missions and technology deployed, similar themes seem to emerge regarding how large organizations are able to 'host' the new groupware applications. Learning processes seem to play a key role in the final integration of the technology in the workflow. Still, what seems to emerge is that despite its critical role, learning is not a sufficiently valued competence, at least in the organizations examined. As a consequence, the innovations tend to drift, lead to unexpected outcomes and many opportunities for learning from (mistakes and) innovations are simply missed. Factors responsible for such a state of affairs seem to be the power of the hierarchical context into which groupware and teamwork are introduced; the continuous jolts to which such context must undergo because of radical shifts in management and R&D strategy; the dialectics between local and global changes.     

The Role of Social Mechanisms in Demand and Supply Integration: An Individual Network Perspective

In many industries, including retail, increased complexity of marketing strategies needs to be met with increased efficiency in product delivery, requiring integration across demand and supply facing functions of the firm. For frontline logistics employees (FLEs) of manufacturing firms who are delivering and marketing products in retail stores daily, the ability to understand both the marketing and supply implications of their actions is essential. Despite the importance of cross‐functional integration at the retail frontline, little logistics research has explored how logistics frontline employees interact with managers and each other to integrate knowledge and information. The purpose of this research is to examine the antecedents to cross‐functional integration across demand and supply functions in multiple social networks of the FLE. Mixed methods, including social network analysis, structural equation modeling, and analysis of variance, are applied to test social capital theory hypotheses regarding the impact of relational embeddedness and social mechanisms, socialization and shared interpretation, on individual demand and supply integration across friendship, key enabler, and ideation networks of the frontline employee.     

RFID防碰撞算法的研究进展与应用

随着射频身份识别(RFID)技术应用在诸多新的领域,其防碰撞问题日显突出。文中介绍了RFID中标签防碰撞和阅读器防碰撞算法与技术的研究进展,并指出了这些算法的优缺点。     

Pricing Dynamic Investment Fund Protection

Abstract

We consider an investment fund whose unit value is modeled by a geometric Brownian motion. Different forms of dynamic investment fund protection are examined. The basic form is a guarantee that instantaneously provides the necessary payments so that the upgraded fund unit value does not fall below a protected level. A closed form expression for the price of such a guarantee is derived. This result can also be applied to price a guarantee where the protected level is an exponential function of time. Moreover, it is explicitly shown how the protection can be generated by construction of the replicating portfolio. The dynamic investment fund protection is compared with the corresponding put option, and it is shown that for short time intervals the ratio of the prices approaches 2. Finally, a more exotic guarantee is considered, where the protected level is a given percentage of the maximal observed fund unit value. Assuming that the protected level remains constant once the payments have started, we obtain a surprisingly simple formula for the price of a perpetual guarantee. Several numerical and graphical illustrations show how the theoretical results can be implemented in practice.     

Multi-sample simple step-stress experiment under time constraints

In the context of accelerated life testing, a step-stress model allows for testing under different conditions at various intermediate stages of the experiment. The goal is to develop inference for the mean lifetime at each stress level. The maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) exist only when some (at least one) failures are observed at each stress level. This limitation can be tackled by a multi-sample step-stress model, which imposes a weaker condition for the existence of the MLEs, i.e. at each stress level, some failures (at least one) must be observed in at least one of the samples. The step-stress experiment with multiple samples at the same stress levels was introduced by Kateri et al. ( Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 139 , 2009a ). In this article, we focus on the likelihood inference under such a multi-sample set-up for the case of a simple step-stress experiment under exponentially distributed lifetimes when time constraints are in place in the experimentation.     

Socially and environmentally responsible procurement: A literature review and future research agenda of a managerial issue in the 21st century

This literature review offers a rigorous approach, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques, to examine research to date in the field of socially and environmentally responsible procurement (SERP). It identifies that the SERP literature is at a critical juncture in its development and that researchers should be aware of the literature's shortcomings and potential points of fragmentation. This is of considerable importance if the field is to become a salient issue in the wider management literature. As such, this review not only takes stock of the existing literature, but it provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of existing contribution and their implications for practitioners. In addition, we highlight the avenues for future research, which has so far been neglected by academics, but which is critical from a practitioners and implementation perspective.