When age does not harm innovative behavior and perceptions of competence: Testing interdepartmental collaboration as a social buffer

Can older managers overcome stereotypes relating age to low competence? We integrate the literature on age and cognitive ability with research on innovation to explore whether—and if so, when—employees' age harms performance and promotability appraisals made by their supervisors. Multisource, time‐lag data from 305 project managers indicate that the negative stereotypes can be explained through decreased innovative behavior. However, older employees are not always seen as poorer performers with less potential to be promoted due to their reduced innovative behavior. Rather, interdepartmental collaboration moderates these effects. Specifically, older employees with low interdepartmental collaboration are less innovative and receive worse performance and promotability appraisals than younger employees, but the “age handicap” vanishes when older employees collaborate with members of other departments. Organizations should foster formal or informal collaboration among units to prevent negative consequences of an aging workforce.     

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.     

Greater patience and monetary expenditure: How shopping with companions influences purchase decisions

Shopping with companions plays a crucial role in daily consumer activities. However, only a few studies have explored the influence of this factor on consumers’ patience. We conducted four studies, including two field studies, to investigate the effects of shopping with companions (e.g., friends and peers) on purchase decisions. We found that consumers exerted greater effort when shopping with friends and peers by spending more money and being willing to wait longer for a product. This effect could be explained by three mediators: positive emotions, negative emotions, and perceived value, in which the hedonic and social value, unlike the utilitarian value, played essential mediating roles. This study elucidates the underlying psychological processes involved in purchase decisions shaped by companions. Retailers should encourage shopping with companions to increase sales and customer retention.     

Coping with coopetition—Facing dilemmas in cooperation for sustainable development: The case of the Dutch smart grid industry

This paper is amongst the first to examine coopetition strategy for sustainable development at the network level. Companies who want to successfully implement complex innovative technologies that support sustainable development need to collaborate with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, including their competitors, so that they can develop standards, interoperable products, pool knowledge, and resources and bundle forces to compete against other technologies. Collaboration with competitors brings benefits, but also many risks. We investigated how firms cope with these risks when establishing an innovation ecosystem to implement a new technology in society. We conducted research in the Dutch smart grids sector and explored how these firms minimize inherent risks of coopetition. We found that system‐building actors in the Dutch smart grid field not only minimize inherent risks, but from the start of their collaboration they implement so‐called enablers to prevent these risks upfront.     

R&D Investments and Tax Incentives: The Role of Intra-Firm Cross-Border Collaboration*

U.S. multinational corporations increasingly use intra-firm, cross-border research collaboration to disperse R&D across different countries. This paper investigates the implications of such collaboration on the abilities of firms to garner benefits from R&D tax incentives. We find that the association between R&D intensity and tax incentives is three to five times larger when firms have extensive cross-border collaboration connected to a country. We also find that the effect is stronger when local intellectual property protection is weaker and when local innovation resources are higher. Our results suggest that cross-border collaboration helps firms achieve more tax-efficient R&D investments both by reducing the nontax frictions posed by weak intellectual property protection and by increasing the nontax benefits of foreign R&D.     

A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE ON FARMER COOPERATIVES: PERFORMANCE,OWNERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE,FINANCE, AND MEMBER ATTITUDE

The empirical literature on farmer cooperatives is now fast emerging and developing in the areas of performance, ownership and governance, finance, and member attitude. We discuss 56 peer‐reviewed publications to illustrate the main findings and conclusions while outlining challenges and opportunities for future research. Generally, cooperative membership is found to positively impact price, yield, input adoption, income, and other indicators of member performance, yet there is growing evidence of an uneven distribution of benefits for small and large producers. In terms of structure, evidence of a causal relationship of ownership and governance to performance has been elusive, yet there are now many findings of inherent equity and long‐term debt constraints, often in the context of consolidation to drive scale and scope economies. Further inefficiency is observed to be driven by increased heterogeneity in member attitudes and objectives, in particular in terms of commitment and participation. Thus, overall, empirical work portrays farmer cooperatives as flawed and complex business organizations which nonetheless have a strong positive impact on its members. While applied research may progress in various directions, a general improvement in empirical methodologies is needed to allow robust analysis of mixed objectives in dynamic environments.     

The mechanism of credit risk contagion among internet P2P lending platforms based on a SEIR model with time-lag

The credit risk contagion of Internet peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms is an important part of Internet financial risk management and supervision. This study analyzes the contagion path of credit risk in Internet P2P lending. Based on complex network theory and the theory of infectious disease dynamics, the characteristics of Internet P2P lending development are combined to construct a SEIR model of credit risk transmission among Internet P2P lending platforms with time lag, and the robustness of the model is analyzed and proven. The influence of platform correlations, the susceptible immune rate, the platform elimination rate, contagion latency, the saturation coefficient, and the susceptibility input rate on credit risk contagion behavior among Internet P2P lending platforms is analyzed, using the equilibrium point and threshold value. The impact of each variable is analyzed by simulation. Corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to prevent and control credit risk contagion among these platforms.     

An explorative study of corporate travellers’ perception at a German airport

The modern working environment is changing at a fast pace due to factors such as globalisation, digitalisation, and demographic trends. Taking an exploratory approach, this study examines how prevailing factors shaping the working world may influence the perception of business air travellers. Relevant factors are identified through a literature review, which results are confirmed by expert interviews (N = 11). Business travellers are surveyed (N = 67) at Munich Airport regarding their personal experiences and their evaluations of these identified factors. Their perceptions concerning the psychological and physical experience, digitalisation, age, and gender are examined in detail.Findings provide insights into the development of business air travel, with a focus on German business travellers. Despite the influence of advanced information and communications technology, survey results reveal that air travel might stay an essential part of the working world, as face-to-face meetings are not fully replaceable. Increasing multi-partner project work and flexible work structures could even lead into an increase of air travel. The study also delineates recommendations and research potential, such as the extension of the study in the light of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The question of how trends within the working world influence the perception of business related air travel is rarely studied. This study contributes to this gap in the scientific community.     

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.     

关于网络环境下工业工程应用研究的思考

分析传统IE应用现状 ,探讨国内企业与发达国家企业相比在传统IE应用方面存在差距的原因 ,提出缩小差距的解决方略 ,阐明网络环境下IE应用研究重点等。