The events of September 11, 2001, challenged basic assumptions regarding market access, liquidity, clearing, and account reconciliation fundamental to the functioning of the…
Abstract
The events of September 11, 2001, challenged basic assumptions regarding market access, liquidity, clearing, and account reconciliation fundamental to the functioning of the financial markets. Policymakers have responded by proposing that reserves be set aside by firms to cover this operational risk. This article examines the effectiveness of these proposed measures within the context of two broad issues: 1) a more comprehensive definition of operational risk, and 2) the market linkages between related financial and nonfinancial risks.
Sheila Suess Kennedy and Richard J. Magjuka
Ever since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, employers have complained that nondiscrimination laws constitute an additional regulatory burden on business, while civil rights…
Abstract
Ever since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, employers have complained that nondiscrimination laws constitute an additional regulatory burden on business, while civil rights advocates have argued that compliance requires nothing more than the sorts of sound personnel practices that successful businesses have long found to be effective management tools. While most Americans clearly agree that people ought not be subjected to invidious employment discrimination based on race, religion, or other criteria unrelated to job performance, current laws do not necessarily represent the best approach to that problem. We argue that the “group identity” approach to workplace equity embedded in traditional civil rights statutes has retarded, rather than promoted, the adoption of sound and valid personnel assessment tools, and that attempts by U.S. business to reconcile the mandates of current civil rights law with fair and effective corporate human resource practices represent a heroic but fundamentally flawed effort. In this paper, we outline an alternative model based upon worker productivity which we believe to be legally defensible and practically superior to current regulatory approaches to evaluating and attaining fairness in the workplace.
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The current debate between two theoretical approaches in library and information science and knowledge organization (KO), the cognitive one and the sociological one, is addressed…
Abstract
Purpose
The current debate between two theoretical approaches in library and information science and knowledge organization (KO), the cognitive one and the sociological one, is addressed in view of their possible integration in a more general model. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal knowledge of individual users, as focused in the cognitive approach, and social production and use of knowledge, as focused in the sociological approach, are reconnected to the theory of levels of reality, particularly in the versions of Nicolai Hartmann and Karl R. Popper (three worlds). The notions of artefact and mentefact, as proposed in anthropological literature and applied in some KO systems, are also examined as further contributions to the generalized framework. Some criticisms to these models are reviewed and discussed.
Findings
Both the cognitive approach and the sociological approach, if taken in isolation, prove to be cases of philosophical monism as they emphasize a single level over the others. On the other hand, each of them can be considered as a component of a pluralist ontology and epistemology, where individual minds and social communities are but two successive levels in knowledge production and use, and are followed by a further level of “objectivated spirit”; this can in turn be analyzed into artefacts and mentefacts. While all these levels are relevant to information science, mentefacts and their properties are its most peculiar objects of study, which make it distinct from such other disciplines as psychology and sociology.
Originality/value
This analysis shows how existing approaches can benefit from additional notions contributed by levels theory, to develop more complete and accurate models of information and knowledge phenomena.
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Raida Abu Bakar, Rosmawani Che Hashim, Sharmila Jayasingam, Safiah Omar and Norizah Mohd Mustamil
Have you ever wished your IBM‐compatible PC ran faster? Not everyone can afford a new AT, but for a few dollars and an hour's effort, you can increase the speed of your PC from…
Abstract
Have you ever wished your IBM‐compatible PC ran faster? Not everyone can afford a new AT, but for a few dollars and an hour's effort, you can increase the speed of your PC from five to ten percent. The secret of this increase is the new NEC V20 chip.
Richard P. Smiraglia and Charles van den Heuvel
This paper seeks to outline the central role of concepts in the knowledge universe, and the intertwining roles of works, instantiations, and documents. In particular the authors…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to outline the central role of concepts in the knowledge universe, and the intertwining roles of works, instantiations, and documents. In particular the authors are interested in ontological and epistemological aspects of concepts and in the question to which extent there is a need for natural languages to link concepts to create meaningful patterns.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors describe the quest for the smallest elements of knowledge from a historical perspective. They focus on the metaphor of the universe of knowledge and its impact on classification and retrieval of concepts. They outline the major components of an elementary theory of knowledge interaction.
Findings
The paper outlines the major components of an elementary theory of knowledge interaction that is based on the structure of knowledge rather than on the content of documents, in which semantics becomes not a matter of synonymous concepts, but rather of coordinating knowledge structures. The evidence is derived from existing empirical research.
Originality/value
The paper shifts the bases for knowledge organization from a search for a universal order to an understanding of a universal structure within which many context‐dependent orders are possible.
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Richard Gray, Stavroula Malla and Peter W.B. Phillips
The paper aims to examine how the theory of institutional economics is used to analyze and explain how the canola industry has developed and changed over the past 30 years, in…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to examine how the theory of institutional economics is used to analyze and explain how the canola industry has developed and changed over the past 30 years, in order to highlight the important role of extra‐market institutions in innovation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The theory of transactions and institutions is examined, specifically the concepts of rivalry, excludability and voice, in order to identify optimal institutions to address potential market failures in new product development.
Findings
In the pre‐biotechnology period, missing links in the supply chain and the absence of private property rights contributed to public good market failures; the resulting market failures and inadequate investment incentives were overcome by development of public research programs and new participatory institutions that managed research coordination, extension and market development. In the biotechnology‐phase, private property rights, vertical integration and contracting resolved many of the earlier market failures but failures in research coordination, enforcement of property rights and marketing have required new institutions.
Practical implications
The development of the highly innovative Canadian canola supply chain over the past 50 years – encompassing a period of public‐sector‐based, conventional plant breeding and, more recently, a privately‐directed biotechnology‐based phase – highlights the role that different institutional structures can play in product innovation.
Originality/value
This study of the canola chain offers insights into how different types of market failures arise at various stages of development, requiring new institutions to address these failures, and provides lessons on how to foster the development of other innovative agri‐food supply chains around the world.
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The archaeological record of small-scale societies is replete with examples of people expending considerable labor to craft both places and objects for communal rituals…
Abstract
The archaeological record of small-scale societies is replete with examples of people expending considerable labor to craft both places and objects for communal rituals. Archaeologists often infer these efforts to have been the product of aspiring elites. This chapter focuses instead on the larger community responsible for the construction of places and objects, through a ritual economy analysis of the social logic people use to organize the production of ritual places and paraphernalia. A review of ethnographic and archaeological data suggests that the production of communal ritual places often involves the creation of sociograms, while the production of objects for use within these places encompasses a web of complementary and competitive relations. Two examples of large-scale communal ritual spaces, the early British Neolithic causewayed enclosures and the Ohio Hopewell geometric earthworks, are explored in light of these ethnographic and archaeological patterns.
As announced in the May issue of Hybrid Circuits, ISHM‐Benelux is organising a one‐day conference on applications of hybrid circuit technology.
This paper aims to help scholars to know the frontiers in the strategic management field. On studying, it was noted that business strategic management originated from America in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to help scholars to know the frontiers in the strategic management field. On studying, it was noted that business strategic management originated from America in the 1960s and has experienced more than half a century. However, strategic management development lacks systematical summary in the twenty-first century. The scientometric method was appliedto find out the frontiers and progress of the research of strategic management in the twenty-first century, based on the literature from 2001 to 2012 in the Strategic Management Journal.
Design/methodology/approach
In the paper, the authors mainly used the scientometric method and applied keywords, co-occurrence method combined with multistatistical methods and mutation words analysis, author co-citation, literature co-citation and keywords co-occurrence (national).
Findings
The findings show that the strategic management research focuses on the following theories and academic thoughts: knowledge-based view, network organization research and dynamic capability are the mainstream; besides, strategy risk, the stakeholders analysis of strategy management, corporate reputation and strategic concept also attract the attention of researchers; Barney, Teece and Porter have made significant contributions to strategy management research since the twenty-first century.
Originality/value
The findings in the paper will help scholars in the field of strategic management to know the main frontiers of the theory, as well as the main contributors.