Plans never go according to plan: An empirical analysis of challenges to plans during the 2009 Victoria bushfires

Uncertainty is a major challenge for emergency, disaster and public safety decision-makers when planning and preparing for disasters and when executing plans. This research explores unexpected challenges to the Victoria State disaster plan before and during the “Black Saturday” Australian bushfires of 7 February, 2009 that significantly contributed to the scale of the disaster in which 173 persons perished. The article adopts Barry Turner's sequence model of intelligence failure to frame the empirical analysis. The article is based on content analysis of publicly available data and information complimented with face to face interviews of public-sector and non-government organization (NGO) emergency and disaster managers in Victoria. The research found inadequacies in strategic planning and in the appreciation of the community risk scenario in the response of public-sector disaster managers to the heat wave in the days preceding the bushfires. It also found failures in warning, command and control due to loss of sense-making and information difficulties on “Black Saturday” itself. The article suggests strategies that disaster and emergency response managers, planners and local authorities may consider in bushfire preparedness and response planning.     

基于自主创新视角的技术黑洞形成与规避分析

技术黑洞是指由于依附于国外的技术,国内的自主创新能力和产业技术陷入依附陷阱.企业的状态惯性、行为依赖、投入不足和供需矛盾促成了技术黑洞的发生.从人、财、物3方面分析了对技术黑洞的规避措施.     

THE BLACK SOCIAL ECONOMY: PERSEVERANCE OF BANKER LADIES IN THE SLUMS

In a neoliberal world where commercial financial services are controlled by elites, poor Black women in the slums are usually excluded from financial programs – even microfinance ones. In my empirical study of 491 people in Jamaica, Guyana and Haiti, I argue that the participation in informal banking systems by the poor, not only provides coping tools for livelihood survival, but banker ladies insert a program of social connectedness and political action when they organize these local resources. Banker ladies have a clear social justice agenda: to validate the business activities of marginalized people. Informal banks are a counter project to neoliberalism because it is focused on the collective, where poor Afro‐Caribbean women are creating alternative financial programs that are squarely part of the social economy.     

The augmented Black–Litterman model: a ranking-free approach to factor-based portfolio construction and beyond

The Fama and French factor-ranking approach (1992, 1993, etc.) has been extensively applied in quantitative fund management. However, this approach suffers from hidden factor view, information inefficiency, etc. issues. Based on the Black–Litterman model (1992; as explained in Cheung 2010b Cheung, W. 2010b. The Black–Litterman model explained. J. Asset Mgmt., 11: 229–243. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), we develop a technique that endogenizes the ranking process and elegantly resolves these issues. This model explicitly seeks forward-looking factor views and smoothly blends them to deliver robust allocation to securities. Our numerical experiments show this is an intuitive and practical framework for factor-based portfolio construction, and beyond. This article features: (1) a new and unified framework for strategy combination, factor mimicking and security-specific bets; (2) an elegant and ranking-free approach to factor style construction; (3) worked examples based on the FTSE EUROTOP 100 universe; (4) insight into the classic issue of confidence parameter setting; and (5) implementation guidance in an appendix.     

A Black–Litterman approach to correlation stress testing

Correlation stress testing is motivated by a well-known phenomenon: correlations change under financial crises. The adjustment of correlation matrices may be required to evaluate the potential impact of these changes. Very often, some correlations are explicitly adjusted (core correlations), with the remainder left unspecified (peripheral correlations), although it would be more natural for both core correlations and peripheral correlations to vary. However, most existing methods ignore the potential change in peripheral correlations. In this paper, we propose a Black–Litterman approach to correlation stress testing in which the stress impact on the core correlations is transmitted to the peripheral correlations through the dependence structure of the empirical correlations.     

论黑土地域文化的精神层面建设

黑土地域文化的精神层面建设主要包括两个方面:一是强魂工程,这是该项建设的核心所在.有了"地域魂",才能显露黑土地域文化崇高精神本色;"魂"字当头,黑土地域文化精神层面建设才能全面启动.二是社会转型期呼唤着黑土地域崇高精神,人们需要精神归位,而黑土地域精神也需要加以重塑.     

Employee Stock Option Fair‐Value Estimates: Do Managerial Discretion and Incentives Explain Accuracy?*

We examine the determinants of managers' use of discretion over employee stock option (ESO) valuation‐model inputs that determine ESO fair values. We also explore the consequences of such discretion. Firms exercise considerable discretion over all model inputs, and this discretion results in material differences in ESO fair‐value estimates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that a large proportion of firms exercise value‐increasing discretion. Importantly, we find that using discretion improves predictive accuracy for about half of our sample firms. Moreover, we find that both opportunistic and informational managerial incentives together explain the accuracy of firms' ESO fair‐value estimates. Partitioning on the direction of discretion improves our understanding of managerial incentives. Our analysis confirms that financial statement readers can use mandated contextual disclosures to construct powerful ex ante predictions of ex post accuracy.     

A knowledge sharing framework for black,grey and white box supplier configurations in new product development

Managing supplier collaboration is increasingly cited as a key success factor in new product development (NPD) performance. Knowledge sharing between customer and supplier is a critical issue to manage collaboration but one which has only been partially investigated in the inter-organisational NPD context. This means that the specific characteristics of knowledge sharing according to the three classical supplier involvement configurations (black box: design is supplier driver, grey box: joint design and white box: design is customer driven) are still largely unknown. This research proposes to fill this gap by presenting a conceptual framework for knowledge sharing according to the supplier involvement configuration. Knowledge sharing integrates knowledge transfer, translation and transformation. A qualitative methodology based on cross-case comparisons of six projects in two companies is used. This research shows that the dynamics of knowledge sharing depend on each configuration. Thus, for black box projects, knowledge translation is a prerequisite for knowledge transfer. For grey box projects, knowledge transfer and translation are initiated simultaneously in a continuous loop. For white box projects, knowledge transfer is the key activity and potentially generates knowledge translation. The results suggest that managers should pay attention to translation activities which are critical for the success of co-development projects.     

The determinants of recovery from the Black Saturday bushfire: demographic factors,behavioural characteristics and financial literacy

We investigate the contribution of demographic factors, behavioural characteristics and financial literacy to recovery from the financial losses inflicted by the Black Saturday bushfire. Behavioural characteristics (such as overconfidence, self-serving and loss aversion biases) in conjunction with bushfire survivors’ knowledge of financial indicators are used to determine recovery time. Data are collected through in-depth interviews with bushfire survivors, academics and experts in natural disasters. The results show that demographic, behavioural and financial literacy factors have the potential to enhance the recovery process.