If one were to select a concept that could be used as representative of the end of the decade of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, then that concept could well be…
Abstract
If one were to select a concept that could be used as representative of the end of the decade of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, then that concept could well be management. Although as a discipline, theories of management first emerged at the end of the 1890s, it has undergone periodic phases of rediscovery as each new generation of managers isolated some hitherto unknown factor which could contribute to their overall efficiency as managers. Each decade has produced influential thinkers with, for instance, the 1920s seeing output from Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett, H.L. Gantt, F. & L. Gilbreth and F.W. Taylor; the 1930s that of E. Mayo, L.F. Urwick, and C.I. Barnard; the 1950s Drucker, Herzberg, Leavitt, and Chris Argyris; the 1960s Maslow, Likert, Blake and Mouton, Bennis, Kotler, McGregor and Revans. Its current phase in the United Kingdom could be said to have gained impetus with the publication of the two reports into aspects of management education, Charles Handy's The making of managers and John Constable's The making of British managers. The research reported by both documents indicated an urgent need for change if managers in the United Kingdom were to be produced in the quantity and quality required to ensure continued and successful participation in international competition. Yet the problems identified were not really new ones: similar concerns after the Second World War had led to the setting up of a body to improve the quality of management thinking and practice, the British Institute of Management (BIM), established in 1947. It is a sad truism that the lessons of history are very rarely learned, and in this, management is no exception. Nonetheless, the findings of these major surveys of the 1980s have once again brought management to the forefront of attention.
Gilad Sharon and Donald Barker
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate modeling of the reliability characteristics of the copper (Cu) used in plated through holes (PTHs) for electrical connections across…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate modeling of the reliability characteristics of the copper (Cu) used in plated through holes (PTHs) for electrical connections across printed circuit boards (PCBs).
Design/methodology/approach
Assessments of the Cu damage in the first three reflow cycles are performed using finite element analysis. A two‐dimensional axi‐symmetric model of a PTH on a laminate board is validated against a three‐dimensional full model and test cases. Stress and strain measurements in the inner ring of the PTH are obtained in numerical simulations.
Findings
Loads applied after the reflow cycles contribute to subsequent mechanical disconnects. Reliability assessments relying on undamaged circuits are less accurate than estimates incorporating Cu damage following three reflow cycles.
Originality/value
In order to increase the accuracy of PCB reliability predictions significantly, prior‐to‐use damage should be calculated. In this paper, a modification to the reliability analysis is proposed.
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Randolph M. Russell and Martha C. Cooper
Addresses a number of issues relating to determining whetherproducts should be ordered independently and therefore shipped as asingle‐product order, or co‐ordinated and shipped as…
Abstract
Addresses a number of issues relating to determining whether products should be ordered independently and therefore shipped as a single‐product order, or co‐ordinated and shipped as a group, or multiproduct, order from a single source. Factors which might influence the decision include the level or volume of demand, the distribution of demand across products, the weight of items and the attractiveness of the quantity discount offered. Uses an optimal inventory‐theoretic model, that incorporates transport weight breaks and quantity discounts, to assess when product orders should be combined and what products should be ordered separately. The effects of these decisions on the order interval, the number of order groupings, the proportion of items ordered independently, the proportion of attractive discounts forgone in favour of consolidation, and the relative cost savings, are examined using an extensive set of simulated data that are based on a firm in the automobile industry supply chain.
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Gilad Sharon, Rachel Oberc and Donald Barker
The development of micro‐electro‐mechanical systems (MEMS) for use in military and consumer electronics necessitates an analysis of MEMS component reliability. The understanding…
Abstract
Purpose
The development of micro‐electro‐mechanical systems (MEMS) for use in military and consumer electronics necessitates an analysis of MEMS component reliability. The understanding of the reliability characteristics of SCSi within MEMS structures should be improved to advance MEMS applications. Reliability assessments of MEMS technology may be used to conduct virtual qualification of these devices more efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to create a simple, inexpensive test methodology to use the dynamic fracture strength of a MEMS device to predict its reliability, and to verify this method through experimentation.
Design/methodology/approach
The dynamic fracture strength of single crystal silicon (SCSi) was used to model MEMS devices subjected to high shock loading. Experimentation with SCSi MEMS structures was performed following the proposed test methodology. A probabilistic distribution for bending of Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) processed SCSi around the <110> directions was generated as a tool for assessing product reliability.
Findings
Post shock test inspections revealed that failures occurred along {111} planes. Additional experiments provided preliminary estimates of the fracture strength for bending of DRIE processed SCSi around the <100> directions in excess of 1.1 GPa.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a test methodology for an efficient method to assess the reliability of processed SCSi based on dynamic fracture strength.
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Sharon Gotteiner, Marta Mas-Machuca and Frederic Marimon
Most mature organizations face a major decline in performance at some time during their existence. For more than three decades, it has been suggested that the management practices…
Abstract
Purpose
Most mature organizations face a major decline in performance at some time during their existence. For more than three decades, it has been suggested that the management practices that could cure a troubled company could have also kept it well. Inspired by this concept, this paper is proposing a preventive approach to early implementation of turnaround strategies as an alternative for otherwise traumatic rescue efforts, further along the downward spiral.
Design/methodology/approach
Corporate turnaround strategies and associated risks are integrated with a risk-based approach, along with a proactive decision-making process. The link between turnaround research, resource-based view, the sources of organizational decline, and the governance of organizational-decline-related risks – is explained.
Findings
The integrated model streamlines a preventive organizational process for considering the suitability of commonly used turnaround practices – for the non-crisis business routine of a mature company. By considering and adjusting the risks associated with such practices, it addresses risk aversion at the early stages of decline and determines the optimal sequence and timing of retrenchment and recovery activities. As such, it encourages mature companies to take actions for reducing their exposure to organizational decline. Accordingly, the model is named the “Anti-Aging” framework.
Research limitations/implications
Empirical testing of the suitability of turnaround strategies for non-crisis situations is proposed as a direction for future research.
Practical implications
The Anti-Aging framework opens an opportunity for the senior management of a mature organization to respond earlier to organizational decline and avoid the trauma associated with otherwise more challenging conditions, for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Originality/value
The Anti-Aging framework proposes an innovative way of bridging the gap between the benefits of early implementation of turnaround strategies, and major obstacles faced by willing, traditional management teams of mature organizations.
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While the steep increases in rates of incarceration seen in the United States in the late twentieth century have begun to level out, one form of incarceration has seen more…
Abstract
While the steep increases in rates of incarceration seen in the United States in the late twentieth century have begun to level out, one form of incarceration has seen more drastic reductions in rates of use in the 2010s: long-term solitary confinement. Across the United States, prisons that once isolated prisoners for decades at a time stand hauntingly empty. The solitary confinement reform movement provides an important lens for examining what happens when an entrenched punitive practice faces widespread and sustained criticism and reveals the multiple paradigms through which reform operates – through politics, litigation, or charismatic leadership.
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Pi-Hsun Tseng, Xuan-Qi Su and Hsiu-Jung Tsai
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of managerial education levels on the wealth effect at the time of investment announcements, by testing two competitive…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of managerial education levels on the wealth effect at the time of investment announcements, by testing two competitive hypotheses: the agency theory-based overinvestment hypothesis vs the Q-theory-based organizational legitimacy hypothesis.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors construct the sample by hand-collecting the announcement dates of capital investments from major newspapers published in Taiwan from 2006 to 2014. The authors then use the event study methodology to estimate cumulative abnormal returns at the time of investments announcements to measure the wealth effect. Finally, the authors examine the wealth effect for capital-investing firms with higher managerial education vs those with lower managerial education. The authors also conduct a cross-sectional regression to test the relation between the wealth effect of capital investment and managerial education.
Findings
The empirical results indicate that the wealth effect at the time of investment announcements is less favorable for firms with better-educated managers; this negative relation is mitigated for firms with higher institutional ownership and is aggravated for family-controlled firms; and the overall findings are supported by the agency theory-based overinvestment hypothesis, suggesting that higher managerial education lead to greater managerial optimism/overconfidence, which in turn increases the likelihood of overinvestment and implies a less favorable wealth effect associated with capital investment.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by proposing a new, unexplored stock market’s reaction channel through which managerial education signals adverse information about potential overinvestment behavior, even though many studies suggests that managerial education serves as an indication of knowledge/capability and improves firm performance.