A continuous income-based grade gap decomposition on university course grades

The earnings premium for education, and higher education in particular, is well documented. This article examines the college achievement gap between students coming from positions of high and low socio-economic status. Other papers have also looked at this issue, often by employing, at least in part, an Oaxaca decomposition. Past papers artificially divided socio-economic status into binary groups of high and low, in order to employ the decomposition. Socio-economic status is innately a continuous variable. Therefore, we implement a continuous version of the Oaxaca decomposition. Higher socio-economic students are both slightly better prepared in terms of observable characteristics and have better returns to their characteristics than lower socio-economic students. Notable differences across results obtained from the binary and continuous decomposition methods are discussed.     

要素密集型逆转与贸易获利能力提升——以中美纺织业为例

本文运用灰色聚类法并以中美纺织业为例,研究了产业生产要素密集型的逆转与贸易获利能力的提升问题。研究表明:以2000年中国制造业作为衡量标准,美国的纺织业在2003年从劳动密集型产业逆转成为技术密集型产业,而中国的纺织产业在考察期间一直为劳动密集型产业。文章进一步分析了要素密集型逆转的动因及贸易利得效应,发现在发生要素密集型逆转后美国纺织出口企业的获利能力明显大于中国,表明通过要素密集型逆转实现产业内升级是一条可行的路径选择。     

煤矿开拓方案选择的层次灰关联决策

本文从井巷工程、工业场地、场外公路、主要设备、开拓方式、井筒水文地质、到火车的距离等七个方面建立了煤矿开拓方案评价的指标体系,并利用层次分析法与灰关联决策相结合的方式进行煤矿开拓方案的选择,进而给出煤矿开拓方案选择层次灰关联决策的具体步骤,最后进行实例应用。     

Network,knowledge and relationship impacts on innovation in tourism destinations

We combine network structure and firm-level relationship measures to explore the association between innovative behavior, firm position within the network of a destination, and the knowledge and relational trust characteristics of a firm's innovation-oriented relationships. We find current collaboration, shared knowledge and trust are associated with innovative behavior with partner firms, but that betweenness centrality indicates which partners are the most prominent innovators in a population. That is, relationship-level characteristics facilitate innovation partnerships, but network structure characteristics identify the most successful innovative partners. To theory, our findings contribute to efforts in the tourism, innovation and network literature to evaluate the differential effects of knowledge stocks and flows on innovation. For practice, our results suggest that promoters of innovation within a destination should leverage brokerage positions to improve the in-flow of ideas while encouraging the firms that share knowledge and trust to collaborate to apply those ideas.     

Comment on “Using a modified grey relation method for improving airline service quality”

This research note examines claims relating to the originality of using a modified grey relationship combined with TOPSIS (technique for preference by similarity to the ideal solutions) with reference to improved airline service management. It is suggested that the antecedents of the approach date back originally to the early work of Yoon’s 1980 dissertation while the specific combination reported by [Liou et?al., 2011a] and [Liou et?al., 2011b] can be found in work published earlier in 2004.     

Accounting change and value creation in public services—Do relational archetypes make a difference in improving public service performance?

Evidence points out that the outcome of accounting change in local governments is not simply a matter of ‘corporate’ resource investments and change management activities to accounting system replacement. This paper examines the link between such corporate-level interventions and the patterns of value creation at street-level. It emphasizes a resource- and capability-driven approach to explore processes and consequences of an ‘embedded agency’-effect assigned to the street-level rationale of public service improvement. Considering a logic chain of cause-and-effect sequences, the data analysis provides evidence that corporate and street-level interventions are unique dimensions to signify the multiple patterns of accounting change in local governments. The supplementary effect of cross-functional relationships is also distinguished, considering the relational archetype as a mechanism to explain the emerging outcome state. Recognizing the distinction and the sequential effects of relational archetypes induces a refined typology of accounting change according to its processes and outcomes in local governments. The analysis is based on a comparative case study design to explore accrual accounting introduction in six German municipalities.     

Decomposing the effect of supplier development on relationship benefits: The role of relational capital

Buyers invest considerably in developing their suppliers, yet the performance effects of such investments are not universal. Drawing on social capital theory, this research investigates whether the relationship between supplier development and relationship benefits may be facilitated by the generation of relational capital. The authors examine mediating and moderating roles of relational capital in the relationship between two aspects of supplier development (capability development, supplier governance) and two dimensions of relationship benefits (supplier benefits, buyer benefits), using survey data collected from 185 suppliers of a large manufacturing firm. Investment in supplier development does not automatically result in benefits for the supplier or reciprocated benefits for the buyer. Rather, relational capital “bridges” supplier development and relationship benefits. Without relational capital, benefits from capability development do not accrue, and the impact of a supplier governance regime can be even detrimental. In conditions of high relational capital, capability development results in lower perceived buyer benefits. The results can help managers ensure that the benefits from their supplier development efforts fully materialize.     

Management decision-making relating to occupational risks: the role of 'grey data'

This paper reports upon the findings of pilot work research being carried out with the collaboration of a large employer in the UK construction sector. The term 'grey data' is introduced and defined and a pilot grey data review relating to occupational injury risks is described. The results are used as the basis for a preliminary investigation into the utility of grey data in management decision-making relating to occupational risks. Nine factors are identified as important to the managers, these factors falling into two groups, viz. role considerations and subject considerations. It is recommended that future research might investigate the relative importance of these two groups of factors to managers, specifically in relation to occupational risk decision-making.     

Dynamic DEA models with network structure: An application for Iranian airlines

Efficiency estimation of interdependent divisions within a company or assessing the interrelated processes in a production system provides insights for improving the operational performance. Recent developments in network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) models enable decision making units (DMUs) to be informed of inefficient processes within the system. The NDEA model assesses the processes of the system in a specific moment and ignores the dynamic effects within the production processes. Thus, without considering the temporal dimension of production processes, biased efficiency measurement will be obtained that provides misleading information to DMUs. For evaluating the performance of a DMU with interrelated processes during specified multiple periods, this paper proposes a relational dynamic NDEA (DNDEA) model which measures the efficiencies of the system and its internal processes over the time, simultaneously. To illustrate the capability of the proposed model, this study for the first time measures the efficiency of eight Iranian airlines in several periods connected to each other by carry over flows. The actual data is gathered in three periods from 2010 to 2012 and the results are compared with the dynamic DEA and network DEA models in the same time span.     

中国城镇人口年龄结构预测

近年来,由于计划生育政策的实施,我国加速步入了老龄化社会,人口老龄化的快速到来给我国养老保险体系带来了越来越大的挑战,科学准确的对我国城镇人口年龄结构进行预测,有利于及时调整养老保险体系以应对老龄化带来的冲击。本文基于离散灰色系统模型,分别对我国城镇劳动人口和老年人口进行预测,然后计算得到老年抚养比,并针对我国的老龄化现状对我国的养老保险体系的建立提供一些政策性的意见和建议。