Search results

Describes the parameter estimation procedures for the non‐linear finite element analysis using the hierarchical neural network. These procedures can be classified as the neural network based inverse analysis, which has been investigated by the authors. The optimum values of the parameters involved in the non‐linear finite element analysis are generally dependent on the configuration of the analysis model, the initial condition, the boundary condition, etc., and have been determined in a heuristic manner. The procedures to estimate such multiple parameters consist of the following three steps: a set of training data, which is produced over a number of non‐linear finite element computations, is prepared; a neural network is trained using the data set; the neural network is used as a tool for searching the appropriate values of multiple parameters of the non‐linear finite element analysis. The present procedures were tested for the parameter estimation of the augmented Lagrangian method for the steady‐state incompressible viscous flow analysis and the time step evaluation of the pseudo time‐dependent stress analysis for the incompressible inelastic structure.

What should a Multi‐National Corporation (MNC) like UMW Toyota Motor Sdn. Bhd. set as its targeted growth in revenue by the Year 2020 to help its host country Malaysia realise its “Vision 2020”? To survive/succeed, Toyota has to anticipate its high technology niche, which is but a “Technological Gleam” today in the eye of Toyota’s “Technical Entrepreneur”. Significant segments of corporate resources will not be committed to the “Technological Gleam” unless the “Technical Entrepreneur” can present an irresistible transformation boost converting the Technology‐Push into Market‐Pull. What will be the market for the hitech product embodying the yet‐to‐emerge hitech? What present product is closest to the potential product? Can its life cycle profile be applied to the potential product? Using the theoretical structure of the Management Of TEchnology Protocol (MOTEP), we analyze Toyota’s transition from the present hybrid fuel (gasoline‐and‐hydrogen combination) to the potential hydrogen fuel in five years.

Using as many perspectives as possible to understand large-scale industrial crises can be a daunting task. This paper aims to demonstrate a reasonably complex yet systemic, analytical and critical approach to analyzing what causes crises.

The authors use a multi-perspective methodology within which each perspective uses a substantially different ontology and epistemology, offering a deeper understanding of the causes of large-scale crises. The methodology utilizes extant theory and findings, archival data from English and Japanese sources, including narratives of focal people such as Toyota President Akio Toyoda.

The analysis suggests that what caused Toyota’s crisis was not just Toyota’s failure to solve its technical problems. It was Toyota’s collective myopia, interactively complex new technologies and misunderstanding of corporate citizenship.

The authors argue that crises are complex situations best understood from multiple perspectives and that easily observable aspects of crises are often not the most significant causes of crises. In most cases, causes of crises are hidden and taken-for-granted assumptions of managers. Thus, managers must view crises critically from multiple yet distinct viewpoints.

The authors use Alpaslan and Mitroff’s multi-disciplinary methodology to outline several critical perspectives on Toyota’s messy recall crisis.

There are a number of impediments to consumer adoption of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), including regulatory barriers, resources, infrastructure and vehicle characteristics themselves. These impediments also impact on other stakeholders, such as government, producers (i.e. corporations), suppliers (collaborators), competition (i.e. alternative products) and activist groups. The inter‐relationships amongst all stakeholders are complex, as one group may initiate actions that serve as impediments for others. Developing systems‐based sustainable alternatives to traditional, environmentally‐harmful automobiles requires the network of relationships between stakeholders and impediments to be considered. This paper looks at the various impediments as well as how they can affect various stakeholders. It then posits a broad based integrative approach to provide the most favourable environment for consumers to consider AFVs.

The economic downturn in Japan in the 1990s and the Asian economic crash of 1997 led to widespread restructuring of corporate organizations in Japan. This paper aims to use ethnographic fieldwork, in‐depth interviews and historical documents to examine how this played out inside one company, Toyota, when management implemented a restructuring plan to improve the profitability of one of its group companies during the period of 1996 to 1999. It also aims to discuss the restructuring policies within the framework of how Toyota responded to the economic crisis during a time of deregulation and liberal market reforms resulting from the decade of economic malaise that began in the early 1990s. A hallmark of the current debate on analyzing Japanese organizations is to what extent Japan is converging on the American model of capitalism.

The paper is based on fieldwork drawn from three years as a participant observer where the author worked as a production engineer together with interviews with those he worked alongside and documentary analysis.

The paper argues that the company responded to the economic crisis of the 1990s by implementing liberal market reforms but changes in the 1990s and during the Asian crash reveal that Toyota used liberal market policies as restructuring “tools” within the context of the unique institutions of Japanese welfare corporatism.

The strength of this paper is that it provides an insider's perspective on restructuring in a Toyota company. Conceptually the paper improves our understanding of how institutional structures contribute to shaping the restructuring in Japanese organizations.

During the past decade, the environment for multinational corporations has been quite volatile, with numerous challenges for the firms operating in this arena. However, throughout this period there have emerged a number of executive leaders who have been recognized for their contributions to organizational excellence and leadership despite the environmental fluctuations. An analysis of the strategies followed by these executives reflects a limited number of distinct themes. The themes reflect a focus on the care of customers, product innovation, committed people and management leadership. The leadership strategies reflected by these corporate leaders focus on attention through vision, meaning through communication, trust through positioning and confidence through respect. This article focuses on the top multinational executives identified for each year during the decade of the 1990s, and the organizational excellence and leadership strategies that have been at the heart of the practices implemented and followed by these executives.

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle and elaborate on the constitutive elements of the concept of path dependence (initial conditions and lock‐in) for a concerted and in‐depth application to the study of organizational change.

The approach takes the form of a combination of a longitudinal and a comparative case‐study, based on secondary literature.

External initial conditions acted less as “imprinting” forces than is suggested in the literature on the genesis of the Toyota production system (TPS); a firm‐specific philosophy in combination with a critical sequence of events mainly shaped and locked‐in TPS.

The empirical sources are limited to publications in English, so relevant factors explaining the path taken may not all have been included. The importance of a salient meta‐routine might be firm‐specific.

The study contributes to understanding the factors underlying corporate performance by a critical re‐examination of a much heralded production system (TPS).

The paper highlights the use of the concept of meta‐routines to connect the core elements of path dependence, that is, sensitivity to initial conditions and lock‐in mechanisms.

Perceived compatibility between requirements of managerial work and attributes of women is believed important to the advancement and success of women, and research demonstrates continued ambivalence about women executives. The question of how images of women executives are disseminated, reproducing or contesting negative characterizations, has received little attention. The research reported here focuses on US business press as a cultural carrier disseminating images of women executives. Critical discourse analysis examined 27 front page Wall Street Journal accounts of 22 women executives in the year following Carly Fiorina’s appointment to head Hewlett‐Packard; 20 front page accounts of 24 men executives were used as comparison. Prominently featured articles on women executives provide fractured images of women as executives: while some accounts are positive, other portrayals reinforce negative perceptions of women’s competence and likeability as executives and concerns about the social order. Similar issues are not raised in coverage of male executives. Author gender does not seem to affect the portrayal.

Significant regional variations by prefecture level exist for the family and the elderly in Japan. This suggests that the Japanese family, and aging society as well, must be studied carefully with close attention to the socio‐cultural characteristics specific to each region and community (Kumagai, 1997a, 1997b). Therefore, it is essential to move the unit of analysis down to the community level rather than the national or even prefecture (regional) level. Social practices and cultural characteristics specific to each region and community are difficult to measure and quantify. Upon careful examination of Japanese married women in the traditional extended family, the theoretical hypothesis was postulated: Whether in urban or rural regions, regardless of the place of residence, married women living with their mother‐in‐law are likely to seek work outside the home. A national random sample of 3,662 Japanese women was analyzed. In conducting Chi‐square significance tests, this hypothesis is proved to be valid. The most striking finding of this study is that working outside the home seems to be one of the effective alternatives adopted by married women in the traditional generational family household. When son’s wives are in the labor force, it is most likely to reduce intergenerational conflict, a negative aspect of co‐residence living arrangements. In other words, working outside the home helps to minimize intergenerational conflict with in‐laws ‐mothers‐in‐law, in particular). Thus, the qualitative analysis of the family can provide effective indicators for the in‐depth analysis of Japanese families. It is, therefore, necessary to propose welfare policies for the elderly in the same manner, rather than simply looking at national average statistics.

The Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) program is known to improve team and clinical performance, but the relationship to psychological stress has not been clarified. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate team performance, clinical performance and psychological stress simultaneously in a simulation-based training combined with or without the TeamSTEPPS program.

This randomized, controlled, prospective pilot study was performed to reveal TeamSTEPPS impact on psychological stress. The course included an emergency care training course, the TeamSTEPPS program, and a scenario simulation. Ten medical student teams were randomly allocated two groups: a TeamSTEPPS group and a non-TeamSTEPPS group. Team performance, clinical performance and psychological stress were evaluated simultaneously in the course; i.e., questionnaire evaluation and an observational evaluation for team performance; an assessor’s evaluation and a simulator’s evaluation for clinical performance. Autonomic nervous activity, represented by salivary amylase levels and heart rate variability, were measured as psychological stress indicators.

Team performance and clinical performance were significantly better in the TeamSTEPPS group, while psychological stress did not differ between the groups.

This is the first study to examine the relationship between TeamSTEPPS and psychological stress. Although only preliminary conclusions can be drawn from this small-scale study, results suggest that the TeamSTEPPS program improved team and clinical performance without increasing psychological stress.