Global Talentship: Toward a Decision Science Connecting Talent to Global Strategic Success

It is widely accepted that global competitive advantage frequently requires managing such complex situations that traditional organization and job structures are simply insufficient. Increasingly, in order to create a flexible and integrated set of decisions that balance local flexibility with global efficiency, organizations must rely on more social, informal and matrix-based shared visions among managers and employees. Research on global strategic advantage, global organizational structures, and even shared mindsets has suggested that dimensions of culture, product and function provide a valuable organizing framework. However, typical decisions about organization structure, HRM practices and talent often remain framed at such a high level as to preclude their solution. We maintain that there is often no logical answer to such questions as, “Should the sales force be local or global?” or “Should product authority rest with the countries or the corporate center?” However, we propose that embedding business processes or value chains within a Culture and Product matrix provides the necessary analytic detail to reveal otherwise elusive solutions. Moreover, by linking this global process matrix to a model that bridges strategy and talent, it is possible to identify global “pivotal talent pools,” and to target organizational and human resource investments toward those talent areas that have the greatest impact on strategic advantage. We demonstrate the Value-Chain, Culture and Product (VCCP) matrix using several examples, and discuss future research and practical implications, particularly for leadership and leadership development

Theoretical study of dislocation nucleation from simple surface defects in semiconductors

Large-scale atomistic calculations, using empirical potentials for modeling semiconductors, have been performed on a stressed system with linear surface defects like steps. Although the elastic limits of systems with surface defects remain close to the theoretical strength, the results show that these defects weaken the atomic structure, initializing plastic deformations, in particular dislocations. The character of the dislocation nucleated can be predicted considering both the resolved shear stress related to the applied stress orientation and the Peierls stress. At low temperature, only glide events in the shuffle set planes are observed. Then they progressively disappear and are replaced by amorphization/melting zones at a temperature higher than 900 K

Cluster evolution in steady-state two-phase flow in porous media

We report numerical studies of the cluster development of two-phase flow in a steady-state environment of porous media. This is done by including biperiodic boundary conditions in a two-dimensional flow simulator. Initial transients of wetting and non-wetting phases that evolve before steady-state has occurred, undergo a cross-over where every initial patterns are broken up. For flow dominated by capillary effects with capillary numbers in order of $10^{-5}$, we find that around a critical saturation of non-wetting fluid the non-wetting clusters of size $s$ have a power-law distribution $n_s \sim s^{-\tau}$ with the exponent $\tau = 1.92 \pm 0.04$ for large clusters. This is a lower value than the result for ordinary percolation. We also present scaling relation and time evolution of the structure and global pressure.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Minor corrections. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Synchrotron X-Ray Studies of Surface Disordering

Contains table of contents for Section 4, an introduction, reports on two research projects and a list of publications.Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-003

Synchrotron X-Ray Studies of Surface Disordering

Contains table of contents for Section 4, an introduction and a report on one research project.Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-000

Dynamical brittle fractures of nanocrystalline silicon using large-scale electronic structure calculations

A hybrid scheme between large-scale electronic structure calculations is developed and applied to nanocrystalline silicon with more than 10$^5$ atoms. Dynamical fracture processes are simulated under external loads in the [001] direction. We shows that the fracture propagates anisotropically on the (001) plane and reconstructed surfaces appear with asymmetric dimers. Step structures are formed in larger systems, which is understood as the beginning of a crossover between nanoscale and macroscale samples.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Reconstruction and thermal stability of the cubic SiC(001) surfaces

The (001) surfaces of cubic SiC were investigated with ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations. We show that C-terminated surfaces can have different c(2x2) and p(2x1) reconstructions, depending on preparation conditions and thermal treatment, and we suggest experimental probes to identify the various reconstructed geometries. Furthermore we show that Si-terminated surfaces exhibit a p(2x1) reconstruction at T=0, whereas above room temperature they oscillate between a dimer row and an ideal geometry below 500 K, and sample several patterns including a c(4x2) above 500 K.Comment: 12 pages, RevTeX, figures 1 and 2 available in gif form at http://irrmawww.epfl.ch/fg/sic/fig1.gif and http://irrmawww.epfl.ch/fg/sic/fig2.gi