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1 – 10 of 303

Abstract

Details

Functional Structure and Approximation in Econometrics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-44450-861-4

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2004

Peter J. Murray and Philip J. Kitchen

This paper provides an introduction to three key concepts derived from chaos theory, with practical examples of each, which the authors believe can offer marketers an enriched…

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Abstract

This paper provides an introduction to three key concepts derived from chaos theory, with practical examples of each, which the authors believe can offer marketers an enriched understanding of the process by which they set out to construct an alternative future. A central tenet of chaos theory is that the future is inherently unpredictable in detail, but can be predicted in broad terms: what appears to be random (e.g. the unexpected results of a new marketing strategy) may turn out to be determined by a phenomenon known as an attractor. Marketing managers are setting out to “construct a future”. The broad outcomes of their actions may be predictable in general terms, but the path by which their organisations reach those outcomes, and the detailed stages through which they pass, are not – however sound their conventional marketing planning may be. Practising marketing managers may understandably have reservations about transferring concepts which have not yet been fully tested in the natural sciences, where they have their origin, into marketing planning. Nevertheless, many are not in fact unique to chaos theory. Therefore, they are used here as a metaphor, to encourage managers to take a different view of the strategic issues facing their organisations, and to question the conventional wisdom that executive action can be taken on the basis of extensive rational analysis, in the expectation that it will achieve predetermined objectives. This paper thereby offers novel insights into the process of redefining markets and the opportunities that they provide. The attractor metaphor holds out a number of challenges for innovative marketers, as well as some cautionary lessons.

Details

Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 22 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-4503

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2019

A. Al-khedhairi

Fractional calculus provides powerful tool to build more realistic and accurate mathematical models in economic field. This paper aims to explore a proposed fractional-order…

150

Abstract

Purpose

Fractional calculus provides powerful tool to build more realistic and accurate mathematical models in economic field. This paper aims to explore a proposed fractional-order differentiated Cournot duopoly game and its discretized game.

Design/methodology/approach

Conditions for existence and uniqueness of the proposed game’s solution are derived. The existence of Nash equilibrium point and its local and global stability are obtained. Furthermore, local stability analysis of the discretized game is investigated. The effects of fractional-order on game’s dynamics are examined, along with other parameters of the game, via the 2D bifurcation diagrams in planes of system’s parameters are acquired.

Findings

Theoretical and numerical simulation results demonstrate rich variety of interesting dynamical behaviors such as period-doubling and Neimark–Sacker bifurcations, attractors’ crises in addition to chaotic attractors. The results demonstrated that the stability Nash equilibrium point of the game can be lost by period doubling or Neimark–Sacker bifurcations.

Practical implications

Oligopoly games are pivotal in the mathematical modeling of some substantial economic areas such as industrial organization, airline, banking, telecommunication companies, international trade and also macroeconomic analysis of business cycles, innovation and growth.

Originality/value

Although the Cournot game and its variants have attracted great interest among mathematicians and economists since the time of its proposition till present, memory effects in continuous-time and discrete-time Cournot duopoly game have not been addressed yet. To the best of author’s knowledge, this can be considered as the first attempt to investigate this problem of fractional-order differentiated Cournot duopoly game. In addition, studying more realistic models of Cournot oligopoly games plays a pivotal role in the mathematical investigation and better understanding of some substantial economic areas such as industrial organization, airline, banking, telecommunication companies, international trade and also in macroeconomic analysis of business cycles, innovation and growth.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 36 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 November 2017

Jamie Newth, Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods

World Vision exists to eradicate extreme poverty. The primary fundraising mechanism that has fuelled its growth into one of the largest international non-governmental…

Abstract

World Vision exists to eradicate extreme poverty. The primary fundraising mechanism that has fuelled its growth into one of the largest international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has been Child Sponsorship, which connects over 10 million individual donors with vulnerable children around the world. However, shifts in the market, geopolitical landscape, and institutional logics have seen this once innovative product come under increasing pressure. Using World Vision New Zealand (WVNZ) as a case study, we explore the challenges of implementing social entrepreneurship strategies, including the institutional constraints of developing new business models, through hybridization. Hybridity has gained increasing attention in the field of entrepreneurship and has been offered as a sense-making frame for business model innovation within social entrepreneurship. The use of institutional logics to understand the challenges of hybrid organizing in social entrepreneurship has been invaluable. However, as with any theoretical perspective, this approach has limitations. We suggest that nuanced challenges and sources of resistance to social entrepreneurship in established sectors and organizations might usefully be explored through concepts drawn from complexity theory. Specifically, we propose the use of the concept of structural attractors, which enables the explication of convergent, unifying, and generative dynamics. Our case study findings suggest that, paradoxically, the very essence of historical success may constrain future success. To wit, when faced with changes to institutional and market conditions, WVNZ was constrained by the very construct that enabled its initial growth. The challenge that this case demonstrates is that despite ostensibly hybrid shifts occurring in the management, governance, and espoused innovation strategy of the organization, the governing structural attractor of Child Sponsorship has constrained innovation and change.

Details

Hybrid Ventures
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-078-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 March 2020

Jan Emblemsvåg

Industries lament the current situation of approaches that have resulted in huge losses in the face of complex risks. The purpose of this study is therefore to review complexity…

Abstract

Purpose

Industries lament the current situation of approaches that have resulted in huge losses in the face of complex risks. The purpose of this study is therefore to review complexity theory in the context of risk management so that it is possible to research better approaches for managing complex risks.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach is to review complexity theory and highlight those aspects of complexity theory that have relevance for risk management. Then, the paper ends with a discussion on what direction of research that will be most promising for the aforementioned purpose.

Findings

The paper finds that the most challenging aspect is to identify the weak signals, and this implies that the current approaches of estimating probabilities are not going to produce the desired results. Big data may hold a solution in the future, but with legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation, this seems impossible to implement on ethical grounds. Hence, the most prudent approach is to use a margin of safety as advocated by Graham roughly 70 years ago. Indeed, the approach may be to assume that a disaster will take place and use risk management tools to estimate the impact for a given object.

Research limitations/implications

The literature review is a summary of a much larger work, and in so doing, the resulting simplification may run the risk of missing out on important details. However, with this risk in mind, the review holds rich enough discussion on complexity to be relevant for research about complex risk management.

Practical implications

The current implication for practice is that the paper strongly supports the notion of using a margin of safety as advocated by Graham and his most famous disciple Warren Buffet. This comes from the fact that because context is king, risk management approaches must be applied in their right domain. There is no one right way. In the future, the goal is to develop a quantitative approach that can help the industry in pricing complex risks.

Originality/value

The main contribution of the paper is to bring complexity theory more into the domain of risk management with sufficient details that should allow researchers to get conceptual ideas about what might work or not concerning complex risk management. If nothing else, it would be a significant contribution of the paper if it could help increasing the interest in complexity theory.

Details

The Journal of Risk Finance, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1526-5943

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2000

David H. Reilly

Addresses the lack of success in educational reform efforts by utilizing a metacognitive analysis of the base assumption of most, if not all, current reform efforts. Suggests a…

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Abstract

Addresses the lack of success in educational reform efforts by utilizing a metacognitive analysis of the base assumption of most, if not all, current reform efforts. Suggests a different theoretical orientation and perspective for understanding education and attempts to improve it. By contrasting the common orientation of today and the one proposed, the paper applies this new perspective to two examples. Examines educational reform in light of the orientation proposed.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 May 2011

Anne Jasman and Peter McIlveen

The purpose of this paper is to open up the question of how we prepare people to be resilient, flexible and capable of managing the uncertainties and complexities of the

2065

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to open up the question of how we prepare people to be resilient, flexible and capable of managing the uncertainties and complexities of the twenty‐first century by using both futures studies and complexity theory as a backdrop for a discussion of career education and teacher education in the future.

Design/methodology/approach

Recent developments in the work of others in futures studies and complexity theory are presented. These developments provide a framework for discussing current understandings of career and teacher education and to explore the possible trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan.

Findings

Through applying futures studies and complexity theory to career and teacher education the authors conclude that these conceptual frameworks have much to offer practitioners and policy makers in the fields of career education and teacher education, and that theory development in these fields is already embracing the conceptual tools within these areas of study.

Practical implications

Suggestions are made for what will be needed in the future and how educational organisations will have to adapt in order to promote resilience and flexibility in the face of the uncertainty and complexity of learning and work in the twenty‐first century.

Originality/value

This paper brings together four distinct areas of research and scholarship – i.e. complexity theory, futures studies, career and teacher education – in order to explore possible and desirable trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan.

Details

On the Horizon, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1074-8121

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2000

Janice A. Black and Sandra Edwards

The information age has highlighted the complex nature of our organizing systems. Complex systems move between ordered and disordered states. Ordered states condense near attractor

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Abstract

The information age has highlighted the complex nature of our organizing systems. Complex systems move between ordered and disordered states. Ordered states condense near attractor points which include bifurcation points where order is redefined for the system. Such points have occurred repeatedly in our economy over the past decade, causing an unpredictable environment. As our economy moves from a stable state, a different set of organizing rules is needed. When this new set of organizing rules are overlaid with the conditions and processes facilitated by the use of advanced communication and computing technology, we find that virtual or network organizations are an emerging logical form for organizing.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 13 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2023

Janepher Nsozi Sambaga

Women cross-border traders face impediments in their entrepreneurial work from time-to-time. To overcome these impediments, females need to take on self-concept (self-esteem…

Abstract

Purpose

Women cross-border traders face impediments in their entrepreneurial work from time-to-time. To overcome these impediments, females need to take on self-concept (self-esteem, self-confidence, social roles) mediated by self-organization (adaptability, interaction, team working) in order to thrive in cross-border trading (CBT), using evidence from Uganda. So, in this paper the authors explain the behavior of a female who succeeds in CBT with interest of scaling it up to empower more female entrepreneurs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is a correlational and cross-sectional type. A questionnaire survey of 288 females was used. The data collected were analyzed through SPSS.

Findings

The results reveal that self-concept, mediated by self-organization, controlled by tenure in business and the age of a female in CBT significantly influences CBT behavior among females in Uganda.

Research limitations/implications

This study focused on females who are involved in CBT in Uganda. Therefore, it is likely that the results may not be generalized to other settings. The results show that for females to succeed in CBT, self-concept and self-organization affect CBT behavior once they are controlled by tenure in business and the age of a female in CBT at more than 30 years of age and longer than 5 years.

Originality/value

This study provides initial evidence that self-concept, mediated by self-organization, controlled by tenure in business and age of a CBT directly affects CBT behavior, using evidence from an African developing country – Uganda.

Details

International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-6266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2016

Hong Men, Bin Sun, Xiao Zhao, Xiujie Li, Jingjing Liu and Zhiming Xu

The purpose of this study is to analyze the corrosion behavior of 304SS in three kinds of solution, 3.5 per cent NaCl, 5 per cent H2SO4 and 1 M (1 mol/L) NaOH, using…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to analyze the corrosion behavior of 304SS in three kinds of solution, 3.5 per cent NaCl, 5 per cent H2SO4 and 1 M (1 mol/L) NaOH, using electrochemical noise.

Design/methodology/approach

Corrosion types and rates were characterized by spectrum and time-domain analysis. EN signals were evaluated using a novel method of phase space reconstruction and chaos theory. To evaluate the chaotic characteristics of corrosion systems, the delay time was obtained by the mutual information method and the embedding dimension was obtained by the average false neighbors method.

Findings

The varying degrees of chaos in the corrosion systems were indicated by positive largest Lyapunov exponents of the electrochemical potential noise.

Originality/value

The change of correlation dimension in three kinds of solution demonstrated significant differences, clearly differentiating various types of corrosion.

Details

Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, vol. 63 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0003-5599

Keywords

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