A Resource-Based View on Sustaining Competitive Advantage: A Case Discussion

This paper discusses Apple Computer, Inc.'s (Apple) distinctive competencies in line with its competitive environment to identify its competitive advantage and its sustainability. We find that Apple's distinctive competencies lie with its innovative capabilities, proprietary ecosystems, and marketing. Given the highly competitive nature of Apple's competitive environment, we find it hard to sustain a competitive advantage with constant updates of internal resources. In light of these findings, we recommend Apple adopts a learning (knowledge-based) organization approach and positions itself for speedy innovation in order to consistently "shift the rules of the game”. In conclusion, the sustainability of its competitive advantage and superior performance would eventually rely on Apple's continuous endeavors to shape, mold or influence the future market and technological evolutions. This means it should focus its strategy and management on continuous improvements and innovations, i.e., change

Res-Tuning: A Flexible and Efficient Tuning Paradigm via Unbinding Tuner from Backbone

Parameter-efficient tuning has become a trend in transferring large-scale foundation models to downstream applications. Existing methods typically embed some light-weight tuners into the backbone, where both the design and the learning of the tuners are highly dependent on the base model. This work offers a new tuning paradigm, dubbed Res-Tuning, which intentionally unbinds tuners from the backbone. With both theoretical and empirical evidence, we show that popular tuning approaches have their equivalent counterparts under our unbinding formulation, and hence can be integrated into our framework effortlessly. Thanks to the structural disentanglement, we manage to free the design of tuners from the network architecture, facilitating flexible combination of various tuning strategies. We further propose a memory-efficient variant of Res-Tuning, where the bypass i.e., formed by a sequence of tuners) is effectively detached from the main branch, such that the gradients are back-propagated only to the tuners but not to the backbone. Such a detachment also allows one-time backbone forward for multi-task inference. Extensive experiments on both discriminative and generative tasks demonstrate the superiority of our method over existing alternatives from the perspectives of efficacy and efficiency. Project page: $\href{https://res-tuning.github.io/}{\textit{https://res-tuning.github.io/}}$.Comment: Accepted to NeurIPS 202

What Business Schools Can Do to Bridge the Theory-practice Gap: An Overview and Discussion

Aligning management knowledge and practice has become a ‘persistent and difficult problem' for management scholars and educators. In scholarship, more specifically, increasing attention is paid to a ‘gap' between theory and practice in many professional fields worldwide. In this paper, we aim to address the conceptual space between theory and practice in management education by providing an overview of relevant techniques and practices used by business schools, namely, collaborative research, MBA programmes, and ethical education. We further reflect on issues highlighted in this overview and discuss its wider implications for management teachers, scholars, and practitioners, shedding light on future empirical research

A Case Study of Extraterritorial Application of the Japanese Antimonopoly Act

This paper discusses extraterritorial applications of the Japanese Antimonopoly Act through a well debated case over CRT TVs in 2016 in Japan involving multiple companies in several countries. The case is theoretically and practically significant because it was the first case in the world in which the ‘demand' side was united as a group to be considered under similar situations. By doing so, the scope of extraterritorial application of antitrust laws in countries involved is expected to be expanded. In other words, Japanese companies with bases and subsidiaries around the world will be able to file lawsuits in Japan regardless of which country is affected, and seek trials based on Japanese antitrust laws. Finally, we argue that, under the Japanese Antimonopoly Act, the effect doctrine is not yet the basis for officially judging related cases

Cattle grazing mitigates the negative impacts of nitrogen addition on soil nematode communities

Livestock grazing and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition have been reported as important factors affecting soil communities. However, how different large herbivore grazing and N addition may interact to affect soil biota in grassland ecosystems is unclear. Nematodes are the most abundant metazoan in soil ecosystems, play critical roles in regulating carbon and nutrient dynamics, and are valuable bioindicators. We examined the independent and interactive effects of grazing regimes (no grazing; sheep grazing; cattle grazing; mixed grazing of sheep and cattle) and N addition (ambient N; N addition) on soil nematodes in a meadow steppe. We found that grazing and N addition interacted to influence total nematode abundance, trophic group abundance, generic richness, diversity and several nematode-based indices (maturity index, channel ratio, enrichment index). In cattle grazing treatment, N addition significantly increased total nematode abundance, and the abundance of bacterial feeders, plant feeders, and omnivore-predators, and generic richness. By contrast, in the sheep and mixed grazing treatments, N addition had a negative effect on the same variables. Moreover, N addition reduced nematode maturity, enrichment and structure indices, and enhanced nematode channel ratio, in most grazing treatments, except mixed grazing where N addition had no effect on these variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that N addition indirectly reduced nematode abundance and richness through increased soil NO3−-N content, whereas the effects of grazing were associated with increased relative biomass of grasses. Our results suggested that the response of soil nematodes to N addition strongly depended on herbivore assemblages. Nitrogen addition enhanced soil nematode diversity and maintained a relatively complex and mature soil food web in the presence of cattle rather than sheep grazing. Furthermore, our study highlighted that under N deposition, cattle grazing could benefit the soil nematode community

Effect of acupuncture on lung cancer-related fatigue: study protocol for a multi-center randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Fatigue is one of the primary symptoms in lung cancer, with a prevalence of 88.0% in survivors of cancer, and an even higher prevalence post resection surgery. Effective fatigue control after lung cancer surgery is important for patient recovery and quality of life. Some studies have shown that acupuncture might be effective in treating cancer-related fatigue; however, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of suitable sample size are limited. METHOD/DESIGN: This is a multi-center, patient-blinded RCT. A total of 320 eligible patients will be recruited in four centers and randomly assigned to either the acupuncture group or the sham acupuncture group in a 1:1 ratio. Treatment will be given twice per week for 12 sessions. Treatment will be given at acupoints GV20, GV29, CV12, CV6, CV4, and bilateral LI4, LR3, SP6, ST36. The primary outcome will be assessed using the Chinese version of The Brief Fatigue Inventory. The secondary outcomes will be measured using The European Organization for Research and The Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire, and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. The primary outcome will be assessed at all main points (baseline, the 3rd week, the 6th week, and at follow up time points) and the secondary outcomes will be assessed at baseline and the 6th week. Intention-to-treat analysis will be used in this RCT. DISCUSSION: This trial protocol provides an example of the clinical application acupuncture treatment in the management of lung cancer-related fatigue. If the acupuncture treatment protocol confirms that acupuncture is an effective and safe option for lung cancer-related fatigue, it can be adopted as a standardized treatment. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR1900022831. Registered on 27 April 2019. URL: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=37823