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The purpose of this study is to replicate Avery and Berger’s (1991) analysis using data from 2001 through 2011. Although risk-based capital (RBC) regulation is a key component of US banking regulation, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of these regulations has been mixed. Among the first studies of RBC regulation, Avery and Berger (1991) provide evidence from data on US banks that new RBC regulations outperformed old capital regulations from 1982 through 1989.

Using data from the Federal Reserve’s Call Reports, the authors compare banks’ capital ratios and RBC ratios to five measures of bank performance: income, standard deviation of income, non-performing loans, loan charge-offs and probability of failure.

Consistent with Avery and Berger (1991), the authors find banks’ risk-weighted assets to be significant predictors of their future performance and that RBC ratios outperform regular capital ratios as predictors of risk.

The study improves on Avery and Berger (1991) by using an updated data set from 2001 through 2011. The authors also discuss some potential limitations of this method of analysis.

Although it is widely acknowledged that health care delivery systems are complex adaptive systems, there are gaps in understanding the application of systems engineering approaches to systems analysis and redesign in the health care domain. Commonly employed methods, such as statistical analysis of risk factors and outcomes, are simply not adequate to robustly characterize all system requirements and facilitate reliable design of complex care delivery systems. This is especially apparent in institutional-level systems, such as patient safety programs that must mitigate the risk of infections and other complications that can occur in virtually any setting providing direct and indirect patient care. The case example presented here illustrates the application of various system engineering methods to identify requirements and intervention candidates for a critical patient safety problem known as failure to rescue. Detailed descriptions of the analysis methods and their application are presented along with specific analysis artifacts related to the failure to rescue case study. Given the prevalence of complex systems in health care, this practical and effective approach provides an important example of how systems engineering methods can effectively address the shortcomings in current health care analysis and design, where complex systems are increasingly prevalent.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of supply chain complexity and extend this with literature developed within the project domain. The authors use the lens of ambidexterity (the ability both to exploit and explore) to analyse responses to complexity, since this enables the authors to understand the application of known solutions in conjunction with innovative ones to resolve difficulties. This research also seeks to investigate how managers respond to supply chain complexities that can either be operationally deleterious or strategically beneficial.

The authors develop a descriptive framework based on the project management (PM) literature to understand response options to complexity, and then use interviews with supply chain managers in six organisations to examine the utility of this framework in practice. The authors ask the research question “How do managers in supply chains respond to complexities”?

The case study data show first that managers faced with structural, socio-political, or emergent supply chain complexities use a wide range of responses. Second, over a third of the instances of complexity coded were actually accommodated, rather than reduced, by the study firms, suggesting that adapting to supply chain complexity in certain instances may be strategically appropriate. Third, the lens of ambidexterity allows a more explicit assessment of whether existing PM solutions can be considered or if novel methods are required to address supply chain complexities.

The descriptive framework can aid managers in conceptualising and addressing supply chain complexity. Through exploiting current knowledge, managers can lessen the impact of complexity while exploring other innovative approaches to solve new problems and challenges that evolve from complexity growth driven by business strategy.

This study addresses a gap in the literature through the development of a framework which provides a structure on ways to address supply chain complexity. The authors evaluate an existing project complexity concept and demonstrate that it is both applicable and valuable in non-project, ongoing operations. The authors then extend it using the lens of ambidexterity, and develop a framework that can support practitioners in analysing and addressing both strategically necessary supply complexities, together with unwanted, negative complexities within the organisation and across the supply chain.

The sudden arrival of Covid-19 severely disrupted the supply chain of personal protective equipment (PPE) in Australia. This paper aims to examine the development of a geographical cluster, which, through the application of additive manufacturing (AM), responded to the PPE supply crisis.

This longitudinal case study focuses on an AM cluster, which was developed to supply PPE in a responsive and flexible manner from 2019/2020. The study gathered data over three stages of cluster evolution: pre, during and post-peak Covid-19.

The type and nature of exchanges between organizations involved in the cluster established important insights into success factors for cluster creation and development. Using an established complexity framework, this study identifies the characteristics of establishing a cluster. The importance of cluster alignment created initially by a common PPE supply goal led to an emerging commercial and relational imperative to address the longer-term configuration after the disruption.

Clusters can be a viable option for a technology-driven sector when there is a “buzz” that drives and rapidly diffuses knowledge to support cluster formation. This research identifies the structural, socio-political and emergent dimensions, which need to be considered by stakeholders when aiming at improving competitiveness using clusters.

Covid-19 has rapidly and unexpectedly disrupted the supply chain for many industries. Responding to challenges, businesses will investigate different pathways to improve the overall resilience including on-/near-shoring. The results provide insights into how clusters are formed, grow and develop and the differentiating factors that result in successful impacts of clusters on local economies.

This paper explored the relationship between the embeddedness of a firm’s managerial values and corporate financial performance in Swiss small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by developing a conceptual maturity model of managerial values (MM-MV). The MM-MV articulates the extent to which managerial values are embedded within organizations, allowing the analysis of the interrelationship between the degree of values-embeddedness and financial performance in SMEs. The findings suggested that as managerial values become more embedded, financial performance increases; therefore, SMEs exhibiting highly embedded managerial values such as customer-minded, team spirit, innovation-driven reliability, persistency, competency, and engagement tend to financially outperform SMEs that have not fully embedded managerial values throughout the firm.

Those who contemplate attending the Annual Conference of the Library Association at Portsmouth would be well advised to secure their accommodation immediately if they have not done so already. The demands upon hotel space have been very much greater than even sanguine members anticipated, and already we hear of people being refused rooms because they are no longer available. Portsmouth, of course, is the naval centre of the Empire, and that common‐place piece of knowledge is magnetic, nevertheless. There are other attractions in Portsmouth. Its situation, practically adjacent to the Isle of Wight, with all its charms, on one side, and its nearness to the New Forest and the belt of Hampshire towns on the west, and on the east with such places as Chichester, Selsey, Bognor, Worthing, and Brighton make it, from the location point of view, of special interest. There is the further call of the literary associations of Portsmouth. Every book on the Navy has something about it, as those of us who read W. H. G. Kingston, Captain Marryatt and many another sea‐author can testify. Perhaps the most important author who came out of Portsmouth was not a sea‐writer but the son of a naval outfitter—George Meredith. Pernaps to a post‐War generation he seems old‐fashioned, involved, unnecessarily intricate, precious, and possesses other faults. This is a superficial point of view, and certainly in his poems he rises to heights and reaches depths that are denied to most writers of to‐day. In any case, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and Beauchamp's Career, to say nothing of The Egoist, are among the great novels of the English language.

Month after month we bring forward additional evidence of the injury resulting from the use of chemical “preservatives” in food, while the Authorities feebly hesitate to give specific legal effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee which made such a complete inquiry into this question. The evidence upon which those recommendations were based has been fully corroborated by a number of different observers. FERE and others have shown that, as regards boric acid and borax, even when administered in the smallest medicinal doses, there is always the risk that these drugs may aggravate, or even produce, renal diseases. These observations have been confirmed by the work of Dr. CHARLES HARRINGTON, an account of which has been recently published. Twelve cats were fed on the same food; six were treated with borax, one had no preservative, and five were given a preservative which had no apparent effect. The experiment extended over a period of 133 days, the quantity of borax given averaging about 0.5 grms, per diem. Three of the borated cats soon became ill, and one died at the end of six weeks. On the termination of the experiment the cats were all killed, and upon examination it was found that the organs of the six cats which had not taken borax were in perfectly sound and healthy condition, while the others, with one exception, were all suffering from nephritis. Of course, instances are recorded in which patients have been treated with borax and boracic acid with apparently no injurious result, but as a general rule these experiments have been of too short duration to allow of the desired information being arrived at, and the results must therefore be regarded as inconclusive and unreliable. It is perfectly evident that the kidneys may be for a short time quite capable of eliminating many objectionable substances, but the long‐continued use of such bodies, as Dr. HARRINGTON'S researches clearly indicate, sets up an inflammatory condition of the kidneys which, of course, interferes with the effective performance of their proper functions, and lays the foundations for complications of the most serious nature.

The value which can be placed upon the rights of property in a name of a commodity, a food or drink, perhaps famous all over the world, which has come down to us through the centuries, is incalculable. Most of such foods and drinks have a regional association, and are prepared according to methods, often secret, handed down from one generation to another and from locally grown and produced materials. Nowhere are such traditions so well established as in cheese‐making and the wine industry. The names do not signify merely a method of manufacture, since this can be simulated almost anywhere, nor even the raw materials, but differences in climate, the soil and its treatment, its produce, harvesting, even in the contaminants of environment. Rochfort cheese, for example, is made from ewe's milk, but most important, with mould growths found only in the caves of that part of France where it is stored.

Patient handoffs involve the exchange of information between health professionals accompanying a transfer of responsibility for, or control of, a patient. Concerns over the safety risks of poor handoffs have resulted in regulatory pressure to standardize practice and considerable growth in research. But handoffs involve more than information transfer, and their consequences for health care organizations extend beyond the safety of patients. Using an organization theory lens, we review the literature on handoffs and propose a framework that characterizes handoffs as multifunctional, situated organizational routines. We also identify implications for researchers and hospital policymakers. Standardization and improvement efforts run the risk of causing unintended problems if they overlook the complexity of handoff and the larger organizational functions it serves. Deepening our understanding of the multifunctional, situated nature of handoff can lead to improvement efforts that not only safeguard individual patients, but also enhance the capabilities of the larger health care organization.