Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present various knowledge‐acquisition methods and to show how existing empirical research can be used for mapping between marketing problem domains and knowledge acquisition techniques. The key to doing this is to create a taxonomy of marketing problem domains.

This paper combines a thorough literature review with prima facie conceptualization to map a generic problem domain, and thereby provide guidance in the choice of knowledge‐acquisition technique for developers of expert systems in the field of marketing.

Recent empirical research in the field of expert systems shows that certain knowledge‐acquisition techniques are significantly more efficient than others for the extraction of certain types of knowledge within specific problem domains. It is found that protocol analysis, while fairly commonly used, is relatively inefficient for analytic problems. In the synthetic problem domain, interviewing proves to perform better for simple problems and worse for more difficult‐to‐model synthetic domains.

The findings suggest that it may be worth exploring some of the non‐traditional knowledge‐acquisition techniques when working on some types of applications. Further research could offer guidance in choosing the appropriate technique, with the aim of improving the quality, efficiency and development of the resulting system.

Designers of expert systems for marketing should consider interviewing and card sorting as the main means of knowledge acquisition for analytic problem domains, rather than protocol analysis as the main knowledge‐acquisition technique for analytic problem domains.

This paper is the first to suggest mapping between knowledge‐acquisition research and marketing problem domains.

To propose a framework with which to study the efficacy of strategic alliances of small firms in knowledge industries, with an emphasis on research design to examine the issues surrounding the phenomena.

A framework is developed that consists of four constructs, namely conditions, roles and contributions, learning, and efficacy. Details of the constructs are explained.

Management consulting industry proves to be a fertile research ground to study strategic alliances with regard to firm size. Through an illustration, it is shown that the proposed framework can be put into practice to investigate relevant research questions.

The framework has limited generalizability to situations where the clients of the knowledge‐intensive service are not clearly defined up front.

Knowledge industries will benefit from developing taxonomy of expertise. Client firms may benefit from encouraging small firm to form strategic alliances.

The contribution is threefold; identification of the interplay of firm size and the practice of alliance formation in knowledge industries as a viable research topic; a framework with which to examine the efficacy of strategic alliances of small firms in knowledge industries; and proposing to expand the knowledge management research beyond intra‐firm learning.

This paper explains the concept of how XML can be used to tie together the many different communication channels into a single contact point system. The purpose is to propose a contact point framework that utilizes XML technologies to integrate multiple communication channels.

This is a conceptual paper where two general approaches to channel integration are described and critiqued and a third one proposed.

This paper has suggested that contact point channel integration products based on XML technology can be used to lower the design, development, management and maintenance costs. The proposed framework can be an initiative in the open source community where software developers can contribute towards the modular development of such software. The use of XML as the primary data interchange language promises to add value to the contact points of a business at a relatively low cost.

Further research is necessary to evaluate and perfect the use of XML in this context.

This research suggests a roadmap for how systems integrators can use XML technology to integrate multiple communication channels in a Customer relationship management (CRM) environment.

This is the first research to examine the different approaches to CRM channel integration and propose an XML‐based framework for accomplishing this.

Intranets are perhaps the hottest applications in the field of telecommunications today. The rapid growth of this application belies the fact that it has received little systematic study present in the academic literature. Presents two separate cases of corporate intranets that have been recently implemented. The focus of this report is to characterize the intranet implementations vis‐à‐vis the traditional systems development process. In so doing, an attempt is made to highlight the potential pitfalls through the lessons learned. As a starting‐point in the systematic study of intranets, a better definition is also introduced and a framework that captures and more accurately describes the wide variety of potential intranets.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

The purpose of this paper is to compute flow effects of the transition from adherence-to-slip in two-dimensional flows, for a polymer melt obeying a memory-integral viscoelastic equation, in isothermal and non-isothermal cases.

Temperature dependence is expressed by Arrhenius and William-Landel-Ferry models. A coupling approach is defined. For the dynamic equations, the Stream-Tube Method (STM) is used with finite differences in a mapped rectangular domain of the real domain, where streamlines are parallel and straight. STM avoids particle-tracking problems and allows simple formulae to evaluate stresses resulting from the constitutive equation. For the temperature field, a finite-element method is carried out to solve the energy equation in the real domain.

The approach avoids numerical problems arising with classical formulations and proves to be robust and efficient. Large elasticity levels are attained without convergence and refinement difficulties that may arise close to the “stick-slip” transition section. The method highlights the role of temperature conditions and reveals interesting differences for the ducts considered.

The results of the study are of interest for polymer processing where slip at the wall can be encountered, in relation with the physical properties of the materials.

The paper presents a simple approach that limits considerably numerical problems coming from stick-slip boundary conditions and avoids particle-tracking. Results are obtained at flow rates encountered in industrial conditions.

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.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Noteworthy shifts in availability of raw materials, component parts and products have had a profound influence on customer service levels. Changes in these levels have dramatised the importance of and concern for effective management of customer service in distribution. As a result, adjustments in business procedure and organisational structure are necessary.