The long overhang of bad decisions in agro-industrial development: Sugar and tomato paste in Ghana

In theory, learning from past mistakes should result in adapted and improved development policy. However policy learning can be difficult to achieve, and the link between learning and policy change is neither direct nor immediate. In this study we look at learning in agro-industrial policy in Ghana, by tracing the interest in sugar production and tomato processing over six decades. Specifically we ask why four failed factories established in the early 1960s have continued to play central roles in both policy and public discourse. Using policy documents, academic material, and the popular press, we show that Ghana’s policy focus on sugar production and tomato processing has endured, despite the fact that the factories were misconceived, poorly sited, ill-equipped and poorly managed. Indeed, the political ideas that underpinned the establishment of these factories in the early days of independence can be seen in the current One District, One Factory policy. We suggest that it is their symbolic and political value, not their economic value, which keeps the discussion around these factories alive. Even when shut down, they are a physical manifestation of historic commitments by the state, and as such they guarantee the attention of politicians, and hold out hope of a next re-launch. Unfortunately as long as the factories continue to be incorporated into each new generation of agro-industrial policy, it is difficult for any alternatives to gain traction. This analysis highlights the very long overhang of bad decisions, particularly when they are associated with physical infrastructure. Learning from past mistakes will only happen if the short-term political cost of turning policy learning into policy action can be overcome.     

Forecast quality improvement with Action Research: A success story at PharmaCo

There is a gap in the forecasting research surrounding the theory of integrating and improving forecasting in practice. The number of academically affiliated consultancies and knowledge transfer projects that there are around, due to a need for improvements in forecast quality, would suggest that many interventions and actions are taking place. However, the problems that surround practitioner understanding, learning and usage are rarely documented. This article takes the first step toward trying to rectify this situation by using the specific case study of a fully engaged company. A successful action research intervention in the Production Planning and Control work unit improved the use and understanding of the forecast function, contributing to substantial savings, enhanced communication and improved working practices.     

企业应收账款管理研究

我国经济已由高速增长阶段转向高质量发展阶段,“提升治理能力,实现高质量发展”是我国面对新变化、新趋势再一次作出的明确路径选择。如何加强应收账款的管理,已经成为现代企业管理中不容回避的问题。论文通过对LD公司应收账款管理的研究,提出改进方案和实施保障措施,有助于解决LD公司应收账款管理的实际问题,顺应企业高质量发展需求,提高应收账款管理能力,推动企业朝着更高质量、更可持续的方向发展。     

The role of the entrepreneurial encounter in the emergence of opportunities: Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to explore the conceptual potential of the Deleuzian notion of the encounter in order to better understand the genealogy of opportunities. We adopt a processual perspective of opportunities. In order to translate this notion to the domain of entrepreneurship, we analysed and interpreted Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club. This film follows the creation of the first club in the United States that illegally allowed HIV-positive people to supply themselves with foreign antiretroviral drugs from Mexico or Japan. The article highlights encounters in this process that disturb the entrepreneur’s belief systems and allow him or her to be open to potential opportunity. It finally explores how the encounter may improve our understanding of the political becoming of opportunities within the entrepreneurial process.     

Advancing environmental productivity: Organizational mindfulness and strategies

This study investigates the importance of mindfulness‐based organization systems and policies on the organization's continuous efforts to become a greener company. The study is devised as a pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis of productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling of U.S. companies. The data set taken from U.S. Newsweek 500 recorded 600 companies dispersed into 63 industries during the period of 2012–2014 and provided 1,498 company–industry–year observations. The study found that systems and policies (e.g., deployment of third‐party auditors for its environmental metrics report; linkage of the remuneration of company's senior executive team with the achievement of environmental performance targets; and establishment of a committee at the Board of Directors' level whose mandate includes sustainability of the company in environment‐ and resource‐related matters) connect the company's mindfulness to its effort in improving the environmental quality through the company's productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling. The relationships are positive and significant. Also, systems and policies serve as a motivator for the firm to continue to improve upon the current achievements. The study emphasizes the importance of translating organizational and individual mindfulness into organization policies and systems in order to motivate the organization to continuously improve its productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling leading to improvements in environmental quality.     

A play-the-winner-type urn design with reduced variability

We propose a new adaptive allocation rule, the drop-the-loser, that randomizes subjects in the course of a trial comparing treatments with dichotomous outcomes. The rule tends to assign more patients to better treatments with the same limiting proportion as the randomized play-the-winner rule. The new design has significantly less variable allocation proportion than the randomized play-the-winner rule. Decrease in variability translates into a gain in statistical power. For some values of success probabilities the drop-the-loser rule has a double advantage over conventional equal allocation in that it has better power and assigns more subjects to the better treatment. Acknowledgments. I thank Stephen Durham, the associate editor, and the referees for their helpful suggestions.     

Sources, uses, and forms of data in the new product development process

This paper presents qualitative and exploratory research investigating the role that managing knowledge and information plays in new product development (NPD). A set of 20 in-depth interviews uncovered eight basic types of information used throughout the NPD process and three general approaches to managing information needed in the NPD process. Although some exemplary companies seem to do an outstanding job of collecting and disseminating information, the majority of firms struggle. NPD process automation solutions tackle part of the problem, ignoring nonquantitative data forms and the full picture of information use throughout the entire development process.     

以创新创业基地建设促进物流实验室发展

该文主要阐述了怎样通过建设一个创新创业基地的架构,即管理思路、组织原则、创新流程等一系列实验室管理模式,来提供给管理类大学生一个得到实践锻炼的良好平台,同时也促进管理类专业实验室合理有效的管理。     

如何抓住国企改制的关键——一个国企改制失败引发的思考

动态联盟 (VirtualEnterpriseAlliance,VEA是 2 1世纪信息社会生产的主流组织形式 ,选择和确定联盟伙伴是建立动态联盟的关键环节之一。盟员的正确选择对提高联盟企业的总体竞争力有着极其重要的作用。本文在构建动态联盟盟员的实施评价体系基础上 ,提出一个修正的AHP算法 ,     

中国工业化进程与劳动力就业关系研究综述

工业化进程的加速推进与劳动力就业在一定程度上是存在矛盾的,国内外众多专家学者对这一问题也做了相应研究。文章分别从加速工业化进程对劳动力就业的抑制、促进和新型工业化与劳动力就业三方面对现有文献进行了梳理,并进行了评述,为进一步研究提供了理论基础和研究空间。今后进一步研究的方向主要是工业化进程与劳动力就业相互影响的内部机理,以为合理工业化路径选择和有效的劳动力就业模式提供理论支持。