191,939 research outputs found
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Corporate reputation and B2B inter-firm partnerships
In our networked world today, business-to-business (B2B) inter-firm partnerships are
increasingly a feature of the organisation. At the same time, corporate reputation has been
strongly identified as a key factor in the success of organisations (Fombrun & Van Riel,
2004; Fryxell & Wang, 1994). However, reputation has most often been looked at from the
perspective of a single organisation and how its stakeholders perceive it. By comparison,
less attention has been paid to the importance of the reputations of organisations when they
form a partnership. This is surprising given that partnerships are to be found in so many
walks of life today including business, sport, the arts and the media.
B2B partnerships are often the subject of significant investments and it is therefore important
to understand the value that can be derived from them. An example of a successful B2B
partnership is that of the Boeing Company with Rolls-Royce plc. The reputations of each are
synergistic and together they are seen as pioneers in greener air travel with the new Trent
1000 range of multi-fuel (kerosene/biofuel mix), efficient and quiet jet engines used as part of
the 787 Dreamliner product family of commercial aircraft.
Successful partnerships are those in which close collaboration arises because of synergistic
skills and complementary outlooks that result in positive outcomes. These partnerships have
reputations, and in some cases create a strong advantage over competitors by broadcasting
a jointly fostered sense of identity and culture with employees and a sense of community
and loyalty that attracts other stakeholders. If the reputations of such partnerships are
important to those within the dyadic exchange (Bennett & Gabriel, 2001; Arend, 2009), then
there is merit in assessing the impact of partnership reputation more widely in a network
setting. This report discusses the importance of corporate reputation and the characteristics
and outcomes that result from such B2B partnership reputations. It is based upon work
conducted jointly at Henley Business School and Albers School of Business and Economics
at the University of Seattle, and which has been published in the Industrial Marketing
Management journal (Money et al, 2010)
State of the World's Volunteerism Report: Universal Values for Global Well-being
The focus of this report is on the universal values that motivate people the world over to volunteer for the common good and on the impact of volunteer action on societies and individuals. The authors advocate the power of volunteering to promote cooperation, encourage participation and contribute to the well-being of individuals and of society as a whole
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Quantitative storytelling in the making of a composite indicator
The reasons for and against composite indicators are briefly reviewed, as well as the available theories for their construction. After noting the strong normative dimension of these measuresâwhich ultimately aim to âtell a storyâ, e.g. to promote the social discovery of a particular phenomenon, we inquire whether a less partisan use of a composite indicator can be proposed by allowing more latitude in the framing of its construction. We thus explore whether a composite indicator can be built to tell âmore than one storyâ and test this in practical contexts. These include measures used in convergence analysis in the field of cohesion policies and a recent case involving the World Bankâs Doing Business Index. Our experiments are built to imagine different constituencies and stakeholders who agree on the use of evidence and of statistical information while differing on the interpretation of what is relevant and vital
Evolving Large-Scale Data Stream Analytics based on Scalable PANFIS
Many distributed machine learning frameworks have recently been built to
speed up the large-scale data learning process. However, most distributed
machine learning used in these frameworks still uses an offline algorithm model
which cannot cope with the data stream problems. In fact, large-scale data are
mostly generated by the non-stationary data stream where its pattern evolves
over time. To address this problem, we propose a novel Evolving Large-scale
Data Stream Analytics framework based on a Scalable Parsimonious Network based
on Fuzzy Inference System (Scalable PANFIS), where the PANFIS evolving
algorithm is distributed over the worker nodes in the cloud to learn
large-scale data stream. Scalable PANFIS framework incorporates the active
learning (AL) strategy and two model fusion methods. The AL accelerates the
distributed learning process to generate an initial evolving large-scale data
stream model (initial model), whereas the two model fusion methods aggregate an
initial model to generate the final model. The final model represents the
update of current large-scale data knowledge which can be used to infer future
data. Extensive experiments on this framework are validated by measuring the
accuracy and running time of four combinations of Scalable PANFIS and other
Spark-based built in algorithms. The results indicate that Scalable PANFIS with
AL improves the training time to be almost two times faster than Scalable
PANFIS without AL. The results also show both rule merging and the voting
mechanisms yield similar accuracy in general among Scalable PANFIS algorithms
and they are generally better than Spark-based algorithms. In terms of running
time, the Scalable PANFIS training time outperforms all Spark-based algorithms
when classifying numerous benchmark datasets.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Manager's degree of JIT involvement, locus of control and managerial performance
The competitive global environment has lead many firms into adopting practices that focus on eliminating inefficiencies across the enterprise and its supply chain. The Just-in-Time philosophy is one such practice, however, research has predominantly focused on its technical features and on organisational variables, with surprising little research at the individual level. This paper examines JIT at an individual level and argues that the managerâs locus of control orientation would interact with their degree of JIT involvement to affect managerial performance. The results of a survey of 60 managers employing JIT, demonstrate that an increased degree of JIT involvement leads to a more positive effect on managerial performance for internal locus of control managers than for external locus of control managers
Measuring center of pressure signals to quantify human balance using multivariate multiscale entropy by designing a force platform
Copyright @ 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).To assess the improvement of human body balance, a low cost and portable measuring device of center of pressure (COP), known as center of pressure and complexity monitoring system (CPCMS), has been developed for data logging and analysis. In order to prove that the system can estimate the different magnitude of different sways in comparison with the commercial Advanced Mechanical Technology Incorporation (AMTI) system, four sway tests have been developed (i.e., eyes open, eyes closed, eyes open with water pad, and eyes closed with water pad) to produce different sway displacements. Firstly, static and dynamic tests were conducted to investigate the feasibility of the system. Then, correlation tests of the CPCMS and AMTI systems have been compared with four sway tests. The results are within the acceptable range. Furthermore, multivariate empirical mode decomposition (MEMD) and enhanced multivariate multiscale entropy (MMSE) analysis methods have been used to analyze COP data reported by the CPCMS and compare it with the AMTI system. The improvements of the CPCMS are 35% to 70% (open eyes test) and 60% to 70% (eyes closed test) with and without water pad. The AMTI system has shown an improvement of 40% to 80% (open eyes test) and 65% to 75% (closed eyes test). The results indicate that the CPCMS system can achieve similar results to the commercial product so it can determine the balance.National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan and the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers and Translational Medicine, National Central University, Taiwan (which is sponsored by the NSC)
Assessment of culture and environment in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Rationale, description of measures, and early data.
Neurodevelopmental maturation takes place in a social environment in addition to a neurobiological one. Characterization of social environmental factors that influence this process is therefore an essential component in developing an accurate model of adolescent brain and neurocognitive development, as well as susceptibility to change with the use of marijuana and other drugs. The creation of the Culture and Environment (CE) measurement component of the ABCD protocol was guided by this understanding. Three areas were identified by the CE Work Group as central to this process: influences relating to CE Group membership, influences created by the proximal social environment, influences stemming from social interactions. Eleven measures assess these influences, and by time of publication, will have been administered to well over 7,000 9-10 year-old children and one of their parents. Our report presents baseline data on psychometric characteristics (mean, standard deviation, range, skewness, coefficient alpha) of all measures within the battery. Effectiveness of the battery in differentiating 9-10âŻyear olds who were classified as at higher and lower risk for marijuana use in adolescence was also evaluated. Psychometric characteristics on all measures were good to excellent; higher vs. lower risk contrasts were significant in areas where risk differentiation would be anticipated
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