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This study focuses on ratcheting and budget behavior in nonprofit museums. Specifically, the authors examine how performance compared with the budget affects future revenue budgets, and how this differs from the extant literature focused on for-profit organizations. The study focuses specifically on the relationship between museums and their sources of public funding and how this affects how museums prepare budgets.

Based on four years of data covering 97 state-subsidized Danish museums, the authors analyze budget ratcheting using least absolute deviation (LAD) estimations in the form of median regressions.

The authors find that when actual revenue from admission charges is below the budget, the decrease in the following year's budget is greater than the increase in the following year's budget when actual revenue from admission charges is above the budget (i.e. the authors find asymmetrical ratcheting).

The findings are based on a specific setting (Danish museums), and the results may not be generalizable to other settings.

This study provides insights into the museum sector and other sectors with similar characteristics and contributes to understanding the differences between museums and for-profit organizations when it comes to budgeting. As private-sector management practices are gaining ground in the museum sector, it is important to learn more about budgeting-related issues in this sector.

The asymmetrical ratcheting the authors find is the opposite of ratcheting typically found in for-profit organizations. The authors attribute the results to the incentive conflict between museums and their public funding sources. The authors point to the museums' dependence on public funding as an explanation for the results and, thereby, extend the knowledge on ratcheting to organizations with different characteristics than traditional, for-profit organizations.

This chapter demonstrates (1) divergence between spending based upon a budget ratcheting model and a benchmark spending model, (2) that this divergence affects organizational performance, and (3) that internal benchmarking enables unit-to-unit performance comparisons, despite claims of organizational or unit uniqueness. We contrast two spending models to examine whether the divergence, or cost estimation gap, affects operating performance across inpatient (n=4,536) and outpatient departments (n=8,438) in 23 U.S. Army hospitals. Using a fixed-effects panel data methodology for fiscal years 2004–2006, we find that unit managers’ spending in this setting is more closely approximated by budget ratcheting. Using multiple performance metrics measured via a DuPont-like decomposition, we find that, within a specified range, operating performance generally improves as resources become constrained. Outside that range, however, we find nonlinear performance effects that approximate a quadratic loss function. Our benchmark model enables clinical department comparisons while controlling for facility, clinical specialty, and case mix severity. The resulting departmental comparability facilitates identification and communication of best practices across the entire Army hospital system. These results should be of interest to corporate executives, government officials, and agency managers who have responsibility for establishing funding mechanisms that include performance-based components.

A large literature studies why firms self-regulate and “signal green.” However, it has ignored that regulators have enforcement discretion, and may act strategically. We fill this gap. We build a game theoretic model of whether a firm should signal its type through substantial self-regulation. We find self-regulation is a double-edged sword: it can potentially preempt legislation, but it can also lead regulators to demand higher levels of compliance from greener firms if preemption fails. We show how self-regulatory decisions depend upon industry characteristics and political responsiveness to corporate environmental leadership. We have made a number of simplifying assumptions. We assume activist groups cannot challenge regulatory flexibility in court, and that regulatory penalties are fixed and are not collected by the regulator. Firms with low compliance costs confront a tradeoff regarding self-regulation. They can blend in with the rest of the industry, and take few self-regulatory steps. This reduces the risk of regulation somewhat, and preserves their ability to obtain regulatory flexibility should regulation be imposed. Alternatively, they can step up with substantial self-regulation. This better mitigates the risk of regulation, but at the risk of signaling low costs and becoming a target for stringent enforcement should regulation pass. Recent work has found negative market reactions to corporate claims of voluntary emissions reductions, despite the conventional wisdom that it “pays to be green.” We offer a new explanation to scholars and managers: regulatory discretion may undermine the ability of industry self-regulation to profitably preempt mandatory regulatory requirements.

IN the newspapers, on the radio and television railways have been a topic on which differing views have been expressed. There have been suggestions that a Government subsidy might ease the problems.

Many companies are not satisfied with the methods used to calculate savings for capital equipment purchasing (CEP), and the existing academic literature does not provide adequate suggestions for solving this problem. Therefore, the authors will aim to analyze how companies measure savings for CEP and attempt to identify the main challenges in this area. In order to understand which savings measurement system for CEP is appropriate in a specific situation, they will explore the relevant determinants and effects of savings measurement for CEP.

After presenting a description of the theoretical foundations of CEP and savings measurement, the article presents three cases of savings measurement for CEP from manufacturing industry and pinpoints the major challenges involved. These challenges are then discussed with reference to the relevant literature and a conceptual model for savings measurement for CEP is developed.

The authors identify six procedure-specific and seven behavior-specific challenges. Procedure-specific challenges in savings measurement for CEP primarily address topics concerning components and calculation methods, while behavior-specific challenges mainly involve manipulation, trust and judgment. The authors’ formulated propositions state that savings measurement for CEP is influenced by internal and external determinants and affects CEP's performance, manipulation and trust, as well as judgments which may be made about CEP's savings measurement results.

The managerial implications of the authors’ research concern the successful design and process of savings measurement for CEP.

Savings measurement for CEP, as a special case of purchasing performance measurement, has received little attention in the academic literature. Thus, the authors will present calculation methods, along with identifying and discussing challenges and revealing relevant determinants and effects.

Research in aircraft structures is constantly bringing forward new problems of a fundamental character. Many of these respond to systematic experiment, and the paper presents the experimental approach in terms of recent work done in Great Britain and particularly at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. One aspect of research considered is the testing of small specimens made of xylonite. Another is the strength testing of actual aircraft, which opens up several fields of research activity for discussion. Design studies of new testing equipment for large aircraft and for pressure cabins are also described. Consideration is given to the measurement of external forces in flight and the design of measuring instruments, including a description of the new counting accelerometer recently developed by the R.A.E. Finally, structural fatigue is discussed as being one of the most difficult subjects with which the structural specialist has yet had to deal.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies have conventionally focused on producing prototypes. However, recent trends show that AM is being increasingly used for production parts. With this shift from prototypes to production parts, there is a need to determine whether established engineering design techniques can be applied to AM processes, particularly techniques characteristic of the final implementation phase such as virtual (mathematical) modeling, or whether AM process‐specific adjustments must be made.

The effectiveness of applying virtual models to design problems utilizing AM processes was addressed using two approaches in this research. Literature was first reviewed to determine the current focus of the AM industry on virtual modeling, both analytical and numerical, and its implementation. Second, experiments were conducted to validate virtual models applied to fastener mechanism designs manufactured using laser sintering (LS).

Limited research has been published that demonstrates the effectiveness of applying established design techniques, particularly virtual modeling techniques, to parts manufactured with AM processes. The experimental case study has demonstrated that, for the limited cases considered, design techniques capable of accommodating the complex material properties of LS materials, such as finite element analysis, are effective methods for predicting part performance in accordance with desired outcomes.

The research indicates that designers can focus on designing quality LS parts with existing technology and methods rather than revamping their design methods due to the introduction of a new manufacturing technology.

This research provides support for the application of established design methods to LS AM processes; validating what has previously been an assumed part of AM.

This paper aims to speed up finite element analyses of structures with a highly nonlinear material response subjected to many loading cycles.

An approach where large time increments are taken in an adaptive fashion is presented. The size of the large time increments typically spans several loading cycles and is based on Taylor series expansions of the response combined with error control.

The suggested adaptive algorithm is simple compared with some well‐known alternatives in the literature. It also has the inherent convergence property that it reduces to the classical time incrementation in the case where the estimated error is too large.

The algorithm is suitable for (restricted to) a special class of problems where the material response versus a representative time sequence are smooth curves. The simplicity of the method results in a robust algorithm.

Similar algorithms have been presented earlier in the literature but the present work introduces some enhancements, e.g. accounting for general internal variables also in the error estimate. In addition, the present work considers a more complex constitutive model compared with earlier work within the research field.

Reviews recent New Zealand legal cases involving CBD office building leasing incentives, the efficacy of confidentiality agreements and current practical valuation problems arising when analysing office rentals. Takes a controversial stand in postulating that customary methods of decapitalizing incentives in use by the valuation profession lead to errors in calculating effective rentals. Suggests a new break‐even method to analyse lease incentives. Presents a “user‐friendly” step‐by‐step spread‐sheet goal‐seeking model to undertake the complex calculations required. The model shows graphically the explicit rental forecasts required and the resulting effective analysis alongside the results of applying customary methods. Aims to bring some balance to this area of current valuation controversy and to provide a powerful new tool to analyse accurately incentive‐induced office, retail or industrial rentals.