Influence of nanosecond microwave pulses on the level of cortycosterone

This article describes experimental data on 30 nonlinear rats exposed to microwave radiation at frequencies 8, 13, 16 and 22 pulse per second (pps) in order to record corticosteron changes as an indicator of stress in rodent blood. During the experiment, it was found that the most significant increase is observed at frequencies 13, 16 pps and at 22, 8 pps a decrease and a slight increase in corticosteron were recorded respectively

Evolution: Complexity, uncertainty and innovation

Complexity science provides a general mathematical basis for evolutionary thinking. It makes us face the inherent, irreducible nature of uncertainty and the limits to knowledge and prediction. Complex, evolutionary systems work on the basis of on-going, continuous internal processes of exploration, experimentation and innovation at their underlying levels. This is acted upon by the level above, leading to a selection process on the lower levels and a probing of the stability of the level above. This could either be an organizational level above, or the potential market place. Models aimed at predicting system behaviour therefore consist of assumptions of constraints on the micro-level – and because of inertia or conformity may be approximately true for some unspecified time. However, systems without strong mechanisms of repression and conformity will evolve, innovate and change, creating new emergent structures, capabilities and characteristics. Systems with no individual freedom at their lower levels will have predictable behaviour in the short term – but will not survive in the long term. Creative, innovative, evolving systems, on the other hand, will more probably survive over longer times, but will not have predictable characteristics or behaviour. These minimal mechanisms are all that are required to explain (though not predict) the co-evolutionary processes occurring in markets, organizations, and indeed in emergent, evolutionary communities of practice. Some examples will be presented briefly

Living with offshoring: The impact of offshoring on the evolution of organizational configurations

Offshoring allows firms to pursue greater flexibility at lower costs, but it also presents major structural and managerial challenges. Adopting the activity configuration perspective, we argue that offshoring creates tensions between benefits to the competitive position of the firm, and potential disruption to the cohesion and consistency of the organization's internal activity configuration. We further argue that both benefits and risks increase as organizations move from offshoring low to offshoring high value-creating activities, and as they seek tight as opposed to loose couplings among offshored and onshored value-creating activities. Our research site is the UK operations of Tiscali, a European telecommunications firm. We examine how Tiscali uses offshoring as it grows and expands its service offerings from single, to double, and then triple play, and also analyze how Tiscali addresses the ensuing disruption to its activity configuration. We conclude with implications of our study to future research on offshoring

Why Focus? A Study Of Intra-Industry Focus Effects

In an intra-industry setting, firm-focus is found to be positively correlated with the ability of firms to produce high-value products, while the overall effect of focus on firm performance is negative due to missed demand externalities generated by a broad product offering. In particular, it is shown that U.S. mutual funds that belong to more focused fund providers outperform similar funds offered by more diversified providers. An explanation based on alignment among a provider\u27s activities is consistent with this result. Cash inflows into fund providers—a measure related to fund provider profitability—is, however, negatively correlated with focus in fund offerings

Misperceiving Interactions Among Complements and Substitutes: Organizational Consequences

Systems composed of activity choices that interact in nonsimple ways can allow firms to create and sustain a competitive advantage. However, in complex systems, decision makers may not always have a precise understanding of the exact strength of the interaction between activities. Likewise, incentive and accounting systems may lead decision makers to ignore or misperceive interactions. This paper studies formally the consequences of misperceiving interaction effects between activity choices. Our results suggest that misperceptions with respect to complements are more costly than with respect to substitutes. As a result, firms should optimally invest more to gather information about interactions among complementary activities—e.g., concerning network effects—than about interactions among substitute activities. Similarly, the use of division-based incentive schemes appears to be more advisable for divisions whose products are substitutes than for divisions that produce complements. It is further shown that system fragility is not necessarily positively correlated with the strength ofthe interaction between choices. While systems of complements become increasingly fragile as the strength of interaction increases, systems of substitutes can become increasingly stable

The ‘T-Shaped Buyer’: a transactional perspective on supply chain relationships

This paper challenges the normative view of interdependent buyer-seller relationships and provides a more holistic perspective of the contextual reality that shapes buyer behaviour. By proposing an innovative qualitative methodology, which focusses on boundary-spanning, pre-sales interactions, the research penetrates complex and commercially sensitive buyer-seller relationships. The longitudinal research design uses web-based diaries and follow-up interviews to explore conditions of power based interdependence between buyers and sellers. The ensuing data is mapped using qualitative content analysis and the results are aggregated graphically for assessment. Using this approach the study develops a nuanced view of the dominant patterns of buyer behaviour, and challenges the opinion that a search for competitive advantage will strengthen cooperative relationships in conditions of power based interdependence. The paper introduces the metaphor of the 'T-Shaped Buyer' to explain the empirical findings and, while acknowledging the contextual limits of the study, suggests that this metaphor may cause both academics and practitioners to reflect on normative thinking