Change and complementarities in the new competitive landscape: A european panel study, 1992-1996

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington ◽  
Andrew Pettigrew ◽  
Simon Peck ◽  
Evelyn Fenton ◽  
Martin Conyon

- This paper addresses three weaknesses in the literature on new organizational forms: the limited mapping of the extent of contemporary organizational change; confusion about how contemporary changes link together; and the lack of systematic testing of the performance consequences of this kind of change. Drawing on a large-scale survey of organizational innovation in European firms, the paper finds widespread but not revolutionary change in terms of organization structure, processes, and boundaries. Using the economics notion of complementarities, the paper develops contingency and configurational approaches to suggest that organizational innovations will tend to cluster in particular ways and that the performance benefits of these innovations depend on their clustering. Complementarities in performance are explored from both inductive and deductive perspectives. Consistent with the expectations of complementarity theory, high-performing firms appeared to be innovating more and differently than low-performing firms. Again consistent with complementarities, piecemeal changes with the exception of IT were found to deliver little performance benefit, while exploitation of the full set of innovations was associated with high performance. Though few European firms were found to exploit the complementarities of new organizational practices, those that did enjoyed high-performance premia.

Author(s):  
André de Waal

Purpose Happiness at work (HAW) is receiving much attention in the literature, as HAW seems to have a positive effect on organisational performance, such as in increase of productivity, lower turnover of employees and less customer complaints. There is however no research into the relation between HAW and the attractiveness of an organisation. It stands to reason that people who are happier at work are also happier about their organisation and express this to their family and friends. Having an attractive organisation is becoming increasingly important as the world is currently experiencing an economic boom creating shortages of qualified personnel. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach A possible way of creating an attractive organisation is by transforming the workplace into a high-performing organisation (HPO). The study described in this paper is looking in this respect at three hypotheses: H1. Higher HAW will increase the attractiveness of the organisation; H2. Becoming an HPO will increase HAW; and H3. Becoming an HPO will increase the attractiveness of the organisation. A large-scale survey of Dutch managers and employees was undertaken in which the respondents were asked their opinion of the high-performance level and attractiveness of their organisation, and their happiness with their job and organisation. Findings The study results show that the three hypotheses are basically confirmed. Increasing the happiness of work of employees, in general, raises the feeling of how attractive the organisation is to the employees themselves and to the external world. However, this positive feeling is mainly true for the work itself but not so much for how committed employees feel to the organisation. Practical implications Organisations now have knowledge at their disposal about ways to promote happiness in their employees, thus raising their attractiveness to current and future employees. Originality/value The study results indicate that senior management has to make more effort to raise the quality level of the organisation, preferably towards the high performance level, in order for employees to start feeling more committed to their organisation. This is because the study results show that transforming an organisation into a high-performance entity increases happiness of employees at work significantly, especially about their work and in a lesser degree with the commitment they feel towards the organisation itself. This result has not been found before, so this research provides managers for the first time with a validated way to help their staff to become happier and more productive.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Marie Rohrer ◽  
Martin Brümmer ◽  
Stefan C. Schmukle ◽  
Jan Goebel ◽  
Gert Wagner

Open-ended questions have routinely been included in large-scale survey and panel studies, yet there is some perplexity about how to actually incorporate the answers to such questions into quantitative social science research. Tools developed recently in the domain of natural language processing offer a wide range of options for the automated analysis of such textual data, but their implementation has lagged behind. In this study, we demonstrate straightforward procedures that can be applied to process and analyze textual data for the purposes of quantitative social science research. Using more than 35,000 textual answers to the question “What else are you worried about?” from participants of the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP), we (1) analyzed characteristics of respondents that determined whether they answered the open-ended question, (2) used the textual data to detect relevant topics that were reported by the respondents, and (3) linked the features of the respondents to the worries they reported in their textual data. The potential uses as well as the limitations of the automated analysis of textual data are discussed.


Minerals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 957
Author(s):  
Ivan Silin ◽  
Devrim Gürsel ◽  
Dario Kremer ◽  
Klaus M. Hahn ◽  
Hermann Wotruba

The renewable energy revolution calls for high-performing materials and makes metallic compounds like lithium, cobalt, nickel and vanadium more and more critical. Innovations contribute to inventions and developments like vanadium redox flow batteries for large-scale energy storage systems with numerous technological advantages. Potential shortages of vanadium and its sources will contribute to turbulence in vanadium pricing. Nowadays, main sources and production sites of vanadium are located in Russia, China and South Africa. About 85% of vanadium applications are ferroalloys and high-performance alloys, which make production and price of vanadium dependent on the iron ore market. Partial covering of a potential vanadium demand may be achieved by an exploitation of lead vanadate ore deposits as alternative vanadium source. In the present work, the processing of a lead vanadate ore, mainly containing vanadinite and descloizite was investigated. Based on ore characterizations and preliminary beneficiation tests, a flowsheet was developed to design a small-scale processing plant, including comminution, dewatering and gravity separation. Preliminary laboratory tests and samples from the small-scale processing plant show promising results for the recovery of vanadium in a lead vanadate concentrate with a grade of 12 to 16% V2O5 and a recovery of 68 to 75%.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 339-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Hajšlová ◽  
K. Lancová ◽  
M. Sehnalová ◽  
A. Krplová ◽  
M. Zachariášová ◽  
...  

A large-scale survey of the natural occurrence of trichothecene mycotoxins in major cereals harvested in the Czech Republic was conducted during the years 1999–2001. In total, 198 cereal samples representing various wheat, barley, and rye cultivars were examined for deoxynivalenol (DON) using gas chromatography with electron capture detector (GC-ECD). Four years later, in 2005, the list of target analytes was fairly extended, 65 wheat and barley samples were analysed for seven trichothecene mycotoxins – deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol (NIV), fusarenon-X (Fus-X), 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol and 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (ADONs), HT-2 toxin (HT-2). and T-2 toxin (T-2) by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Trichothecenes represented mainly by DON were detected in almost all grain samples, its mean levels were the highest in the year 1999 which was characterised by very humid conditions during the growing season. The maximum concentration set in Commission Regulation EC (No. 856/2005) for DON (1250 µg/kg) in unprocessed cereals was exceeded only in two of all the samples analysed.


Author(s):  
C.K. Wu ◽  
P. Chang ◽  
N. Godinho

Recently, the use of refractory metal silicides as low resistivity, high temperature and high oxidation resistance gate materials in large scale integrated circuits (LSI) has become an important approach in advanced MOS process development (1). This research is a systematic study on the structure and properties of molybdenum silicide thin film and its applicability to high performance LSI fabrication.


Diagnostica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-157
Author(s):  
Martin Senkbeil ◽  
Jan Marten Ihme

Zusammenfassung. ICT Literacy legt eine performanzbasierte Erfassung mit simulierten und interaktiven Testaufgaben nahe. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, ob mit Multiple-Choice (MC)-Aufgaben ein vergleichbares Konstrukt wie mit Simulationsaufgaben erfasst wird. Hierfür wurden die Testergebnisse zweier Instrumente aus aktuellen Large-Scale-Studien gegenübergestellt, die an N = 2 075 Jugendlichen erhoben wurden: der auf MC-Aufgaben basierende ICT Literacy-Test für Klasse 9 des Nationalen Bildungspanels (National Educational Panel Study, NEPS) und der simulationsbasierte Kompetenztest der internationalen Schulleistungsstudie ICILS 2013 (International Computer and Information Literacy Study). Die Analysen unterstützen die Gültigkeit der Konstruktinterpretation des MC-basierten Tests in NEPS. Im Sinne der konvergenten Evidenz korrelieren die MC-Aufgaben substanziell mit den computer- und simulationsbasierten Aufgaben in ICILS 2013 (.68 ≤  r ≤ .90). Weiterhin ergeben sich positive und für beide Tests vergleichbar hohe Korrelationen mit ICT-bezogenen Schülermerkmalen (z. B. Selbstwirksamkeit). Weiterführende Analysen zum Zusammenhang mit allgemeinen kognitiven Fähigkeiten zeigen zudem, dass ICT Literacy und kognitive Grundfähigkeiten distinkte Faktoren repräsentieren.


Author(s):  
В.В. ГОРДЕЕВ ◽  
В.Е. ХАЗАНОВ

При выборе типа доильной установки и ее размера необходимо учитывать максимальное планируемое поголовье дойных коров и размер технологической группы, кратность и время одного доения, продолжительность рабочей смены дояров. Анализ технико-экономических показателей наиболее распространенных на сегодняшний день типов доильных установок одинакового технического уровня свидетельствует, что наилучшие удельные показатели имеет установка типа «Карусель» (1), а установка типа «Елочка» (2) требует более высоких затрат труда и средств. Установка «Параллель» (3) занимает промежуточное положение. Из анализа пропускной способности и количества необходимых операторов: установка 2 рекомендована для ферм с поголовьем дойного стада до 600 голов, 3 — не более 1200 дойных коров, 1 — более 1200 дойных коров. «Карусель» — наиболее рациональный, высокопроизводительный, легко автоматизируемый и, следовательно, перспективный способ доения в залах, особенно для крупных молочных ферм. The choice of the proper type and size of milking installations needs to take into account the maximum planned number of dairy cows, the size of a technological group, the number of milkings per day, and the duration of one milking and the operator's working shift. The analysis of technical and economic indicators of currently most common types of milking machines of the same technical level revealed that the Carousel installation had the best specific indicators while the Herringbone installation featured higher labour inputs and cash costs. The Parallel installation was found somewhere in between. In terms of the throughput and the required number of operators Herringbone is recommended for farms with up to 600 dairy cows, Parallel — below 1200 dairy cows, Carousel — above 1200 dairy cows. Carousel was found the most practical, high-performance, easily automated and, therefore, promising milking system for milking parlours, especially on the large-scale dairy farms.


Author(s):  
Mark Endrei ◽  
Chao Jin ◽  
Minh Ngoc Dinh ◽  
David Abramson ◽  
Heidi Poxon ◽  
...  

Rising power costs and constraints are driving a growing focus on the energy efficiency of high performance computing systems. The unique characteristics of a particular system and workload and their effect on performance and energy efficiency are typically difficult for application users to assess and to control. Settings for optimum performance and energy efficiency can also diverge, so we need to identify trade-off options that guide a suitable balance between energy use and performance. We present statistical and machine learning models that only require a small number of runs to make accurate Pareto-optimal trade-off predictions using parameters that users can control. We study model training and validation using several parallel kernels and more complex workloads, including Algebraic Multigrid (AMG), Large-scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator, and Livermore Unstructured Lagrangian Explicit Shock Hydrodynamics. We demonstrate that we can train the models using as few as 12 runs, with prediction error of less than 10%. Our AMG results identify trade-off options that provide up to 45% improvement in energy efficiency for around 10% performance loss. We reduce the sample measurement time required for AMG by 90%, from 13 h to 74 min.


Plant Disease ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 103 (6) ◽  
pp. 1309-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Zhao ◽  
Wen Yang ◽  
Yuanle Zhang ◽  
Zhanmin Wu ◽  
Qiao-Chun Wang ◽  
...  

Kiwifruit (Actinidia spp.) is an economically substantial fruit crop with China the main producer. China is the primary source of wild kiwifruit and the largest producer of kiwifruit in terms of both production and planting area, and Shaanxi province is the largest kiwifruit producer in China. Previous studies reported presence of kiwifruit viruses in Actinidia chinensis. In this study, six viruses were identified in kiwifruit ‘Xuxiang’ (A. deliciosa) in Shaanxi, China. The incidence, distribution, and genetic diversity of these viruses were studied. The results showed that Actinidia virus A (AcVA), Actinidia virus B (AcVB), Actinidia chlorotic ringspot-associated virus (AcCRaV), cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), apple stem grooving virus (ASGV), and potato virus X (PVX) were the main viruses infecting Xuxiang kiwifruit in Shaanxi, China. Incidence of the various viruses with both single and multiple infection varied with different kiwifruit-growing counties. For single virus infection, the highest and the lowest numbers of samples infected were about 22 for AcCRaV and 0 for AcVB in Meixian out of 170 samples, 12 for AcVA and 0 for CMV in Zhouzhi out of 120 samples, 10 for AcVA and 0 for AcVB, AcCRaV, ASGV, PVX, and CMV in Yangling out of 70 samples, and 8 for AcCRaV and CMV and 0 for AcVA, AcVB, ASGV, and PVX in Hanzhong out of 80 samples, respectively. Samples which were multiply infected with two or more viruses were also detected. Analysis of the phylogenetic tree of these viruses showed some genetic variability in the AcVA, AcVB, and AcCRaV isolates of Shaanxi kiwifruit. There was no obvious molecular variation in the coat protein genes of ASGV, CMV, and PVX virus isolates from Shaanxi kiwifruit. The present study is the first large-scale survey of kiwifruit viruses in Shaanxi, China. To our knowledge, this is the first report of PVX infecting kiwifruit and the first report of molecular variability of AcVA, AcVB, and AcCRaV. These results provide important data for studying the genetic evolution of AcVA, AcVB, AcCRaV, ASGV, CMV, and PVX.


Radiation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Peter K. Rogan ◽  
Eliseos J. Mucaki ◽  
Ben C. Shirley ◽  
Yanxin Li ◽  
Ruth C. Wilkins ◽  
...  

The dicentric chromosome (DC) assay accurately quantifies exposure to radiation; however, manual and semi-automated assignment of DCs has limited its use for a potential large-scale radiation incident. The Automated Dicentric Chromosome Identifier and Dose Estimator (ADCI) software automates unattended DC detection and determines radiation exposures, fulfilling IAEA criteria for triage biodosimetry. This study evaluates the throughput of high-performance ADCI (ADCI-HT) to stratify exposures of populations in 15 simulated population scale radiation exposures. ADCI-HT streamlines dose estimation using a supercomputer by optimal hierarchical scheduling of DC detection for varying numbers of samples and metaphase cell images in parallel on multiple processors. We evaluated processing times and accuracy of estimated exposures across census-defined populations. Image processing of 1744 samples on 16,384 CPUs required 1 h 11 min 23 s and radiation dose estimation based on DC frequencies required 32 sec. Processing of 40,000 samples at 10 exposures from five laboratories required 25 h and met IAEA criteria (dose estimates were within 0.5 Gy; median = 0.07). Geostatistically interpolated radiation exposure contours of simulated nuclear incidents were defined by samples exposed to clinically relevant exposure levels (1 and 2 Gy). Analysis of all exposed individuals with ADCI-HT required 0.6–7.4 days, depending on the population density of the simulation.


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