Search results

This study aims to examine the effects of marketing dashboards on resource allocation between exploratory and exploitative activities. It proposes that tactical dashboards will lead managers to place less emphasis on exploratory activities and more emphasis on exploitative activities – with performance consequences – but that these effects will be contingent on the information and decision-making environment.

Study hypotheses were tested using an experiment tracking objective decisions over five periods in the Markstrat simulation. A total of 105 firms, each managed by a team of Master of Business Administration students, were divided into 2 dashboard conditions and a control condition.

Teams given a tactical dashboard were less likely to engage in exploratory activities when information load was high. Tactical dashboards also suppressed exploration early in the simulation. Dashboards were associated with negative firm performance overall.

The research suggests that dashboards can bias resource allocation, but the effects are contingent on the information and decision-making environment. Dashboards demonstrated a negative relationship with performance. The research lacked cognitive process measures and was limited to a single simulated industry type.

Dashboards are not a panacea for decision-making and performance and will need to change under changing conditions. Executives should build flexibility into the design and use of their dashboards and periodically audit the value the dashboard produces.

While widespread in marketing practice, dashboards have received little study and none involving decision-making over time and changing conditions. This research advances on limited existing work by examining objective causal effects.

Because conventional financial reporting failed to prevent savings and loans crisis of 1988, the market value concept became popular. To see if CEO changes affect “how much companies are worth if sold” Fortune 500 corporations were examined from 1997 to 2002. The findings show that companies with CEO changes see significant market value drops during the year of and especially year after CEO changes (i.e. when compared to benchmark) due to asset “write‐downs”. Yet, while there are no differences in market value shifts for the CEO change versus benchmark companies during the second and third years after CEO changes, asset reductions by new CEOs take place during their first and second years. The results suggest that executives looking for bargains on assets should target competitors with recent CEO changes, and new CEOs in their zeal to get clean slates should carefully liquidate “questionably productive” assets to prevent hostile takeovers.

Arthritis is the most prevalent chronic condition in persons ages 65 and older and is projected to increase substantially as the population ages. The purpose of this research is to assess if age, duration of arthritis, and severity of arthritis exert independent effects on various aspects of the disability process: functional limitations, activities of daily living (ADL) limitations, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) limitations. Type of arthritis, socio-demographic factors, behavioral factors, and additional health statuses are also examined. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement study, results show age and severity of arthritis are related to the number of functional limitations one has and to the odds of having ADL and IADL limitations. Duration of arthritis is positively related to functional limitations and to the odds of reporting ADL limitations. Duration of arthritis is not significantly related to IADL limitations, which are strongly linked to performing social roles and have less to do with physical functioning compared to ADL tasks and functional tasks. There is no difference between those with established arthritis compared to those who have had it for a shorter time period, suggesting those with arthritis adapt to social tasks better than physical tasks. The resources used to cope with IADL limitations may be more effective over time compared to those used to cope with functional limitations and ADL disability. Understanding the context of functional limitations and disability among those with arthritis may lead to improved support and care for those living with arthritis.

In their search for optimum performance and cost‐efficiency many organizations have been critically examining the value of the seemingly ever increasing cost of, and dependence on, technology. In the course of examining possible alternative, and potentially more efficient, approaches to technology management, the concept of outsourcing has become widely discussed. In this context it has attracted high levels of interest among both industry and Government. In spite of this high level of interest and increasing willingness to consider outsourcing, a great deal of uncertainty exists among potential users regarding both the meaning and implications of entering into outsourcing arrangements. Intends critically to examine the concept, implementation and management issues related to outsourcing information technology services.

MY SELF‐RESTRAINT in refraining until thus far through the year from mention of the game of cricket is not, I'm afraid, due to a waning of interest with the onset of old age (it's my birthday next week), but to a ripe contentment with the Ashes victory in Australia during the winter, plus the realisation that cricket is hardly a suitable subject for discussion in the arctic weather conditions we have been experiencing during the first three months of 1979.

The following annotated list of materials on instructing users in library and information skills covers publications from 1982. A few items have not been annotated because the compiler was unable to secure copies of these items.

Girls’ access to education has improved in many of the world's developing countries. These countries are striving to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requiring them to provide gender equality, promote the empowerment of women, and establish universal primary education (UPE) by 2015. The success of UPE in achieving gender equality in enrollment in those countries able to institute it is encouraging. Where previously girls trailed boys in their ability to access education due to parent inability or reluctance to pay the costs, they are now entering primary schools in comparable numbers (UNESCO, 1999, 2006).