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1 – 10 of 17Rainer Michaeli and Lothar Simon
This paper is intended to enable competitive intelligence practitioners using an important method for everyday work when confronted with conditional uncertainties: the Bayes'…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is intended to enable competitive intelligence practitioners using an important method for everyday work when confronted with conditional uncertainties: the Bayes' theorem.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper shows how the mathematical concept of the Bayes theorem applies to competitive intelligence problems. The main approach is to illustrate the concepts by a near‐real world example. The paper also provides background for further reading, especially for psychological problems connected with Bayes' theorem.
Findings
The main finding is that conditional uncertainties represent a common problem in competitive intelligence. They should be computed explicitly rather than estimated intuitively. Otherwise, serious misinterpretations and complete project failures might follow.
Research limitations/implications
In psychological literature it is a known fact that conditional uncertainties sometimes cannot be handled correctly. Conditional uncertainties seem to be handled well when they are about human properties. This should be verified or falsified in the competitive intelligence context.
Practical implications
In general, the application of Bayes' theorem should be seen as one of the foundations of competitive intelligence education. Especially, when it is clear in which intelligence research situations conditional uncertainties can or cannot be handled intuitively, competitive intelligence education and practice should be adapted to these findings.
Originality/value
CI practitioners can underestimate the value of Bayes' theorem in practice as they are often unaware of the (psychological) problems around handling conditional uncertainties intuitively. The article demonstrates how to take a computational approach to conditional uncertainties in CI projects. Thus, it can be used as part of appropriate CI training material.
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Natural wine was not a factor in South Africa until after 1935. However, the hybrid Pinotage was produced in the 1920's and the now quasi government KWV representing wine farmers…
Abstract
Natural wine was not a factor in South Africa until after 1935. However, the hybrid Pinotage was produced in the 1920's and the now quasi government KWV representing wine farmers, was far reachingly empowered to fix the price of distilling wine. South Africa is traditionally a national brandy and beer drinking nation, and that largely stands today. The monopolistic KWV backed by the Afrikaaner government since 1948 has continuously increased its hold as a stabilising force. In reply the producing wholesalers have merged from many into four very large firms of which SFW is by far the biggest. Even the two largest of those were controlled by one firm until joined by KWV, their long term adversary, which took a thirty percent interest SFW's vision of natural wine being more healthy than spirits has been its theme from the time of its founder W.C. Winshaw in 1935. This is demonstrated in many ways. The new South African government, no longer Afrikaaner led, has set up a competition's board enquiry which is almost certainly destined to change completely, the face of the whole SA wine and spirits industry. The purpose of this paper is to set on record the old regime, and Stellenbosch Fanner's part therein as a matter of record and learning.
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Rhonda Harris Taylor and Nancy Larson Bluemel
Provides an introductory guide to basic print and Web resources about pop‐up books. Includes information on paper engineers, producers of pop‐up books, exhibits of pop‐up books…
Abstract
Provides an introductory guide to basic print and Web resources about pop‐up books. Includes information on paper engineers, producers of pop‐up books, exhibits of pop‐up books, collecting pop‐up books, and “how‐to” guidance for making pop‐up books.
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Chandrasekhar Lakshminarasimham Kappagomtula
Managing the triple constraints of time, cost and scope of the work, to ensure the quality desired by the stake holders, is a daunting task for any project manager. When the teams…
Abstract
Purpose
Managing the triple constraints of time, cost and scope of the work, to ensure the quality desired by the stake holders, is a daunting task for any project manager. When the teams involved are for accomplishing large-scale projects, spread over different geographic regions and drawn from multi- or cross-cultural background, the task of the project manager becomes even more complicated and complex (Lothar, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to examine some of those challenges as well as the socio-cultural factors’ influence on the outcome of projects.
Design/methodology/approach
An extensive investigative survey in these complex aspects has been undertaken, spanning both in China and in India.
Findings
Some solutions to the leadership role have been found through the intense study and data analysis.
Research limitations/implications
The scope of multicultural and cross-cultural factors and the number of socio-cultural factors affecting such teams spread in diverse parts of the globe is stupendous. However, the study restricted itself to examining only three important socio-cultural factors out of the several, impacting the outcome of multi- or cross-cultural team executed projects.
Practical implications
The study reveals the causal effect of poor performance outcome for large projects when the team comprises multi- or cross cultural personnel. The limitations for the team leader heading such diverse teams are brought out.
Social implications
The study will help the future compositions of cross- or multicultural team projects, to know in advance the sensitive areas where they have to focus to ensure seamless execution of large projects with the help of virtual platforms for face-to-face interactions between the team members and their leader.
Originality/value
The literature available on generic behavioural aspects of multi- or cross-cultural teams is plenty. However, very few empirical studies are available in evaluating the influence of socio-cultural factors affecting such large project teams. This study extensively covers both China and India, which is a unique investigative study of its kind.
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Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining…
Abstract
Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.
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Erin Jade Twyford and Warwick Funnell
This study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation policy to eliminate Jews from German business as a prelude to their annihilation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a close-reading method that draws upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources. The study is informed by Giorgio Agamben's theorisations on the state of exception and the duality of the example and exception.
Findings
The successful implementation of the Nazis' corporative economic model necessitated the cooperation of Aryan businesses to instrumentalise the financially exploitative process of Aryanisation. Accounting was part of the Nazi-Deutsch rhetoric used to disguise expropriation of Jewish businesses and other assets and, thereby, facilitate the eradication of the financial bios of Jews who owned German banks. Unknown to the Nazi authorities, Deutsche Bank, while a significant medium for Aryanisation, sought to ameliorate the long-term effects on Jewish owners, thereby recognising that not all those within Nazi Germany were fully committed disciples of Nazism.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study identify how accounting practices were part of a Nazi policy designed to eliminate Jews from the German economy. The use of accounting as a form of “Nazi-Deutsch” functioned to disguise Aryanisations. The importance of these contributions of accounting practices calls for further research into the role of business and accounting in the attempted eradication of people.
Originality/value
The paper is the first to consider the process of Aryanisation in Nazi Germany (1933–1945) as a specific historiographical subject. Presented through the examination of the Aryanisation actions of Deutsche Bank, this study demonstrates the tension between Nazi ideology, the capitalist model and the culpability of accounting practices as a means to reinterpret morality to create the exception that allowed the Nazis to effectively remove all legal protections for Jews.
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