A combination of QFD and imprecise DEA with enhanced Russell graph measure: A case study in healthcare

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a proven tool for process and product development, which translates the voice of customer (VoC) into engineering characteristics (EC), and prioritizes the ECs, in terms of customer's requirements. Traditionally, QFD rates the design requirements (DRs) with respect to customer needs, and aggregates the ratings to get relative importance scores of DRs. An increasing number of studies stress on the need to incorporate additional factors, such as cost and environmental impact, while calculating the relative importance of DRs. However, there is a paucity of methodologies for deriving the relative importance of DRs when several additional factors are considered. Ramanathan and Yunfeng [43] proved that the relative importance values computed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) coincide with traditional QFD calculations when only the ratings of DRs with respect to customer needs are considered, and only one additional factor, namely cost, is considered. Also, Kamvysi et al. [27] discussed the combination of QFD with analytic hierarchy process–analytic network process (AHP–ANP) and DEAHP–DEANP methodologies to prioritize selection criteria in a service context. The objective of this paper is to propose a QFD–imprecise enhanced Russell graph measure (QFD–IERGM) for incorporating the criteria such as cost of services and implementation easiness in QFD. Proposed model is applied in an Iranian hospital.     

Theoretical innovation in Asia Pacific tourism research

This paper identifies some pervasive limitations of tourism research and some particular difficulties confronting its development in the Asia Pacific region. It raises the issues of status and respect in fields of academic inquiry and adopts a position that those seeking to create a mature discipline of tourism studies built wholly on a positivist tradition may be misleading their Asian Pacific colleagues. It also suggests that conceptual schemes rather than theories are a promising level of integrative effort and that heuristics to stimulate conceptual creativity can be useful. In particular it argues that by combining cultural insights and elements from the communities of Asia with guidelines for creative model and scheme building, Asia Pacific tourism researchers could find new directions and heighten the originality and hence the global interest in their work.     

Who is a self-initiated expatriate? Towards conceptual clarity of a common notion

The purpose of this article is to enhance the conceptual coherence of the notion of a self-initiated expatriate (SIE). We propose a definition based on a set of conceptual criteria which differentiates SIEs from other types of international movers. This article defines who an SIE is according to four criteria which must all be fulfilled at the same time: (a) self-initiated international relocation, (b) regular employment (intentions), (c) intentions of a temporary stay, and (d) skilled/professional qualifications. The article discusses each of these criteria in turn and their implications on what it means to be an SIE. A research agenda related to the four criteria proposes various avenues which scholars could take to expand this area of research. The literature on SIEs is rapidly emerging, but the lack of conceptual clarity in defining this type of expatriate is as acute as incomprehensible, given the importance of this group of international movers.     

伊斯兰金融机构财务报告概念框架的会计信息质量特征体系及启示

伊斯兰金融机构财务会计概念框架的会计信息质量特征体系包括了通常的相关性、可靠性、可比性与审慎性等内容,更是创造性地把"高质量"作为首要的质量要求。其质量特征体系结构层次的清晰性与每一质量标准的可操作性,对改进作为我国基本会计准则关键部分的会计信息质量特征体系具有重要的启示。     

All Bachelors are Unmarried Men (p < 0.05)

This paper adds to the list of criticisms against null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). I argue that when researchers do not analyze the conceptual relations among their variables, they may fail to distinguish between logical implications and empirical relations. It does not make sense to use significance testing on hypotheses involving conceptually related phenomena. The widespread lack of conceptual clarification also leads to very small effect sizes in psychology because it causes study participants to understand the stimulus material in different ways. Therefore, they answer in an inconsistent way. Researchers show an extremely low degree of ambition when they seek to show that psychological phenomena differ from chance, or when they try to disprove a hypothesis claiming that a psychological phenomenon does not exist. I see significance testing as a poor solution to the problem of tiny effect sizes in psychology. I recommend that psychological researchers be more explicit both about their main hypotheses and their auxiliary hypotheses. As examples, I analyse all quantitative articles in Issue 1, 2005 of the Journal of Health Psychology.     

Local factors in innovation experiences of local initiatives for the promotion of innovation in the Federal Republic of Germany *

Due to the growing lack of success of the traditional instruments and strategies of local economic promotion since the beginning of the eighties the local authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany have been starting new initiatives to give stimuli to local business and to promote structural change. This new era began with the foundation of the first public sponsored venture capital fund in Berlin in 1982, the opening of the first German innovation and technology center in 1983 (in Berlin too) and the start-up of new forms of cooperation between public and private sectors in some cities of the FRG. Against the background of the experiences of a number of West-German cities the following article describes the local factors of innovation which initiate a self-generating economic process at local level or which are barriers to the formaltion of new innovative firms.     

Constructing conceptual models for knowledge capture and delivery systems

Appropriate conceptualization of the nature of entities and relationships in a problem domain is a key prerequisite to the successful design of computerized decision aids for business, especially those developed for more than one idiosyncratic user. The need for a reliable conceptual model is particularly acute in the design of decision support systems that must function in problem‐solving situations with no existing theoretical framework or where theory and practice differ considerably.

This paper presents an interative procedure for developing a reliable conceptual model by testing the “fit”; of successive revisions of the model against a collection of “think‐aloud”; verbal problem‐solving protocols of people with experience in the domain. The model is revised each time until it is verifiably and consistently accurate. Such a procedure, it is argued, is more objective and reliable than intuition or traditional knowledge engineering and requires considerably less experimental data collection and analysis than more elaborate empirical model development procedures.

The feasibility of this procedure is illustrated by using it to construct a conceptual model for a computer‐based system that seeks to capture knowledge used during project planning and deliver it for use during project control.     

IMC – an integrative review

This paper reviews and integrates extant work in the integrated marketing communication (IMC) literature. With this in mind, three alternative and widely disseminated conceptual frameworks proposed in the IMC literature are employed as a starting point. The review locates important points of theoretical intersection among these three frameworks, and drawing on the wider literature, develops and cross-fertilizes them into IMC constructs. The review then combines the constructs into an integrative framework by proposing theory-driven relationships and formalizing them using testable propositions. The final outcome offers a clearer synthesis and re-conceptualization of IMC.     

低碳旅游景区概念模型及评价指标体系构建

何谓低碳旅游景区?如何评价低碳旅游景区发展水平?这是一个庞大复杂的系统工程,存在评估因子多、涉及范围广、评估标准难以量化等因素,但这方面研究无疑是景区低碳转型的基础和依据。文章参照联合国可持续发展委员会(UNCSD)提出的驱动力—状态—响应(Driving—Status—Response,DSR)模型,构建低碳旅游景区概念模型。低碳旅游景区不能简单等同于节能减排,而是应该拓展到景区发展阶段、资源环境、减排技术、消费经营和政策理念5个层面上。选取"低碳经济指标、低碳环境指标、低碳运营指标、低碳技术指标、低碳管理指标"构建经济—环境—运营—技术—管理五维综合评价指标体系的理论框架,以期为定量评估低碳景区发展潜力提供参考依据,也为未来低碳景区指标核查、减排项目合作、建立排放补偿系统提供理论指导和技术支持。