Improving the Residential Project Development process by Sustainable Competitive Advantage

In today’s highly competitive and fast paced world it is important for a company to have a balanced strategy which is unified and precisely executed to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in order to outperform its rivals. The freedom of action of a company is limited to satisfying the needs of those entities outside the firm (customers and investors, primarily) that give the resources it requires in order to survive and to be successful. The purpose of this research is to define and assess the sustainable competitive advantages and the direction of development, and potential improvements in a case company’s Southern Finland Residential Project Development–division. The analysis of operational competitiveness focuses on detecting the right operational strategy and resource allocation by exploiting seven different kind of methodologies in order to gain an overall picture. The used theories and methodologies are: The Analytical Hierarchy Process, Critical Factor Indexes, Sense and Respond, the RAL–concept, Manufacturing Strategy Index, Knowledge and Technology, and Sustainable Competitive Advantage. The data for this research was gathered from 16 respondents by using two questionnaires. The current operation and resource allocation support the operative strategy well and those resources which seem to be out of place are definitely heading in the right direction. Despite the fact that the direction of resource usage is mostly towards a decent overall balance, the results clearly indicate that a thorough resource reallocation should be taken into consideration. The results should be interpreted by the best experts in the case company in order to find improvements in practice by a reasonable level of investment.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Current challenges in software solutions for mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics

This work was in part supported by the PRIME-XS project, grant agreement number 262067, funded by the European Union seventh Framework Programme; The Netherlands Proteomics Centre, embedded in The Netherlands Genomics Initiative; The Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre; and the Centre for Biomedical Genetics (to S.C., B.B. and A.J.R.H); by NIH grants NCRR RR001614 and RR019934 (to the UCSF Mass Spectrometry Facility, director: A.L. Burlingame, P.B.); and by grants from the MRC, CR-UK, BBSRC and Barts and the London Charity (to P.C.

Expert Systems in Transport – Part 1: An Introduction to Expert Systems.

This report describes what expert systems are. It has been written to introduce the concepts involved, and to some extent the techniques, for those who have no previous acquaintance with such systems, but who are concerned with establishing quite what such systems might have to offer, and what is involved in developing them, in their field of application. Ways in which knowledge and uncertainty are represented in expert systems are described, and illustrated by reference to some existing expert systems. The report stems from a project designed to assess the potential for establishing expert systems in the transport field, and discusses the types of expert system package which might be useful in the remaining stages of the project. It includes a useful set of references and a g1ossary.A preliminary assessment of potential transport applications and the implications for the remainder of the project are described in a companion report, ITS Technical Note 145

RULE-BASED PREDICTION OF SHORT TERM ELECTRIC LOAD

In this study we discuss the possibility to apply symbolic data mining methods to the problem of prediction. We employ our original algorithm KEX that is used for extraction of classification or prediction rules from data. When new data is coming, the active rules (rules with a fulfilled left-hand side) from the rule base are applied to the data and their weights are composed by the inference mechanism to the resulting weight of a given prediction. The presented approach is applied to the problem of short-term electric load forecasting

Aligning strategy typology and human resource management in a transitional environment : the case of Huabo Group

In a transitional society like China, it is a challenge to align an enterprise human resource management with its strategy while adapting to a dynamic external environment. There is limited studies in this regard, particularly on how private enterprises may align human resource management with strategy typology in a changing environment of emerging economy. Guided by the theoretical framework of strategy typology and human resources management alignment proposed by Miles and Snow (1984), this study investigates Huabo Group, a pharmaceutical distribution firm in Chongqing of China as a case study because this firm has developed and grown in a very dynamic, complex and hostile environment due to the rapid change of Chinese pharmaceuticals industry. Thus it provides a very illustrative sample to examine strategy typology and human resources management alignment in emerging market like China. Based on quantitative and qualitative data through survey and interview/focus group, this study: (1) finds and justifies the prospector strategy of Huabo Group under transitional external environment; (2) identifies and discusses the gaps and issues of aligning Huabo’s human resources management and prospector strategy; (3) proposes strategies to improve its human resources system to better align and support its strategy for the enterprise sustainable growth in a rapid changing environment. The study provides an illustrative case from Chinese pharmaceuticals industry to manage the challenges of aligning human resource management with organizational strategy while adapting to external environment in emerging economy, thus enriching theoretical literatures. The research results provide valuable reference for similar enterprises to give consideration to human resources management alignment during strategy adjustment under rapid changing emerging market like China.Numa sociedade em transição, como a chinesa, alinhar a gestão de recursos humanos de uma empresa com a sua estratégia e em simultâneo adaptar-se ao ambiente dinâmico externo constitui um desafio. A investigação sobre este assunto tem sido limitada, especialmente sobre como as empresas privadas podem alinhar a gestão de recursos humanos com uma tipologia de estratégia num ambiente mutável de uma economia emergente. Guiado pela matriz teórica da tipologia estratégica de Miles e Snow (1984), este estudo investiga o Grupo Huabo, uma empresa de distribuição farmacêutica em Chongqin na China, tomando-o como um caso de estudo por esta empresa se ter desenvolvido e crescido num ambiente hostil, complexo e muito dinâmico devido às rápidas mudanças na indústria farmacêutica chinesa. Desta forma, constitui um caso muito ilustrativo para examinar o alinhamento entre a tipologia estratégica e a gestão de recursos humanos num mercado emergente como o da China. Com base em dados quantitativos e qualitativos decorrentes de questionário e entrevistas/grupos focais, este estudo: 1) descobre e justifica a estratégia prospetora do grupo Huabo no quadro de um ambiente externo em transição, 2) identifica e discute as discrepâncias e os desafios de alinhar a gestão dos recursos humanos da Huabo com a estratégia prospetora, e 3) propõe estratégias para melhorar o seu sistema de recursos humanos com vista a um melhor alinhamento e apoio estratégico que favoreça o crescimento sustentável da empresa num ambiente em mudança rápida. O estudo faculta um caso ilustrativo da indústria farmacêutica chinesa para gerir o desafio do alinhamento da gestão de recursos humanos com a estratégia organizacional no quadro da adaptação a um ambiente externo numa economia emergente, assim enriquecendo a literatura teórica. A investigação constitui uma referência útil para empresas similares que queiram considerar o alinhamento da gestão de recursos humanos durante o ajustamento estratégico em condições de mercado emergente em rápida mutação tal como o da China

Marketing research performance and strategy

Purpose - To investigate whether strategic orientation affects the evaluation of specific market research projects in for-profit firms.Design/methodology/approach - A small-scale follow-up survey was conducted, building on qualitative and quantitative research among a sample of the top-1,000 marketing managers in Australia. The study used an existing market research evaluation tool, the USER scale and items generated from the qualitative research, to investigate the firm\u27s most recent market research project.Findings - Four market research performance factors were identified - market research as a knowledge enhancing (KE) function, the internal political use of market research, the misuse of market research and the generation of market understanding. The Miles and Snow strategy types were related to these factors, with Prospector types more likely to use market research rationally and less likely to use it for internal political purposes. Tactical projects were more likely to be misused than were those with a strategic orientation. Prospectors were far less likely and analysers far more likely to misuse tactical research projects. Prospectors were more often satisfied with the performance of their most recent market research. The Porter typology was less successful in predicting market research performance.Research limitations/implications - The study was based on a small sample of market research projects in Australian for-profit firms. Future studies need to study these phenomena more intensively using ethnographic methods and more extensively using larger multi-country samples.Practical implications - Market research suppliers should learn the nature of their client\u27s strategic intent to improve their effectiveness. Defender firms should carefully monitor the use of market research, especially that of a tactical nature, which may be wasted or misused.Originality/value - Contributes to an understanding of how strategic orientation relates to the ways market research information is used within the firm. <br /

The place of expert systems in a typology of information systems

This article considers definitions and claims of Expert Systems ( ES) and analyzes them in view of traditional Information systems (IS). It is argued that the valid specifications for ES do not differ fran those for IS. Consequently the theoretical study and the practical development of ES should not be a monodiscipline. Integration of ES development in classical mathematics and computer science opens the door to existing knowledge and experience. Aspects of existing ES are reviewed from this interdisciplinary point of view