Turbulence at the top: a new perspective on governance structure changes and strategic change.

Organizational theorists have traditionally focused attention on the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) succession and strategic change. This study extends that perspective and explores the effects of changes in an organization's management, ownership, and board of directors on the process of strategic change. The results of this research suggest that changes in ownership and board have significant independent and interactive effects on strategic change.     

The Norwegian banks in the Nordic consortia: a case of international strategic alliances in banking

Despite the scholarly interest in joint ventures and strategicalliances, the consortium bank movement represents and under-researchedphase in postwar banking history. From 1964 to the early 1980s,many of the largest banks in the world, including the Nordicbanks, entered into international strategic alliances. Almostall of these alliances are now defunct and thus we are lookingat the growth and demise of an organizational form. We followthe Norwegian banks in the Nordic consortia and find that domesticrivals do not cooperate but international rivals do. Legal prohibitionsin the Nordic countries on entry by foreign banks underpinnedthe cooperation. The cooperation broke down when, as a resultof deregulation, the Nordic banks could establish operationsin each other's domestic markets and when domestic mergers disruptedexisting international alliances.     

The role of scientific advisers in the strategic defense initiative

This paper compares the strategic and technical debate about the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to the ABM debate of 1968–1972. One major difference is the commitment of the President to support SDI; those who apparently influenced the President on this matter came from outside the ranks of his usual military and diplomatic advisers. In Congress, science advisers are less influential now than they were in the past, due to the strengthening of Congressional staffs and agencies, the growth of scientific interest groups, and the dimished novelty of their appearances in Congress. In light of the history of the ABM, the US should be careful to ensure that the financial and technical commitments to SDI do not automatically imply a commitment to deploy a strategic defense system.     

Changing role of maintenance in business organisations: measurement versus strategic orientation

The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of performance measures utilised by the maintenance function in today’s business organisations. In the process, the increasing variety and significance of these measures are addressed from operational and strategic perspectives. A survey-based research method was utilised to gather the research data. Several statistical procedures were utilised to analyse the data. The findings of this study point to the multifaceted nature of the maintenance measures and measurement. Multiple categories of maintenance measures were identified. These categories varied from the machine-specific, to measures impacting organisational performance. The relative lack of emphasis placed on the environment and strategic facets of maintenance is noted. The findings of this study have direct implications to organisations, which are attempting to measure the effectiveness of their maintenance efforts. The need to align the maintenance performance efforts with the organisational strategic direction is emphasised. In this context, the integration of the maintenance performance information systems with the overall organisational performance management information system might facilitate the needed alignment. This study utilises 120 maintenance measures. As such, it represents a comprehensive view of the maintenance effort.     

The strategic role of exercise devices in manned spaceflight

Exercise appears in various contexts during spaceflight. It serves as a key countermeasure against adverse physiological adaptation processes; it also plays a role in life sciences research as reference state or stimulus. Further aspects concern human factors, recreational activities, health monitoring and training for emergency egress and extra-vehicular activities. Current approaches rely on conventional ergometers, they add rather than integrate training programs, and they tend to disregard applications other than "countermeasures". Two major consequences are an appreciable impact on available crew-time and an unsolved problem: Exercise countermeasures use extrapolations of 1g-physiology in order to eliminate what physiologists would like to study: adaptation to weightlessness. New concepts and devices are required to reconcile such conflicting demands and to reduce time consumption for physical training. Key elements are an improved simulation of terrestrial locomotion and a recombination of work and physical exercise. The GRASIM device will be presented as an example for a new generation of multi-purpose "exercisers".     

The role of risk assessments in the governance of genetically modified organisms in agriculture

Controversy abounds in the governance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for use in agriculture, partly due to ideological differences. Technological optimism and the "shallow" and the "deep" ecology movements are three influential ideologies that are seen to differ both on value commitments and factual beliefs with respect to GMOs. Factual matters are clarified but not resolved by science, since the scientific community faces uncertainty and apparent contradiction between different research perspectives, notably molecular biology, ecology and the social sciences.Scientific advice plays a key role in the governance of GMOs and ought to be construed so as not to exclude legitimate arguments from ideological perspectives present in the process of governance. This paper analyses the role and use of risk assessments and argues that they be replaced by forms of advice that consider a broader spectrum of scientific evidence and insights, e.g. impact assessments and evaluations of inherent sources of uncertainty and ignorance. A few practical measures to that effect are discussed.     

Analysis of computational problems expressing the overall uncertainties: photons, neutrons and electrons

In the frame of the EU Coordination Action CONRAD (coordinated network for radiation dosimetry), WP4 was dedicated to work on computational dosimetry with an action entitled 'Uncertainty assessment in computational dosimetry: an intercomparison of approaches'. Participants attempted one or more of eight problems. This paper presents the results from problems 4-8-dealing with the overall uncertainty budget estimate; a short overview of each problem is presented together with a discussion of the most significant results and conclusions. The scope of the problems discussed here are: the study of a (137)Cs calibration irradiator; the manganese bath technique; the iron sphere experiment using neutron time-of-flight technique; the energy response of a RADFET detector and finally the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis for the recoil-proton telescope discussed in the companion paper.     

Energy migration in conjugated polymers: the role of molecular structure

Conjugated polymers undergo facile exciton diffusion. Different molecular structures were examined to study the role of the excited state lifetimes and molecular conformations on energy transfer. There is a clear indication that extended fluorescence lifetimes give enhanced exciton diffusion as determined by fluorescence depolarization measurements. These results are consistent with a strong electronic coupling or Dexter-type energy transfer as the dominating mechanism. The control of polymer conformations in liquid crystal solvents was also examined and it was determined that more planar conformations gave enhanced energy transfer to emissive low band-gap endgroups.     

Agglomeration economies and vertical alliances: the route to product innovation in biotechnology firms

This paper develops and tests hypotheses related to the aggregated effect of geographic clustering and cooperation networks positively affects the innovation performance. It is argued that clusters and alliances may represent micromechanisms that improve access to critical resources and competences on which innovation capability is based (such as spillovers, downstream competences and finance). By analysing survey data from a sample of biofirms, important insights are found into the benefits of being located within a cluster and collaborating with specific types of partners.     

Incentive intensity, forbearance law and the governance of transactions

This paper uses a simple make-or-buy model to summarize andillustrate some of the distinguishing aspects of Williamson’stransaction cost theory. It is shown that each mode of governanceis associated with a different degree of incentive intensity,which in turn is attributable to the difference in court accessand in the control of accounts.     

Modeling in the presence of switching uncertainties

This paper presents a method that takes into account the switching uncertainties in the signal path of the measurement devices during the identification of device models. Switching phenomena in the measurement instrument, like switching attenuators, induce jumps in the measured input-output characteristic that can be much larger than the noise contributions. The proposed method eliminates the subsequent model error by considering these jumps as a signal path state dependent stochastic contribution     

Chandlerism in post-war Europe: strategic and structural change in France, Germany and the UK, 1950-1993

This paper examines the Chandlerian model of corporate developmentin the light of new data on the strategies and structures oflarge European firms in the post-war period. Conglomerate strategiescontinue to spread, but these are typically less stable thanstrategies of related diversification. The divisional structurenow predominates in Europe, suppressing more indigenous forms.The paper discusses implications both for economic argumentsaround the resource-based view of the firm and for institutionalistarguments around the spread of American management ideas. Thepaper concludes that Chandler's original model is remarkablyrobust to both change over time and differences across countries.     

Quantification of margins and uncertainties: A probabilistic framework

Quantification of margins and uncertainties (QMU) was originally introduced as a framework for assessing confidence in nuclear weapons, and has since been extended to more general complex systems. We show that when uncertainties are strictly bounded, QMU is equivalent to a graphical model, provided confidence is identified with reliability one. In the more realistic case that uncertainties have long tails, we find that QMU confidence is not always a good proxy for reliability, as computed from the graphical model. We explore the possibility of defining QMU in terms of the graphical model, rather than through the original procedures. The new formalism, which we call probabilistic QMU, or pQMU, is fully probabilistic and mathematically consistent, and shows how QMU may be interpreted within the framework of system reliability theory.     

Quantification of margins and uncertainties: Conceptual and computational basis

In 2001, the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy in conjunction with the national security laboratories (i.e., Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories) initiated development of a process designated Quantification of Margins and Uncertainties (QMU) for the use of risk assessment methodologies in the certification of the reliability and safety of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. This presentation discusses and illustrates the conceptual and computational basis of QMU in analyses that use computational models to predict the behavior of complex systems. The following topics are considered: (i) the role of aleatory and epistemic uncertainty in QMU, (ii) the representation of uncertainty with probability, (iii) the probabilistic representation of uncertainty in QMU analyses involving only epistemic uncertainty, and (iv) the probabilistic representation of uncertainty in QMU analyses involving aleatory and epistemic uncertainty.     

Characterization and stochastic modeling of uncertainties in the biodiesel production

There are inherent uncertainties in the biodiesel production process arising out of feedstock composition, operating and design parameters and can have significant impact on the product quality and process economics. In this paper, the uncertainties are quantified in the form of probabilistic distribution function. Stochastic modeling capability is implemented in the ASPEN process simulator to take into consideration these uncertainties and the output is evaluated to determine impact on process efficiency and quality of biodiesel.     

Effects of practice, age, and task demands, on interference from a phone task while driving

Experimental research on the effects of cellular phone conversations on driving indicates that the phone task interferes with many driving-related functions, especially with older drivers. Unfortunately in past research (1) the dual task conditions were not repeated in order to test for learning, (2) the 'phone tasks' were not representative of real conversations, and (3) most often both the driving and the phone tasks were experimenter-paced. In real driving drivers learn to time-share various tasks, they can pace their driving to accommodate the demands of a phone conversation, and they can even partially pace the phone conversation to accommodate the driving demands. The present study was designed to better simulate real driving conditions by providing a simulated driving environment with repeated experiences of driving while carrying two different hands-free 'phone' tasks with different proximities to real conversations. In the course of five sessions of driving and using the phone, there was a learning effect on most of the driving measures. In addition, the interference from the phone task on many of the driving tasks diminished over time as expected. Finally, the interference effects were greater when the phone task was the often-used artificial math operations task than when it was an emotionally involving conversation, when the driving demands were greater, and when the drivers were older. Thus, the deleterious effects of conversing on the phone are very real initially, but may not be as severe with continued practice at the dual task, especially for drivers who are not old.     

Chandlerism in post-war Europe: strategic and structural change in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, 1950-1993: a comment

Whittington et al. (Industrial and Corporate Change, 1999, 8,519–550) argue that the conglomerate is a relatively transientphenomenon. However, this comment on their article argues thatexamination of their data suggests that the conglomerate maybe more persistent than is generally believed. It is arguedthat the reason for this may be found in the contribution thisstrategy may make to dealing with technologically turbulentenvironments. The results of Whittington et al. are comparedwith other studies of large firm strategies, and some testableimplications are suggested.