Lean manufacturing and business performance: testing the S-curve theory

This article makes a case for the importance of exploring patterns in the relationship between the adoption of lean manufacturing practices and business performance. This relationship has been described as ambiguous, because it has variously appeared to be positive, insignificant, and negative. Accordingly, this article tests this relationship for non-linearity and shows that it follows the S-Curve theory. A survey of manufacturing companies in an industrial cluster in Brazil was undertaken. This region faces infrastructural challenges, such as geographic distance between purchasers and suppliers and a shortage of skilled Labour. Despite the conditions, these companies have significantly improved their operational, financial, and environmental performance through the adoption of lean practices. Thus, this article contributes to the literature on lean manufacturing by: (a) furthering the debate on the relationship between lean practices and business performance, and testing its adherence to the S-curve theory by means of survey research; and (b) simultaneously testing operational, financial and environmental performance as a result of the adoption of lean manufacturing practices. As a consequence of the S-shaped relationship demonstrated, managers need to be aware of the presence of inertial and saturation points in the adoption of lean manufacturing practices, so they can correctly allocate resources for improving the adoption of lean practices

The emerging landscape of health research based on biobanks linked to electronic health records: Existing resources, statistical challenges, and potential opportunities

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154448/1/sim8445_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154448/2/sim8445.pd

Economic evaluation, screening for prostate cancer, and ‘value for money’?

Taloudellista arviointia on sovellettu terveydenhuoltoon jo yli 50 vuoden ajan, joskus hyvin ja joskus huonoin tuloksin. Tämä väitöskirja pyrkii selittämään, mitä ‘taloudellinen arviointi’ voi tarjota päätöksentekijöille, huomioiden myös siihen liittyvät ongelmat ja karikot. Lisäksi väitöskirjassa sovelletaan yhtä taloudellisen arvioinnin lähestymistapaa FinRSPC-dataan tutkimuksen jatkuttua 20 vuoden ajan. FinRSPC (Finnish Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer) on vuonna 1996 alkanut pragmaattinen väestöpohjainen tutkimus, joka koskee miesten kutsumista PSA-testiin (prostataspesifinen antigeeni) eturauhassyövän systemaattisena joukkoseulontamuotona. Vaikka viimeiset seulontakutsut lähetettiin jo vuonna 2007, terveydenhuollon rekisterit mahdollistavat monien seulonnan aiheuttamien myöhempien kustannusten ja vaikutusten lähes katkeamattoman seurannan enimmillään 20 vuoden ajalta. Tähän väitöskirjaan kuuluu neljä vertaisarvioitua FinRSPC-tutkimuksen taloudelliseen arviointiin liittyvää artikkelia, artikkelien synteesi yhteenvetona sekä integroitu arviointi terveydenhuollon taloudellisen arvioinnin kehityksestä ja nykytilasta. Väitöskirjan keskeisin lähtökohta on, että taloudelliset arvioinnit on syytä tulkita huolellisesti. Huolellisuutta tarvitaan, koska taloudellisessa arvioinnissa käytetty kieli on usein monitulkintaista ja sillä usein liioitellaan tutkimuksen mahdollisuuksia. Yksi tärkeä tulos tässä työssä onkin, että eturauhassyövän seulonnan arviointia varten saatavilla olevat tiedot voivat olla puutteellisia eikä tämä tilanne todennäköisesti ole muuttumassa. Tietojen puutteellisuus johtuu ongelmista sekä tulosten mittaamisessa että tutkimusten suorittamisessa. Toinen tärkeä löydös on, että taloudelliset arvioinnit väistämättä sisältävät omat arvoarvostelmansa. Taloudellinen arviointi on kaukana arvovapaasta tutkimuksesta, koska nämä sisäänrakennetut arvot määrittävät arviointien laajuuden, sisällön ja soveltuvuuden tarkoitukseensa. Yhdessä tämän tutkimuksen löydökset tukevat ajatusta, että klassinen harkitseva analyysi olisi arviointitapana hyödyllisempi. Harkitseviin prosesseihin tulisi sisältyä taloudellisen arvioinnin tarjoamien tietojen kattava laatuarviointi ja tarvittaessa lisätietojen huomioiminen. Tämän väitöskirjan sisältämissä artikkeleissa esitetään näyttöä, joka tukee harkitsevan analyysin laajempaa käyttöä. Ensimmäisessä artikkelissa eturauhassyövän seulontaa koskevien terveyteen liittyvien elämänlaatuvaikutusten mittaaminen on haasteellista tietojen keräämisen ajankohtien, keräämistapojen ja kuvattujen mittarien vuoksi. Suuri osa analyysistä on lisäksi altis harhoille. Toinen artikkeli keskittyy lähinnä terveydenhuollon rekistereistä saataviin keskimääräisiin kustannuseroihin FinRSPC-tutkimukseen osallistuneiden miesten välillä 20 vuoden jälkeen. On kuitenkin huomattava, että näissä arvioissa ei voida huomioida mm. ylidiagnosoinnin tai vaihtelevien hoitokäytäntöjen mahdollisia vaikutuksia. Kolmannessa artikkelissa tarkastellaan monenlaista menetelmäkirjallisuutta ja todetaan, että terveystaloustieteellisten arviointien kielenkäytön ja terminologian tulisi olla riittävän asiallista, jotta vältyttäisiin liioittelulta. Artikkelissa suositellaan vahvasti, että ‘taloudellisen’ näytön laatu ja relevanssi tarkastettaisiin aina huolellisesti, erityisesti jos näyttöä käytetään priorisointiprosesseissa. Neljäs artikkeli hyödyntää kustannusvaikuttavuusanalyysiä yhdistäessään rekisterien kustannustietoja FinRSPC-tutkimuksen vaikuttavuusanalyysidataan hyödyntäen eri kuolleisuusmittareita. Tässä yhteydessä käytetty taloudellisen arvioinnin menetelmä paljasti (tilastollisesti merkityksettömän) lisäyksen seulontaryhmän kuolleisuudessa sekä toi esiin epävarmuustekijöitä, joita eturauhassyövän seulontaan liittyvän ylidiagnosoinnin arviointiin liittyy. Yhteenvetona todetaan, että vaikka taloudellisen arvioinnin usein väitetään olevan hyödyllinen päätöksenteon apuväline, käytännössä hyöty riippuu kunkin yksittäisen arvioinnin sisällöstä ja kontekstista. Tämä väitös esittää vahvat perustelut kaikkien eturauhassyövän seulontaa koskevien taloudellisten arviointien piirteiden arvioinnille: niiden uskottavuus pitäisi tarkistaa kaikissa tapauksissa. Kaikkien sidosryhmien tulee kantaa vastuuta saatavilla olevan näytön tulkinnasta erityisesti silloin, kun interventiolla on monimutkaisia, komplisoituneita seurauksia tai näitä seurauksia on vaikea mitata. Taloudellisesta arvioinnista saatujen tietojen soveltuvuus päätösten perustaksi tulisi aina varmistaa ja pysyä nöyränä sen suhteen, mitä asiasta tiedetään tai edes voidaan tietää. Väitöskirjassa päädytään esittämään kolme ehdotusta. Ensinnäkin, taloudellisia arviointeja ei ole syytä juurikaan muuttaa, mutta niihin liittyvää kielenkäyttöä tulisi tarkentaa ja liioiteltuja väitteitä vähentää. Toiseksi, työtä kustannusten ja vaikutusten arvioinnin parantamiseksi tulee jatkaa, pysyen nöyränä sen suhteen, missä laajuudessa kustannuksia ja vaikutuksia voidaan kattavasti mitata. Viimeisenä ja kenties tärkeimpänä löydöksenä todetaan, että ottaen huomioon kuinka helppoa terveystaloustieteellisessä arvioinnissa on jättää monia tärkeitä vaikutuksia huomioimatta ja mitä vaikeuksia muuttuva terminologia, kielenkäyttö ja tutkimuskäytännöt aiheuttavat, terveystaloustieteelliseen arviointiin perustuvia tietoja käyttävien tahojen pitäisi aina arvioida huolellisesti kyseisten arviointien laatu.Economic evaluation has now been applied to health care for over 50 years, sometimes to good effect, sometimes for ill. This study seeks to give an understanding of what ‘economic evaluation’ can offer decision-makers, but also sets out to acknowledge its problems and pitfalls. In addition, this thesis applies one approach to economic evaluation, utilising data from the Finnish Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (FinRSPC) after 20 years of the trial. Started in 1996, the FinRSPC is a pragmatic population-based trial investigating invitation to prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing as a basis for mass screening to detect prostate cancer. Although the last invitations to screening were sent in 2007, health-care registers provide almost complete and almost continuous follow-up of some of the subsequent costs and effects, for up to 20 years in total. This thesis includes four peer-reviewed articles related to economic evaluation or the FinRSPC, as well as a synthesis of those articles in a summary, which includes an integrated assessment of the development and current state of economic evaluation in the field of health care. The main rationale for much of this study is that care should be taken when interpreting economic evaluation. This is mainly because the language and terminology surrounding economic evaluation is often ambiguous and it often oversells what research can credibly offer. One main finding from this study is that there should be humility about our ability to adequately evaluate prostatecancer screening. Data on costs and effects looks likely to remain deficient in some respects, due to problems in measuring outcomes, as well as due to problems in conducting trials on this topic. A second main finding is that economic approaches to evaluation inescapably include their own judgments about value; far from being a value-neutral form of assessment, these values determine its scope, content and appropriateness, to an important extent. Together with other findings, this study suggests a more classical approach to valuation would be useful: deliberative analysis. Such deliberative processes would include comprehensive quality assessment of information offered by any economic evaluation, integrating sources of information as and when necessary. The articles which constitute this thesis each provide some evidence to support the suggestion of greater use of deliberative analysis. The measurement of health-related quality-of-life effects related to prostate-cancer screening in Article I faces challenges due to the timing and mode of data collection, due to the ‘measures’ used, as well as that much of the analysis is prone to biases. Article II mainly focuses on differences in average costs between the arms, as estimated from the accessible healthcare registers, for the men in the FinRSPC after 20 years. However, it should be noted that those estimates cannot account for, e.g., the potential impact of overdiagnosis or variations in treatment practices. Article III surveys a wide range of methodological literature and concludes that language and terminology related to health-economic evaluation should be used with sufficient humility to prevent it being oversold. It strongly recommends that the qualities of any ‘economic’ evidence be thoroughly checked for quality and relevance, especially if that evidence is to be utilised as part of priority setting processes. Article IV uses cost-effectiveness analysis to combine cost information from registers with analysis of data on effectiveness, in terms of different indicators of mortality, from the FinRSPC. The approach to economic evaluation used here revealed a (non-statistically significant) increase in mortality in the screening arm, but perhaps more importantly, it highlighted the uncertainties surrounding the evaluation of overdiagnosis associated with prostate-cancer mass screening. In summary, although it is often claimed that economic evaluation can be useful in informing decision-making, in practice such claims are conditional on the qualities of the content of each economic evaluation. This thesis provides a rationale for assessing the qualities of all economic evaluations: their credibility should always be checked. Such quality assessment should look carefully at the uncertainties surrounding the evidence base, including any potential for medico-industrial influence. Every stakeholder should bear responsibility for appropriate interpretation of the available evidence, especially if interventions have consequences which are complicated, complex, or are simply not amenable to quantification or robust evaluation. Judging the appropriateness of the information from economic evaluation to any policy question should be approached with humility about what is, or can be, known. This thesis concludes with three propositions. Firstly, that economic evaluation should continue almost unchanged, with an important exception being that the current overselling of economic evaluation, both in principle and in practice, should be curbed. Secondly, attempts to improve the estimation of the likely costs and effects of interventions should continue, but with increased humility about the extent to which costs and effects can, in the foreseeable future, ever be ‘measured’ comprehensively. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, given that health-economic evaluation easily neglects many important impacts and, given the difficulties in changing language, terminology or research practices, those wishing to use information from economic evaluation should always engage in thorough critical assessment of its qualities

Operational Capabilities: The Secret Ingredient

We develop a theoretical definition of operational capabilities, based on the strategic management and operations management literature, and differentiate this construct from the related constructs of resources and operational practices, drawing upon the resourcebased view of the firm as our foundation. We illustrate the key features of operational capabilities using the illustration of a restaurant kitchen. Because the traits of operational capabilities are distinct, they create a barrier to imitation, making them a potential source of competitive advantage. However, operational capabilities are particularly challenging to measure, because they emerge gradually and are tacit, embedded, and manifested differently across firms. In solving this measurement conundrum, we draw upon similar situations experienced by Schein (2004) and Eisenhardt and Martin (2000) in operationalizing organizational culture and dynamic capabilities. A taxonomy of six emergent operational capabilities is developed: operational improvement, operational innovation, operational customization, operational cooperation, operational responsiveness, and operational reconfiguration. A set of measurement scales is developed, in order to measure each of the operational capabilities, and validated using two different datasets. This allows replication of the psychometric properties of the multi-item scales and helps to ensure the validity of the resulting measures

Impact Evaluation in Practice

The book is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA QUALITY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND PH.D. CURRICULA

Data quality procedures are vital in conducting survey research, yet they are under-emphasized in information systems (IS) Ph.D. curricula and published journal articles. In this research-in-progress, we offer the “5-C Framework” to evaluate the current state of IS survey research, as it pertains to data quality, provide insight into where IS Ph.D. curricula may be lacking, and offer a basis for developing new curricula that address those gaps. In pursuit of our objectives, we present preliminary findings from our analysis of IS survey research between 2008 and 2017. This work should interest those developing IS Ph.D. curricula. Establishing guidelines, based on the 5-C framework, can aid educators in teaching Ph.D. students how to enact and communicate data quality procedures effectively

Surveying the Migrant Population: Consideration of Linguistic and Cultural Issues

Migration is a global phenomenon; the number of migrants and refugees worldwide has risen rapidly in recent decades - and especially in recent years. These developments come with the need to better understand the living conditions of migrants and refugees and the processes of integration in order to ensure peaceful and sustainable integration in societies. Surveys are an effective means of data collection in this regard. From a methodological point of view, however, a number of challenges are associated with surveys among migrants and refugees. These proceedings, which mainly draw on the contributions to an international symposium, focus on the survey questionnaire, its translation and adaptation as well as on cultural and linguistic challenges encountered during fieldwork. The goal of this publication is to draw attention to the methodological challenges in migration and refugee research in order to foster the collection of valid and reliable data.Migration ist ein globales Phänomen. Die Zahl der Migranten und Flüchtlinge weltweit ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten - und insbesondere in den letzten Jahren - stark angestiegen. Mit dieser Entwicklung geht auch die Notwendigkeit einher, die Lebenssituation von Migranten und Flüchtlingen, ihre Bedürfnisse sowie die Prozesse der Integration besser zu verstehen, um so ein friedliches und nachhaltiges Zusammenwachsen in den Gesellschaften zu ermöglichen. Umfragen sind hier ein probates Mittel der Datenerhebung. Aus methodischer Sicht sind jedoch eine Reihe von Herausforderungen mit Umfragen unter Migranten und Flüchtlingen verbunden. Dieser Sammelband, der im Wesentlichen aus den Beiträgen eines internationalen Symposiums entstanden ist, fokussiert auf dem Fragebogen, seiner Übersetzung und Adaptation sowie auf kulturellen und sprachlichen Besonderheiten der Feldarbeit. Ziel dieser Publikation ist es, auf die methodischen Besonderheiten in der Migrations- und Flüchtlingsforschung aufmerksam zu machen, um die Erhebung von validen und reliablen Daten zu fördern

Strategic value of data analytics in interorganizational relationships

Researchers suggest that data analytics (DA) enhance decisions related to interorganizational relationships (IOR) and lead to reduced risk and improved performance. However, and despite this potential, firms face challenges regarding effective use of their DA capabilities to enhance their IORs. The massive investment in DA, as well as the need for an efficient use of DA in IOR settings, create the potential opportunities for two streams of research: a deeper understanding of business value of DA in IOR; and a systematic examination of DA’s strategy for an enhanced alignment with IORs. Despite the published scholarly works in these two research streams, the complexity, diversity, and newness associated with DA technologies make our understanding of the business value of DA in IOR and DA strategy for IOR incomplete. First, our understanding of why and how DA impact IOR performance is inadequate and fragmented. Second, the focus of the preponderance of published empirical papers in understanding the value of DA is at the operational level, and the strategic implications of DA capabilities in IOR are not addressed. Third, the literature fails to consider the inherent heterogeneity among the user base of DA systems, and consequently, the findings are not generalizable. Finally, the literature fails to address the impact of external factors, such as complexity and volatility on DA strategy. In this dissertation, I attempt to contribute to the literature by focusing on these research gaps and investigating them in three studies. In the first study, a holistic value-view of a firm’s supply chain enabled by DA for improved business performance, is presented based on two complementary views of market-oriented coordination and strategic supplier partnership. The study discusses how DA capabilities impact the constituents of this complementary view of supply chain to amplify business performance. I propose a theoretical model of the effect of DA capabilities on a firm’s co-creation of value, with its partners for business performance. Then, I test the model empirically based on a survey of 198 practitioners. My findings show that DA capabilities improve upstream and downstream integration and leverage the co-creation of value. The second study provides a better understanding of the impact of DA on interorganizational collaborations by answering two fundamental research questions: “How does a firm use its DA capabilities to improve collaboration and enhance performance?” and “What is the impact of DA capabilities on a firm’s collaboration and performance?” To answer these questions and to provide a deeper insight from multiple perspectives, I utilized a mixed method research by conducting a thorough content analysis of 34 published case studies, followed by a confirmatory research based on a survey of 210 practitioners to empirically test the insights generated from my content analysis. My findings identify several paths to improved performance using DA capabilities. My analysis suggests that DA capabilities, used appropriately in an interorganizational collaborative environment, lead to reduced costs and the need for required working capital and ultimately better performance through improved collaborative relationships such as planning and scheduling. In the third study, I expand the results of the two prior studies by analyzing the DA strategic focus. I employ an agent-based simulation to test different DA strategies in various business environments that are identified by levels of complexity and dynamism. My findings indicate that optimum DA strategy has a quadratic relationship with the levels of complexity and dynamism, which explains the prior contradictory findings of the IS literature. These three studies contribute to the business value of IT and IS strategy literatures by investigating the business value of DA in IOR settings, identifying impacts of DA on value co-creation in IORs and determining a suitable DA strategy based on various environmental factors