Top Management Team Diversity: A systematic Review

Empirical research investigating the impact of top management team (TMT) diversity on executives’ decision making has produced inconclusive results. To synthesize and aggregate the results on the diversity-performance link, a meta-regression analysis (MRA) is conducted. It integrates more than 200 estimates from 53 empirical studies investigating TMT diversity and its impact on the quality of executives’ decision making as reflected in corporate performance. The analysis contributes to the literature by theoretically discussing and empirically examining the effects of TMT diversity on corporate performance. Our results do not show a link between TMT diversity and performance but provide evidence for publication bias. Thus, the findings raise doubts on the impact of TMT diversity on performance

EXTERNAL VERSUS INTERNAL PERSPECTIVES IN DETERMINING A FIRM\u27S PROGRESSIVE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The use of IT in a firm can vary depending on a number of factors such as atop executive\u27s perceptions and the firm\u27s industry. In this study, variables representing the organization\u27s external and internal characteristics were examined to determine whether they affect the firm\u27s progressive use of IT and, if so, which has the strongest effect. A questionnaire was mailed to the Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers of 300 small and medium-sized publicly-traded companies. Results indicate that internal factors (Chief Executive Officer\u27s perception of IT importance and the information intensity of the product), more than the external factors, influenced the firm\u27s progressive use of IT

Creep in Photovoltaic Modules: Examining the Stability of Polymeric Materials and Components

Interest in renewable energy has motivated the implementation of new polymeric materials in photovoltaic modules. Some of these are non-cross-linked thermoplastics, in which there is a potential for new behaviors to occur, including phase transformation and visco-elastic flow. Differential scanning calorimetry and rheometry data were obtained and then combined with existing site-specific time-temperature information in a theoretical analysis to estimate the displacement expected to occur during module service life. The analysis identified that, depending on the installation location, module configuration and/or mounting configuration, some of the thermoplastics are expected to undergo unacceptable physical displacement. While the examples here focus on encapsulation materials, the concerns apply equally to the frame, junction-box, and mounting-adhesive technologies

A Connectionist Approach to Embodied Conceptual Metaphor

A growing body of data has been gathered in support of the view that the mind is embodied and that cognition is grounded in sensory-motor processes. Some researchers have gone so far as to claim that this paradigm poses a serious challenge to central tenets of cognitive science, including the widely held view that the mind can be analyzed in terms of abstract computational principles. On the other hand, computational approaches to the study of mind have led to the development of specific models that help researchers understand complex cognitive processes at a level of detail that theories of embodied cognition (EC) have sometimes lacked. Here we make the case that connectionist architectures in particular can illuminate many surprising results from the EC literature. These models can learn the statistical structure in their environments, providing an ideal framework for understanding how simple sensory-motor mechanisms could give rise to higher-level cognitive behavior over the course of learning. Crucially, they form overlapping, distributed representations, which have exactly the properties required by many embodied accounts of cognition. We illustrate this idea by extending an existing connectionist model of semantic cognition in order to simulate findings from the embodied conceptual metaphor literature. Specifically, we explore how the abstract domain of time may be structured by concrete experience with space (including experience with culturally specific spatial and linguistic cues). We suggest that both EC researchers and connectionist modelers can benefit from an integrated approach to understanding these models and the empirical findings they seek to explain

The on-top pair-correlation density in the homogeneous electron liquid

The ladder theory, in which the Bethe-Goldstone equation for the effective potential between two scattering particles plays a central role, is well known for its satisfactory description of the short-range correlations in the homogeneous electron liquid. By solving exactly the Bethe-Goldstone equation in the limit of large transfer momentum between two scattering particles, we obtain accurate results for the on-top pair-correlation density $g(0)$, in both three dimensions and two dimensions. Furthermore, we prove, in general, the ladder theory satisfies the cusp condition for the pair-correlation density $g(r)$ at zero distance $r=0$.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure