Trust and the Decision to Outsource: Affective Responses and Cognitive Processes

Many of the various forms of cooperative strategy that firms are pursuing in today's economy entail the placing of important business functions in the hands of a partner. This paper examines the role of trust in the decision by a producer to place the marketing function in the hands of another entity, namely a cooperative. Although others have studied the effect of what may be termed general trust on inter-organizational relationships, few have examined the antecedents of that trust. We propose a model in which affective responses and cognitive processes are precursors to a sense of general trust, which, in turn, influences the outsourcing decision. These affective responses and cognitive processes have both direct and indirect (mediated) effects on the decision to place an important function in the hands of another entity. Perceptions of partner expertise in the business function at hand and the perceived need for the focal firm to maintain control over that function are also considered in the model. The model is tested in a somewhat novel context: the decision of cotton producers to outsource the marketing of their cotton fiber. Using survey data gathered from the actual decision-maker, and structural equations modeling, we find that the inclusion of affective responses and cognitive processes in our model produces a richer explanation of the outsourcing decision. The differences between the effects of affective responses and cognitive processes have potentially important implications for managers engaged in cooperative strategies and for the scholars who study them.Agribusiness,

Approximate gravitational field of a rotating deformed mass

A new approximate solution of vacuum and stationary Einstein field equations is obtained. This solution is constructed by means of a power series expansion of the Ernst potential in terms of two independent and dimensionless parameters representing the quadrupole and the angular momentum respectively. The main feature of the solution is a suitable description of small deviations from spherical symmetry through perturbations of the static configuration and the massive multipole structure by using those parameters. This quality of the solution might eventually provide relevant differences with respect to the description provided by the Kerr solution.Comment: 16 pages. Latex. To appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio

Affine configurations and pure braids

We show that the fundamental group of the space of ordered affine-equivalent configurations of at least five points in the real plane is isomorphic to the pure braid group modulo its centre. In the case of four points this fundamental group is free with eleven generators.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, final version; to appear in Discrete & Computational Geometry, available from the publishers at http://www.springerlink.com/content/384516n7q24811ph

Scalar Dark Matter From Theory Space

The scalar dark matter candidate in a prototypical theory space little Higgs model is investigated. We review all details of the model pertinent to dark matter. We perform a thermal relic density calculation including couplings to the gauge and Higgs sectors of the model. We find two regions of parameter space that give acceptable dark matter abundances. The first region has a dark matter candidate with a mass of order 100 GeV, the second region has a heavy candidate with a mass greater than about 500 GeV$. The dark matter candidate in either region is an admixture of an SU(2) triplet and an SU(2) singlet, thereby constituting a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle).Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in PR

Higgsino Dark Matter in a SUGRA Model with Nonuniversal Gaugino Masses

We study a specific SUGRA model with nonuniversal gaugino masses as an alternative to the minimal SUGRA model in the context of supersymmetric dark matter. The lightest supersymmetric particle in this model comes out to be a Higgsino dominated instead of a bino dominated lightest neutralino. The thermal relic density of this Higgsino dark matter is somewhat lower than the cosmologically favoured range, which means it may be only a subdominant component of the cold dark matter. Nonetheless, it predicts favourable rates of indirect detection, which can be seen in square-km size neutrino telescopes.Comment: Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D. A few references added in the bibliography and a comment added in Section 2. LaTex, 16 pages, 4 figure

A source of a quasi--spherical space--time: The case for the M--Q solution

We present a physically reasonable source for an static, axially--symmetric solution to the Einstein equations. Arguments are provided, supporting our belief that the exterior space--time produced by such source, describing a quadrupole correction to the Schwarzschild metric, is particularly suitable (among known solutions of the Weyl family) for discussing the properties of quasi--spherical gravitational fields.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures. To appear in GR

Density functional theory of phase coexistence in weakly polydisperse fluids

The recently proposed universal relations between the moments of the polydispersity distributions of a phase-separated weakly polydisperse system are analyzed in detail using the numerical results obtained by solving a simple density functional theory of a polydisperse fluid. It is shown that universal properties are the exception rather than the rule.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PR

Learning from the Success of MPI

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) has been extremely successful as a portable way to program high-performance parallel computers. This success has occurred in spite of the view of many that message passing is difficult and that other approaches, including automatic parallelization and directive-based parallelism, are easier to use. This paper argues that MPI has succeeded because it addresses all of the important issues in providing a parallel programming model.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur