A Conceptual Framework for the Prescriptive Causal Analysis of Construction Waste

An initial step towards a prescriptive theory (a set of concepts) to inform the elimination of waste on construction projects. The ultimate intention is to identify the most important types and causes of waste in construction and outline the principal causal relations between them. This is not a straightforward process: the relationships form a complex network of chains and cycles of waste. Waste is defined as the use of more resources than needed, or an unwanted output from production. A conceptual schema of Previous Production Stage > Production Waste > Effect Waste is proposed and applied to the causal analysis of two major types of waste: material waste and making do

Political Identification: How Parental Values Are Influenced

Politics is an ever-growing part of American culture and, as a result, party identification has become an integral part of many Americans’ identity. Party affiliation largely impacts the values of different individuals. Using the 2012 National Election Survey, I evaluate the influence of party identification on what is seen as more valuable traits in children. Specifically, I focus on the preference of obedience over self-reliance and independence over respect. I find that in a comparison of individuals, when controlled for race, the opinions across non-white respondents of different political identifications are indistinguishable. Additionally, I find that among white respondents, those that identify as republicans favor obedience and independence at higher rates than respondents that identify as democrats. Future research should address the impact of race on political polarization

Integrating Explanatory/Predictive and Prescriptive Science in Information Systems Research

The scholarly information systems (IS) field has a dual role. As an explanatory and predictive science, the field contributes to explaining the pervasive IS that shape the digital age and sometimes also makes predictions about those phenomena. As a prescriptive science, it participates in creating IS-related innovations by identifying means-ends relationships. The two can beneficially interact, such as when explanatory theory provides the basis for generating prescriptions or when applicable knowledge produces explanatory insights. In this commentary, we contribute to integrating these two roles by proposing a framework to help IS researchers navigate the field’s duality to extend the cumulative scholarly knowledge that it creates in terms of justified explanations and predictions and justified prescriptions. The process we describe builds on ongoing, dynamic, iterative, and interrelated research cycles. We identify a set of integrative research practices that occur at the interface between explanatory and predictive science and prescriptive science—the explanation-prescription nexus. We derive guidelines for IS research

An Information Systems Design Theory for Service Network Effects

Service platforms make software applications available as a service to end users. Platforms enable noticeable economic benefits for scaling and transforming a business. Their long-term competitiveness is ensured in controlled cooperation with channel intermediaries and network partners. Hence, service platforms must be designed to harness self-enforcing effects of value generation, so-called network effects. In an exaptation of existing knowledge, we present an information systems design theory to inform the design of methods that analyze, describe, and guide the design of service platforms through the means of causal loops and control methods. We describe the theory’s purpose and scope as well as the underlying justificatory knowledge behind the constructs and principles of form and function. The design theory covers the design of all service platform participants and activities as well as their transactions and influences in areas of staged platform authority, using enforcing and incentivizing control methods. We demonstrate the principles of implementation with an expository instantiation and apply it to the M-Engineering service platform, which offers surveillance, control, and data acquisition solutions. Furthermore, we present and discuss testable propositions and a study design to evaluate our design principles

Shipboard Crisis Management: A Case Study.

The loss of the "Green Lily" in 1997 is used as a case study to highlight the characteristics of escalating crises. As in similar safety critical industries, these situations are unpredictable events that may require co-ordinated but flexible and creative responses from individuals and teams working in stressful conditions. Fundamental skill requirements for crisis management are situational awareness and decision making. This paper reviews the naturalistic decision making (NDM) model for insights into the nature of these skills and considers the optimal training regimes to cultivate them. The paper concludes with a review of the issues regarding the assessment of crisis management skills and current research into the determination of behavioural markers for measuring competence

The Prospects for Family Business in Research Universities

Family business shows the promise of becoming a respected scholarly field in research universities. However, success is not a given. We inquire about its prospects, with reference to the sociology of science. A key requirement for success that has been met is identification with an important and distinctive domain of inquiry. This domain is at the intersection two phenomena - of kinship and business - but more attention has been paid to enterprise than to kinship. We suggest that this creates important windows for theoretical development, an important requirement for a core presence in research universities. We further suggest additional priorities, such as progress in journal and research quality, more developed links to pressing social issues such as international business, inclusion of family business issues in the credit curriculum, and faculty lines that create research continuity and legitimize research on family business

A Prescriptive Model of Averse-Prone Risk Attitudes

This paper presents a prescriptive model for a decision maker's risk attitude toward financial outcomes that have important non-monetary effects, for example, effects on how the decision maker is judged by himself and by others. The model represents the risk attitude of a decision maker who is risk averse in the absence of such psychological effects, but who is risk prone in their presence for actions leading to net losses or the status quo. The model is examined for its adherence to normative principles. In particular, it is argued that the principle of dominance should be specified without any assumptions on preferences between conjunctions of lotteries; such assumptions are shown to imply the apparently stronger principle of risk neutrality

A Comparison of the Utilization of Health Services in the Presence or Absence of Prescriptive Drug Insurance in a Managed Care Environment

This study tested if the availability of third party payment for prescriptive drugs as part of employer sponsored health insurance was associated with a change in the utilization of four types of health services in an independent practice association (IPA). The study employed the individual determinants component of the Andersen-Newman theoretical framework for health services utilization. Groups of employees in companies that offered health insurance identical in all ways except for the presence or absence of the prescriptive rider were included in the study which resulted in a population of 122 companies (89 with prescriptive rider insurance and 33 without prescriptive rider insurance) involving 931 members. Two years of claims data were analyzed to identify differences in utilization of primary care providers, urgent care centers, emergency departments and hospitals. Using measures of central tendency to evaluate expenditures, utilization of the relatively lower-cost health services such as visits to the primary care provider and urgent care centers was greater in the group of companies offering the rider benefit than the group of companies that did not include prescriptive drugs as part of the health care benefit. The two groups experienced similar utilization of emergency departments. The average expenditure per company for hospital utilization was 67.8% lower in the group with prescriptive insurance as compared to the group without prescriptive insurance. Taken together, average expenditures per company for the four health services totaled $1573 more for the group without prescriptive insurance as compared to the group with prescriptive insurance. The results of this study suggest that the patient with financial barriers to prescriptive medication may not be utilizing office visits to the primary care provider or urgent care center and raises a question regarding the more costly hospital services that may result