Multivariate statistics in industrial marketing management: A practitioner tool kit

Much published work over the years has pointed to the differences between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketing. An undesirable by-product of this sometimes misdirected distinction is that managers working within B2B environments have generally not considered the use of what are seen as B2C techniques, such as multivariate statistical analysis. This article is structured in three parts. First, the argument for the similarities between B2B and B2C marketing is developed; second, three different multivariate statistical techniques are presented and combined to form a practical tool kit for use by B2B managers on strategic, operational, and tactical levels; and third, the results of an application of the techniques in the life science research chemicals industry is reported, demonstrating that the tool kit substantially enhanced managerial understanding of customer decision processes.     

Tasks and Organizations: A Signal Detection Model of Organizational Decision Making

This paper presents a mathematical model to study the joint impact of organizational design and of the task environment on the decision performance of hierarchical organizations with limited internal communication. The problem context is a special class of distributed situation assessment problems, where possible patterns of binary variables are to be classified on the basis of partial and noise-corrupted information. Structural properties of tasks and organizations are described using a graph formalism, and optimal decision strategies at all decision makers are determined. Organizational expertise is characterized in the form of a Team Relative Operating Characteristic (TROC) curve, thereby replacing the organization by an equivalent single decision maker. Implementing the model, issues of task decomposition and the process of matching organizations with tasks are discussed.     

Targets,indicators and milestones

Area-based initiatives are a major feature of the new public policy agenda of the Labour government in the UK. They are aimed at key policy goals of combating social exclusion and improving the operation of public services, through the encouragement of partnership and participation. However, the delivery of programmes has been heavily influenced by performance management and the use of targets, indicators and milestones to monitor activity. This is creating contradictory pressures on the managers and practitioners within programmes. These issues are discussed and their impact in one area-based activity (the Health Action Zones) is explored.     

Distributional Coalitions,the Industrial Revolution,and the Origins of Economic Growth in Britain

From the late 1600s to the mid 1800s, Britain was able to transform from a divided kingdom with a fragmented, often stagnant economy into a powerful and stable state that simultaneously saw an expansion in the power, wealth, and stability of the central government while encouraging an economic transformation that gradually allowed both industrial technology and liberal commerce to flourish and break out of its mercantilist straitjacket. We explain how rent-seeking elites who might normally have opposed such sweeping transformations promoted institutional changes that, in the long run, expanded the economy and encouraged innovation even at the expense of class interests. In the short run, this meant that rent-seeking in the 18th century was not so much reduced as redirected from local monopolies to state authorities and Parliament. But in the longer run, the process of professionalization made possible greater liberalism in general, even at the expense of general rent-seeking itself. The position of Parliament as a meta-institution for reforming and weakening rent-creating restrictions as needed was pivotal to this process. Ideological changes—particularly the Scottish enlightenment—transformed the terms of the debate but could only be operationalized once interests were aligned so that gainers from industrialization could compensate or overcome traditional interests.     

China: An Early Test for Obama

Global recessions can bring out the worst in treading partners. Plunging do- mestic demand in both China and the U. S. has left manufacturers in both coun- tries plagued with overcapacity. Ameri- can companies are now accusing their Chinese rivals of dumping products-     

The consumer-driven approach: can it pick up where managed care left off?

Managed care has failed and health care costs are once again out of control. Given the current political, social and economic environment, there are now two options: a single-payer health care system, or an aggressive and global employer health benefits redesign that strongly encourages consumer-driven behavior. This article discusses the failure of managed care and ways that employers can promote consumer-driven behavior now using available tools and plan provisions.