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The paper aims to present the case for a “paradigm shift” in current thinking about how to undertake category management and develop sourcing strategies using power positioning techniques. The case is made based on the growing evidence of a mismatch between currently dominant academic and consulting methodologies and the reality of professional managerial practice.

The paper provides a critique of the currently dominant thinking about how to conduct category management and strategic sourcing using the Kraljic Purchasing Portfolio Analysis methodology and the more recent Purchasing Chessboard approach. The critique focuses on their lack of analytical rigour when segmenting categories of supply, and their lack of robustness when making practical recommendations for managers when developing sourcing strategies.

The paper demonstrates how (building on the initial power positioning approach outlined, but not fully developed, by Kraljic) a new approach to portfolio analysis can be developed. Sourcing Portfolio Analysis identifies over 30 strategic sourcing strategies for managers to utilise. Using a simple case study, the power of this new methodology to provide managers with more comprehensive and effective sourcing strategies is demonstrated.

Because of the power of this new approach, and the need to challenge existing methodologies, researchers are encouraged to utilise it and try help to generate a “paradigm shift” in current thinking within the profession.

The paper provides the basis for a future more strategic supply management, rather than the currently tactical spend management, approach to sourcing.

This paper provides a new approach to portfolio analysis.

This paper aims to provide introductory conceptual tools for studying political power in a complex multi-level environment. In particular, it is intended to answer the question of how concepts provided by cybernetics and general systems theory (GST) could serve to foster the study of political power.

The objective is realized through a reconsideration of a set of the basic concepts of cybernetics, GST and political science. Two system identification models – black box and white box – along with Marian Mazur’s concept of steering are used to deconstruct the classic definition of power formulated by Max Weber. Next, a two-phase procedure for empirical power analysis is proposed. Rudimentary in its scope, the article shows a path of more comprehensive and transformative analyses of key notions.

It seems that system identification models help uncover structural and functional aspects of political power, which aids the process of analysis of different mechanisms of political power.

The article supports the argument for a conceptual isomorphism between cybernetics and political science. The value of the proposed approach is derived from the combination of two features. First, two aspects of system operation – functional and structural – help to focus research attention on different problems of political power analysis. Second, the interrelation and interdependence of both aspects of systems operation serve as a practical means in the analysis of communication and behavior of actors in the political power processes.

This study analyzes whether power in the supply chain, based on governance modes and network centrality, explain financial performance at different levels of analysis: buyers, suppliers and dyads.

The study employs a dual macro-micro lens based on global value chain (i.e. market, modular, relational and captive governance modes) and social network analysis (network centrality) to assess the impact of power (im)balance onto financial performance. Different from previous research, this study adopts information reliability techniques – such as information entropy – to differentiate the weights of distinct financial performance metrics in terms of the maximal entropy principle. This principle states that the probability distribution that best represents the current state of knowledge given prior data is the one with largest entropy. These weights are used in TOPSIS analysis.

Results offer insightful reflections to SCM research. We show that buyers outperform suppliers due to power asymmetry. We ground our findings both analyzing across governance modes and comparing network centrality. We show that market and modular governances (where power balance prevails) outperform relational and captive modes at the dyadic level – thus inferring that in the long run these governance modes may lead to financially healthier supply chains.

This study advances SCM research by exploring the impact of governance modes and network centrality on performance at both firm and dyadic levels while employing an innovative combination of secondary data and robust set of techniques including TOPSIS, WASPAS and information entropy.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for statistical inference on data from power law distributions in order to explain behavior and social phenomena associated with web‐based social spaces such as discussion forums, question‐and‐answer sites, web 2.0 applications and the like.

The paper starts by highlighting the importance of explaining behavior in social networks. Next, the power law nature of social interactions is described and a hypothetical example is used to explain why analyzing sub‐sets of data might misrepresent the relationship between variables having power law distributions. Analysis requires the use of the complete distribution. The paper proposes logarithmic transformation prior to correlation and regression analysis and shows why it works using the hypothetical example and field data retrieved from Microsoft's Netscan project.

The hypothetical example emphasizes the importance of analyzing complete datasets harvested from social spaces. The Netscan example shows the importance of the logarithmic transformation for enabling the development of a predictive regression model based on the power law distributed data. Specifically, it shows that the number of new and returning participants are the main predictors of discussion forum activity.

This paper offers a useful analysis tool for anyone interested in social aspects of the Internet as well as corporate intra‐net systems, knowledge management systems or other systems that support social interaction such as cellular phones and mobile devices. It also explains how to avoid errors by paying attention to assumptions and range restriction issues.

The study aims to identify the possible risk factors for electricity grids operational disruptions and to determine the most critical and influential risk indicators.

A multi-criteria decision-making best-worst method (BWM) is employed to quantitatively identify the most critical risk factors. The grey causal modeling (GCM) technique is employed to identify the causal and consequence factors and to effectively quantify them. The data used in this study consisted of two types – quantitative periodical data of critical factors taken from their respective government departments (e.g. Indian Meteorological Department, The Central Water Commission etc.) and the expert responses collected from professionals working in the Indian electric power sector.

The results of analysis for a case application in the Indian context shows that temperature dominates as the critical risk factor for electrical power grids, followed by humidity and crop production.

The study helps to understand the contribution of factors in electricity grids operational disruptions. Considering the cause consequences from the GCM causal analysis, rainfall, temperature and dam water levels are identified as the causal factors, while the crop production, stock prices, commodity prices are classified as the consequence factors. In practice, these causal factors can be controlled to reduce the overall effects.

From the results of the analysis, managers can use these outputs and compare the risk factors in electrical power grids for prioritization and subsequent considerations. It can assist the managers in efficient allocation of funds and manpower for building safeguards and creating risk management protocols based on the severity of the critical factor.

The research comprehensively analyses the risk factors of electrical power grids in India. Moreover, the study apprehends the cause-consequence pair of factors, which are having the maximum effect. Previous studies have been focused on identification of risk factors and preliminary analysis of their criticality using autoregression. This research paper takes it forward by using decision-making methods and causal analysis of the risk factors with blend of quantitative and expert response based data analysis to focus on the determination of the criticality of the risk factors for the Indian electric power grid.

This paper aims to create a terminal area operations (TAO) analysis software that can accurately appreciate the nuances of hybrid electric distributed propulsion (HEDP), including unique failure modes and powered-lift effects.

The program was written in Visual Basic with a user interface in Microsoft Excel. It integrates newly defined force components over time using a fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme.

Powered-lift, HEDP failure modes and electrical component thermal limitations play significant roles on the performance of aircraft during TAO. Thoughtful design may yield better efficiency; however, care must be given to address negative implications. Reliability and performance can be improved during component failure scenarios.

This program has and will support the investigation of novel propulsion system architectures and aero-propulsive relationships through accurate TAO performance prediction.

Powered-lift and HEDP architectures can be employed to improve takeoff and climb performance, both during nominal and component failure scenarios, however, reliance on powered-lift may result in faster approach speeds. High-lift and system failure behavior may also allow new approaches to design and sizing requirements.

This program is unique in both the public and private sectors in its broad capabilities for TAO analysis of aircraft with HEDP systems and powered-lift.

The purpose of this study is to review the literature on strategic management in Africa with special emphasis on how strategy constructs have been measured and present a roadmap to help improve strategy research in Africa.

A content analysis of empirical research on strategic management published in journals using data from Africa from 2000 to 2013 is conducted to examine construct measurement practices.

The findings indicate that the average sample sizes in strategy research in Africa is not large as strategy research in general, and have low statistical power. While the studies rely heavily on single-indicator measures, there were also several studies using scale or multiple measures that report reliabilities.

Limitations of the research include small number of studies used, inability to examine journal effects’ of the findings due to few numbers of papers from many of the journals, and lack of examination of the influence of the context and topical areas of the articles on the use of the construct measurement techniques.

The study provides information about the use of construct measurement techniques and power analysis in strategy research in Africa. It further encourages the use of larger sample sizes, the examination of power, and more focus on variables which allow the assessment of reliabilities and validity.

Little is known about construct measurement practices of the empirical research in and about Africa in the discipline of strategic management. This chapter builds on extant research on construct measurement issues in strategic management research, but with the unique value-added contribution of focusing on the African environment where the discipline is beginning to take hold.

The analysis of power flow and mechanical efficiency constitutes an important phase in the design and analysis of gear mechanisms. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic procedure for the determination of power flow and mechanical efficiency of epicyclic-type transmission mechanisms.

A novel epicyclic-type in-hub bicycle transmission, which is a split-power type transmission composed of two transmission units and one differential unit, and its clutching sequence table are introduced first. By using the concept of fundamental circuits, the procedure for calculating the angular speed of each link, the ideal torque and power flow of each link, the actual torque and power flow of each link determined by considering gear-mesh losses, and the mechanical efficiency of the transmission mechanism is proposed in a simple, straightforward manner. The mechanical efficiency analysis of epicyclic-type gear mechanisms is largely simplified to overcome tedious and complicated processes of traditionally methods.

An analysis of the mechanical efficiency of a four-speed automotive automatic transmission completed by Hsu and Huang is used as an example to illustrate the utility and validity of the proposed procedure. The power flow and mechanical efficiency of the presented 16-speed in-hub bicycle transmission are computed, and the power recirculation inside the transmission mechanism at each speed is detected based on the power flow diagram. When power recirculation occurs, the mechanical efficiency of the gear mechanism at the related speed reduces. The mechanical efficiency of this in-hub bicycle transmission is more than 96 percent for each speed. Such an in-hub bicycle transmission possesses reasonable kinematics and high mechanical efficiency and is therefore suitable for further embodiment design and detail design.

The proposed approach is suitable for the mechanical efficiency analysis of all kinds of complicated epicyclic-type transmissions with any number of degrees of freedom and facilitates a less-tedious process of determining mechanical efficiency. It is a useful tool for mechanical engineering designers to evaluate the efficiency performance of the gear mechanism before actually fabricating a prototype as well as measuring the numerical data. It also helps engineering designers to cautiously select feasible gear mechanisms to avoid those configurations with power recirculation in the preliminary design stage which may significantly reduce the time for developing novel in-hub bicycle transmissions.

The basic characteristic of knowledge‐based societies is that society organised according to simulations, codes and models replaces production as society's organising principle. Electronically operated global capitalism is structured with the help of information networks in a timeless space of financial flows. Money has become totally independent of production, escaping into the networks of high‐order electronic interactions. The ideas in this article come on the one hand from the Foucaultian poststructuralist and the Baudrillarian postmodernist perspective, and on the other hand they are based on a crietical accounting that belongs to Anglo‐Saxon critical thinking. In the centre of the analysis lies a provocative thesis that was advanced by N. Macintosh in his book Accounting, Accountants and Accountability (2002), that today's financial markets operate detached from reality in hyperreality, and there does not exist anything stable to support the financial economy in the «order of simulacrum». Consequently, vital accounting information no longer refers to real referents, which means that we live in the world of free floating signs. In «the simulation era of today's world», accounting, just like all other areas of knowledge, is faced with a crisis of representation. By introducing the poststructuralist perspective in the accounting area, critical accounting has opened up a debate on the presentation of accounting data, use of language and control of accounting discourse. Consequently, accountancy may be seen as a fundamentally social service which is especially evident in the situations when the private and public interests are opposed.