Politics,strong institution and competitive advantage: an examination of organizational aspiration for competition

This study seeks to elucidate the interplay of interfirm rivalry and aspiration formation. Organizational aspiration serves as a categorical judgment over a desirable level of organizational performance. While aspiration as a driver of collective decision-making inside the firm is well recognized, our understanding is still limited as to the competitive consequence of aspiration-induced actions. From a computational model of aspiration-induced R&D, where competition is biased towards the status quo, this study suggests that although radical innovation calls for flexibility and diversity inside the firm, aspiration-induced action favors consensus such as a firm with machine bureaucracy either (1) in a market where a majority of consumers are unable to discern a small quality improvement, i.e., demand difficult to satisfy or (2) in a market where competitive advantage dissipates quickly, i.e., an unstable environment. In particular, this study shows that: (1) the level of organizational aspiration has little to do with the sustainability of competitive advantage; (2) aspiration strength—i.e., the extent of consensus among decision makers of the firm as to a legitimate level of organizational aspiration—interacts with the change in competitive advantage. The leading firm is likely to lose its competitive advantage when a follower has a stronger aspiration than the leader in a market whose demand is difficult to satisfy; and (3) the effect of aspiration strength on the sustainability of competitive advantage increases whenever organizational assets depreciate over time.     

组织文化的演进及其对企业绩效的影响

化作为维持竞争优势的一个源泉，对于企业绩效有着重要的影响作用。本在回顾组织化理论研究演进过程的基础上，探讨了组织化的理论基础，同时分析组织化对企业绩效的影响，分析加强了我们对于企业如何获得良好绩效的理解，奠定了企业取得成功的基础。     

A revised Inno-Qual performance system for higher education: the integrated applications of DEMATEL and ANP

The Taiwanese higher education system has historically been a sustainable resource, providing a competitive advantage for Taiwan. However, its performance has recently decreased relative to other countries. Improving innovation and total quality management (TQM) performance has become important to increase the competitive advantage and survival rate of universities. The Inno-Qual performance system (IQPS) is the latest model to evaluate innovation and TQM performance in Taiwanese institutions of higher education. The IQPS not only addresses major technical problems that could damage the reliability of evaluation outcomes, but it also stresses that half of the universities have not efficiently improved their innovation and TQM performance simultaneously. However, criteria and weights for innovation and TQM dimensions of the IQPS are separated to consider internal and external organizational performance independently. This results in inconsistency between the weights, resulting in lack of a clear direction for making improvements, which makes the performance evaluation results impossible to confirm. Furthermore, the innovation weights ignore the effects of the TQM dimensions due to the separation, making the system irrational and invalid in the real world. The purpose of this study is to revise the current IQPS and overcome these two drawbacks by using the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory application and the analytic network process. With a method that is efficient, less costly, and provides verifiable results, our revised IQPS can help improve innovation and TQM performance in today's universities.     

组织学习能力的个性优势识别与评价研究

组织学习能力是个多维概念,定期识别在哪个维度上具备个性优势并在此基础上对组织学习能力状况做出评价将有利于促进组织绩效的提升。本文按照目标规划的思想,依据2-范数距离,提出一种组织学习能力的个性优势识别方法,该方法从尊重每一位被评价者的意见出发识别其个性优势特征,并在此基础上给出综合评价结论。在此基础上以国内某大型软件企业的20个事业部为例进行了应用研究,组织学习能力由发现能力、发明能力、选择能力、执行能力、推广能力、反思能力、获取知识能力、输出知识能力、建立知识库能力九个维度组成。研究结果表明,基于个性优势识别的组织学习能力评价方法符合“人本管理”思想,易于被评价主体接受,且具有客观性的特点,同时可以产生标杆效应。     

Product balancing under conditions of quality inflation,cost pressures and growth strategies

This paper analyzes an organization that has a well-defined strategy providing a sustainable competitive advantage. This advantage is expressed by at least one dimension of quality on which the product or service exhibits outstanding performance. Using decreasing and increasing exponential demand functions for price and quality, respectively, the optimal quality level is characterized when dollar sales volume (under a cost-based price floor) and profit are maximized. However, as quality inflates, the same quality performance is worth less tomorrow than today. This paper shows that continuous and simultaneous improvement of operational efficiency and quality is a must and is independent from price setting policies. The condition of optimal trade-offs among quality dimensions is found for the case when the company competes on multiple quality dimensions. Finally, the conditions are analyzed when the resources of quality are utilized in other market segments as well. It is found that the corporate level quality (or the utilization level of resources) is lower (higher) than the highest (least) individual business unit (product) quality.     

基于Projection Pursuit-RAGA-NK-GERT的质量绩效提升路径优化——以组织质量特异性免疫和产品生命周期为主导逻辑的解释框架

依据组织免疫和组织质量特异性免疫的相关理论,引入情境变量产品生命周期,构建基于组织质量监视、组织质量防御软要素、组织质量防御硬要素和组织质量记忆的质量绩效提升路径理论框架。使用基于RAGA的投影寻踪模型、适应度景观和NK模型对产品生命周期不同阶段的质量绩效提升路径进行实证分析,实证结果表明:产品生命周期不同阶段有不同的质量绩效提升路径,产品导入期遵循的质量绩效提升路径为组织质量监视→组织质量防御→组织质量记忆,产品成长期遵循的质量绩效提升路径为组织质量防御软要素→组织质量防御硬要素→组织质量监视→组织质量记忆,产品成熟期遵循的质量绩效提升路径为组织质量防御硬要素→组织质量防御软要素→组织质量监视→组织质量记忆,产品衰退期遵循的质量绩效提升路径为组织质量记忆→组织质量监视→组织质量防御。并建立产品生命周期不同阶段质量绩效提升路径优化的GERT网络,优化产品生命周期不同阶段的质量绩效提升路径。     

Supply chain cooperation in industrial districts: A simulation analysis

In the past few years the literature on supply chain management has widely emphasized that cooperation among supply chain (SC) firms is a key source of competitive advantage. This paper explores the topic in a particular context, i.e. the industrial district (ID), which constitutes a specific production model where complex SC networks can be identified. SC cooperation may take on several forms in IDs and may produce several benefits (e.g. upgrading quality and reducing costs) so this paper also analyzes the benefits of a specific form of SC cooperation in different competitive scenarios and for diverse ID organizational structures. An agent-based model of SC cooperation in IDs has been developed and a simulation analysis carried out.     

高新技术企业持续竞争优势评价模型与实证分析

在当前中国经济增速放缓、产能过剩、资源配置不均等的背景下,大力发展高新技术产业对经济社会全局和长远发展有着重大引领带动作用,而如何科学地评价我国高新技术企业持续竞争优势,对其提升核心竞争力具有重要的现实意义.本文通过构建了由显性优势、环境适应优势和再造优势三个层次共24个指标的高新技术企业持续竞争优势评价指标体系.通过层次分析法确定指标权重,结合模糊综合评价法与灰色关联分析法分别建立高新技术企业绝对持续竞争优势与相对持续竞争优势评价模型,并以三一重工为例进行实证分析.结合两种评价模型,企业既能对自身竞争优势进行系统分析,也能针对竞争对手进行客观比较.这为高新技术企业持续竞争优势的综合评价提供了一个可行的框架,使得企业各项管理工作更具有针对性和方向性,为今后在宏观层面进一步创造公平竞争环境的市场化改革提供了思路.     

Consumer preference and service quality management with RFID

The importance of accurately measuring consumer preference for service quality management to firms in exceedingly competitive environments where customers have an increasing array of access to information cannot be overstated. There has been a resurgence of interest in consumer preference measurement and service quality management, specifically real-time service management, as more data about customer behavior and means to process these data to generate actionable policies become available. Recent years have also witnessed the incorporation of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in a wide variety of applications where item-level information can be beneficially leveraged to provide competitive advantage. We propose a knowledge-based framework for real-time service management incorporating RFID-generated item-level identification data. We consider the economic motivations for adopting RFID solutions for customer service management through analysis of service quality, response speed and service dependability. We conclude by providing managerial insights on when and where managers should consider RFID-generated identification information to improve their customer services.     

Quality uncertainty and quality-compensation contract for supply chain coordination

Many firms often face quality problems, even though quality improvement has long been a competitive imperative for performance enhancement. When suppliers are the sources of quality problems, prior literature has focused on sustaining a buyer’s competitiveness given the suppliers’ quality uncertainty. Surprisingly, the literature has not paid sufficient attention to quality uncertainty from a coordination perspective. On the other hand, the literature on channel coordination has not considered quality uncertainty in designing a contract of alliance. We bridge the gap between these two streams of literature by explicitly considering quality uncertainty in a coordination framework. In contrast to the coordination literature, we show that channel integration may result in smaller order quantity and less accurate inspection than in a decentralized supply chain if product quality is uncertain. We examine the two most extensively discussed contracts for coordination, buybacks and revenue-sharing, in the presence of quality uncertainty, and find that these two contracts fail to coordinate the supply chain. We then propose a new scheme, the quality-compensation contract, in which the manufacturer compensates the retailer for defective products that are inadvertently sold to consumers, and analytically show that the contract fully coordinates the supply chain.     

Human resource management and performance: A neural network analysis

This study utilizes an innovative research methodology (Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Maps) to explore a subject relatively understudied in Europe. It focuses on the connection between human resource management as a source of competitive advantage and perceived organizational performance in the European Union’s private and public sectors. While practices in these two sectors did not differ significantly, three diverse but overlapping HRM models did emerge, each of which involved a different set of EU member states. Training & Development practices were strongly related to performance in all three models and Communication practices in two. These results show the usefulness of an innovative technique when applied to research so far conducted through traditional methodologies, and brings to the surface questions about the universal applicability of the widely accepted relationship between superior HRM and superior business performance.     

Comparing an ACO algorithm with other heuristics for the single machine scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times

We compare several heuristics for solving a single machine scheduling problem. In the operating situation modelled, setup times are sequence-dependent and the objective is to minimize total tardiness. We describe an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm having a new feature using look-ahead information in the transition rule. This feature shows an improvement in performance. A comparison with a genetic algorithm, a simulated annealing approach, a local search method and a branch-and-bound algorithm indicates that the ACO that we describe is competitive and has a certain advantage for larger problems.     

Performance management and Operational Research: a marriage made in heaven?

This paper sets out a simple framework with which to examine the performance management process. It examines the organizational context within which performance management is undertaken, and notes that it becomes most important within hierarchical organizations that allow considerable autonomy amongst devolved units. The paper argues that performance management should embrace four broad functions: formulation of strategy; development of performance measurement instruments; interpreting such measures; and encouraging appropriate organizational responses to performance information. The paper notes that operational research has made significant contributions to all four functions, and suggests that the performance management movement offers enormous possibilities for OR.     

Knowledge management strategy and organizational culture

In an emerging knowledge-based economy, knowledge is a critical source of competitive advantage of organizations. This paper addresses two different strategies based on the tacitness of knowledge, indicating how the dilemmas of the choice of knowledge strategies might be resolved. A successful symbiosis strategy based upon a conducive organizational culture can ease knowledge replication within the organization but presents difficulty in imitation by competitors. Such a culture needs to be pervasive within the organization, but at the same time idiosyncratic and unique to the organization. Optimal knowledge management strategies can cultivate the organizational cultural fit, and maximize the organizational profit. The paper provides researchers and practitioners valuable insights to understand the fundamental relationship between knowledge management and organizational culture, and practical guidance to adopt an appropriate knowledge management strategy to exploit organizational knowledge.     

Resource,service quality and performance triad: a framework for measuring efficiency of banking services

In this paper, we present the development of a theoretical framework for measuring the efficiency of banking services taking into account physical and human resources, service quality and performance. Expenditures on quality improvement efforts and the impact of service quality on financial outcomes have long intrigued researchers. Banks have traditionally focused on how to transform their physical resources to generate financial performance, and they inadvertently ignored the mediating intangible factor of service quality. A theoretical framework on the optimization triad of resource, service quality and performance is proposed here, thereby linking the marketing variables to the financial metrics. A measure for the return on quality is developed as the ratio of the potential improvements in financial performance by enhancement of service quality to the observed performance figures. Empirical results obtained from a study of 27 Indian public sector banks and their customers allow us to measure the impact of service quality on financial performance, optimal level of service quality that can be generated using existing resources and the opportunity cost for sub-optimal service delivery. Banks delivering better service are shown to have better transformation of resource to performance using superior service delivery as the medium. Our results confirm the linkage between resource, service quality and performance for services.     

Scatter search for the vehicle routing problem with time windows

In this paper we use a scatter search framework to solve the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). Our objective is to achieve effective solutions and to investigate the effects of reference set design parameters pertaining to size, quality and diversity. Both a common arc method and an optimization-based set covering model are used to combine vehicle routing solutions. A reactive tabu search metaheuristic and a tabu search with an advanced recovery feature, together with a set covering procedure are used for solution improvement. Our approach led to a robust solution method, generating solution quality that is competitive with the current best metaheuristics.     

Integrating DEA into Six Sigma methodology for measuring health service efficiency

As a linear programming technique that is used to assess performance efficiency among organizational units, data envelopment analysis (DEA) has the practical value for planners to identify the most efficient units and thus project a best possible course of actions. This is also the fundamental goal of Six Sigma methodology for process improvement. Therefore, it is natural to integrate the DEA method into the framework of Six Sigma to enhance both the usefulness of Six Sigma and the effectiveness of DEA for assessing and improving health service efficiency. In this paper, the implementation of DEA is well incorporated into the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control process. The procedure can be well fitted into the Blackbelts training curriculum, which can also serve as a roadmap for Six Sigma practitioners to implement the DEA-enhanced projects. To illustrate how to integrate DEA into the Six Sigma framework, we present a Six Sigma project implemented to measure physician productivity in a clinical department.     

A limited memory steepest descent method

The possibilities inherent in steepest descent methods have been considerably amplified by the introduction of the Barzilai–Borwein choice of step-size, and other related ideas. These methods have proved to be competitive with conjugate gradient methods for the minimization of large dimension unconstrained minimization problems. This paper suggests a method which is able to take advantage of the availability of a few additional ‘long’ vectors of storage to achieve a significant improvement in performance, both for quadratic and non-quadratic objective functions. It makes use of certain Ritz values related to the Lanczos process (Lanczos in J Res Nat Bur Stand 45:255–282, 1950). Some underlying theory is provided, and numerical evidence is set out showing that the new method provides a competitive and more simple alternative to the state of the art l-BFGS limited memory method.     

Consumers risk and quality control in a collaborative supply chain

The purpose of this paper is to provide a strategic collaborative approach to risk and quality control in a cooperative supply chain by using a Neyman–Pearson quantile risk framework for the statistical control of risks. The paper is focused on the statistical quality control of a supplier and a producer, applying the traditional Neyman–Pearson theory to the control of quality in a supply chain environment. In our framework, the risks assumed by the parties in the supply chain depend on the organizational structure, the motivations and the power relationships that exist between members of the supply chain.     

Learning to align organizational design and data

The relationship between organizational learning and organizational design is explored. In particular, we examine the information processing aspects of organizational learning as they apply to a two-valued decision making task and the relation of such aspects to organizational structure. Our primary contribution is to extend Carley's (1992) model of this process. The original model assumes that all data input into the decision making processes are of equal importance or weight in determining the correct overall organizational decision. The extension described here allows for the more natural situation of non-uniform weights of evidence. Further extensions to the model are also discussed. Such organizational learning performance measures provide an interesting framework for analyzing the recent trend towards flatter organizational structures. This research suggests that flatter structures are not always better, but rather that data environment, ultimate performance goals, and relative need for speed in learning can be used to form a contingency model for choosing organizational structure.