Mark Taylor, Vince Kwasnica, Denis Reilly and Somasundaram Ravindran
The purpose of this paper is to use the game theory combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling to support the analysis of different retail marketing strategies, in particular…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use the game theory combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling to support the analysis of different retail marketing strategies, in particular, using payoff matrices for modelling the likely outcomes from different retail marketing strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
Theoretical research was utilised to develop a practical approach for applying game theory to retail marketing strategies via payoff matrices combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling.
Findings
Game theory combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling can provide a formal approach to understanding consumer decision making in a retail environment, which can support the development of retail marketing strategies.
Research limitations/implications
Game theory combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling can support the modelling of the interaction between retail marketing actions and consumer responses in a practical formal probabilistic manner, which can inform marketing strategies used by retail companies in a practical manner.
Practical implications
Game theory combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling can provide a formalised mechanism for examining how consumers may respond to different retail marketing strategies.
Originality/value
The originality of this research is the practical application of game theory to retail marketing, in particular the use of payoff matrices combined with Monte Carlo simulation modelling to examine likely consumer behaviour in response to different retail marketing approaches.
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This paper aims to present the application of situation calculus for knowledge representation in missing persons investigations.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the application of situation calculus for knowledge representation in missing persons investigations.
Design/methodology/approach
The development of a knowledge representation model for the missing persons investigation process based upon situation calculus, with a demonstration of the use of the model for a missing persons example case.
Findings
Situation calculus is valuable for knowledge representation for missing persons investigations, as such investigations have state changes over time, and due to the complexity of the differing investigation activities applicable to different situations, can be difficult to represent using simpler approaches such as tables or flowcharts.
Research limitations/implications
Situation calculus modelling for missing persons investigations adds formalism to the process beyond that which can be afforded by the current use of text, tables or flowcharts. The additional formalism is useful in dealing with the uncertainty present in such investigations.
Practical implications
The implications are a simplification of the application of the current police guidelines, and thoroughness in the application of such guidelines for missing persons investigations via situation calculus modelling.
Social implications
This paper supports the management of missing person investigations, by using the most critical variables in a missing persons investigation to determine relevant investigation and search activities applicable to the circumstances of a given case.
Originality/value
The novelty of the knowledge representation approach is the application of situation calculus via state and action vectors and a matrix of fluents to the process of missing persons investigations.
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Luis Filipe Lages and David B. Montgomery
The article aims to test how pricing strategy adaptation to the foreign market mediates the relationship between export assistance and annual export performance improvement. It…
Abstract
Purpose
The article aims to test how pricing strategy adaptation to the foreign market mediates the relationship between export assistance and annual export performance improvement. It also aims to consider the effects of management international experience and export market competition.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modelling with WLS estimation is used to test the direct and indirect influences of the variables on short‐term export performance.
Findings
Surprisingly, the findings reveal that the total effects of export assistance on annual export performance improvement are non‐significant, because although export assistance has a direct positive impact on performance, there is a negative indirect impact through export pricing strategy adaptation.
Research limitations/implications
These surprising results suggest that future research is required to incorporate and test the intervening and indirect effects among variables.
Practical implications
The findings also indicate that both export assistance and short‐term export performance improve with management international experience and export market competition.
Originality/value
Since both managers and public policy makers are often short‐term oriented, it is urgent to develop research to better understand determinants of short‐term performance as well as the antecedents of managerial and public policy resource allocation in the short term.
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R. Glenn Richey, Stefan E. Genchev and Patricia J. Daugherty
Aims to provide empirical evidence of the relationships between and among reverse logistics, resource commitment, and innovation.
Abstract
Purpose
Aims to provide empirical evidence of the relationships between and among reverse logistics, resource commitment, and innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Mail surveys were sent to members of the Automobile Aftermarket Industry Association, a large trade association. Factor level results followed by between‐item results, as typically reported in general linear modeling and mediated regression, are developed using a split sample methodology. Ultimately, Resource‐Advantage Theory provided the framework for examining the impact of developing innovative reverse logistics‐related dynamic capabilities.
Findings
Resource commitment makes reverse logistics programs more efficient and more effective. However, the resources must be used in such a manner as to develop innovative capabilities/approaches to handling returns. Resource commitment was not found to be significantly related to innovation in reverse logistics at smaller firms. This is likely to be related to the level of resources available. Larger firms can commit greater resources and, thus, enjoy superior performance compared with smaller firms in the survey group.
Research limitations/implications
The focus is somewhat narrow. New research should extend beyond the one industry examined. Future research should also expand to include more members of the supply chain and employ methods that allow examination of network relationships.
Practical implications
Reverse logistics deserves special attention in terms of resource commitment. Resources related to labor, i.e. allocating sufficient personnel to reverse logistics programs, are especially critical. Innovation in reverse logistics programs was found to be related to operational service quality at both small and large firms.
Originality/value
The research provides empirical evidence of the relationships between resource commitment and innovation – and how reverse logistics program performance is influenced. This has important implications with respect to customer relations. It can also be used to provide rationale for securing adequate resource commitment for reverse logistics programs.
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This paper aims to provide an account of the legal development concerning civilian right to pursue legal action against public authorities. Review includes historical recap of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an account of the legal development concerning civilian right to pursue legal action against public authorities. Review includes historical recap of the state of law practiced prior to 1977 and the decision in the case of O’Reilly that forcefully limit individual’s right to bring action. Despite its blatant disregard of the relevant statute, the O’Reilly decision remains a valid precedent. The essay then considers subsequent law reform and the effect of the Human Rights Act 1998 in limiting the applicability of the O’Reilly principle. The essay aims to benefit law students and non-legal lay person.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a hermeneutics positivism approach in considering relevant case laws that is precedent to the matter under discussion. Thereupon, an interpretivism approach is applied to examine subsequent reforms and its impact on civilian right to seek justice.
Findings
Judicial exclusivity restrains right to seek justice, but is it not totally discredited due to public policy. UK membership in the EU is an obstacle to judicial sovereignty, but it is also an avenue to dilute exclusivity.
Social implications
This paper is presented in a simple easy-to-understand form that enable lay-person to understand the current state of law in matters concerning public law violation by public authorities and avenues available to them.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to reinforce understanding on the conflict between common law and statute, and current state of law concerning individual’s right to access to the court of law in cases related to public laws and public authorities.
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This paper aims to explore the influence of complexity theory on the development of the web. It seeks to critique the role of complexity theory as a governing metaphor in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the influence of complexity theory on the development of the web. It seeks to critique the role of complexity theory as a governing metaphor in the discourse of the web, and to examine whether complexity theory is able to provide an adequate description of the web, and its relationship to society and knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a critial review.
Findings
The paper establishes the influence of complexity in the discourse of the web and questions the adequacy of complexity theory to provide a description of the web and its relationship to cognition and society.
Originality/value
This paper explores the influence of a single concept (complexity theory) on the discourse and development of the web.
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Jane Stephens, Pauline Melgoza and Gang (Gary) Wan
The purpose of this paper is to determine the overall currency of electronic books in the Safari database; to determine currency and release policies of the individual publishers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the overall currency of electronic books in the Safari database; to determine currency and release policies of the individual publishers who contribute books to the Safari database; to compare the usage patterns of Safari books to their print counterparts at Texas A&M University; and to discuss the impact of the Safari e‐book collection and chosen purchase model upon collection management at the university.
Design/methodology/approach
To determine currency of titles in Safari, the availability of the most recent edition of a title in the Safari database was checked against the availability of the print edition on the publisher's website. To determine the publishers' release policies, a questionnaire was developed and e‐mailed to them.
Findings
Of the titles in the Safari database 98.4 percent were the most current edition available. Release policies of the major Safari publishers (O'Reilly and Pearson) indicate that the electronic version of a title is released when the print version is sent to press. No Starch Press, a minor Safari publisher releases its books in Safari 90 days after the print goes on sale. Thomson would not make this information public and the remainder did not respond to the questionnaire.
Practical implications
Subscription to the Safari database (current file) makes available to multiple users the most current computer science and information technology books released by popular publishers. It eliminates the need to expend funds for multiple and replacement copies of this highly requested material.
Originality/value
The current file purchase model assumes that the most recent editions of these popular books are available in Safari. The study indicates that librarians and patrons can be assured that they are accessing the most current editions available.
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The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal…
Abstract
The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.
This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or service delivery) model.
Design/methodology/approach
The evidence used in this chapter principally comes from the author’s own work, especially research for the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and draws upon academic literature where possible.
Findings
This chapter argues that HR directors should guard against three sets of fragmentation risks. Firstly, HR shared services should be properly connected to the rest of HR to offer customers an integrated service to avoid the structure’s division of labor inducing incoherence. Second, to guard against this risk, HR directors should exercise care in outsourcing/offshoring beyond individual, discrete services because contractually or spatially separating services risks exacerbating this tendency to fragmentation. Outsourcing/offshoring may focus too much on cost savings and insufficiently on quality. So, third, HR should argue for the distinctiveness of its activities and fight commoditization that is also implied in the creation of cross-functional shared service centers.
Research limitations/implications
The arguments in this chapter could be better supported by academic research. In-depth case studies of management decision making and shared services operation would help support or challenge the chapter’s conclusion, as could quantitative evidence on the benefits/disbenefits of outsourcing/offshoring/cross-functional shared services centers.
Practical implications
We have highlighted a number of reported problems with HR shared services operation, besides the three principal risks noted above, but we have suggested possible solutions that could be adopted by practitioners.
Originality/value
HR managers may find this chapter helpful in designing new HR structures or in assessing the effectiveness of shared services that goes beyond the typical key performance indicator measures.
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Bernard J. Reilly and Hamid Zangeneh
It is noted that the optimal systems of radical free enterprise andradical socialism are extremes of intellectualising science. Eachexcludes the thought of the other. Since both…
Abstract
It is noted that the optimal systems of radical free enterprise and radical socialism are extremes of intellectualising science. Each excludes the thought of the other. Since both theories are logically consistent, each has a compelling intellectual support base. However, both theories are flawed insofar as they make the economic reality an independent functioning entity isolated from the concepts of interdependence and broader individual and social entities. Each simplifies reality – one defines all reality in the individual while the other defines all reality in the society. The simplicity of the intellectual framework of both is the flaw which arises from using Occam′s Razor too freely in simplifying complexity. It is argued that a system that explicitly incorporates and recognises individual freedom and societal values is preferable to all other systems that are assumed to be “value free”. This could be one explanation for the emergence of the Islamic system in different corners of the world.