The Impact of Complexity, Rate of Change and Information Availability on the Production Planning and Control Structure

The organizational theory literature argues that the more uncertain the environment, the more likely the firm’s operational decision structure is decentralized. However, it remains unclear which uncertainty dimensions (i.e. complexity, rate of change and lack of information) impacts the production planning and control structure the most given today’s turbulent manufacturing environments. Based on 206 responses from medium sized Dutch discrete parts manufacturing firms, this study retests the impact of these uncertainty dimensions. This study indicates that each dimension of uncertainty affects the production planning and control structure in a different way. In general, complexity, rate of change and lack of information result in a decentralization of the operational planning and control decision structure, but at the same time a centralization of the customer-order processing decision structure.empirical research method;production planning and control structure;structural equations model;uncertainty

The impact of innovation and organizational factors on APS adoption: Evidence from the Dutch discrete parts industry

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems have gained renewed interest from academics and practitioners. However, literature on APS adoption is scant. This study explores the impact of organizational and innovation related factors on the adoption of APS systems from a factors approach. The results from our field survey of 136 Dutch discrete manufacturing firms, show that management support, cost of purchase, number of end-products, and the value that firms attach to other users’ opinions are key-factors that directly influence the adoption of APS systems. In addition, professionalism, external communications, and innovation experience indirectly influence APS adoption.innovation;impact;advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems;causal model;factors research;organizational context

Taking care together:a dual key worker approach for families experiencing complex and multiple problems

Families experiencing complex and multiple problems often participate in family-focused services. Studies have shown that children often have poor outcomes and only participate to a limited extent in these services. To improve care for children growing up in families experiencing complex problems, some studies have suggested the use of a dual key worker approach. In this approach combined services are provided by a family-focused professional and a child-focused professional. In this study we investigated such an approach in the Netherlands, combining the family-focused programme Ten for the Future and the child-focused programme Child and Youth Coaching. The study shows that child and youth coaches are able to promote participation of children in care. However, for some groups (e.g. very young children, unmotivated children) realising participation was more challenging. Furthermore, a lack of disclosure about the family situation makes it more challenging to adapt services to the needs of children. Overall, most children were positive about the help they received. They emphasised the personal and long-term approach was helpful in building trust and realising change. This findings in this study suggest that children participating in the dual key worker approach improve their psychosocial skills. However, children still experienced considerable emotional and behavioural problems at case closure. Although the demarcation of the target group and the treatment of behavioural problems can be improved, this study shows Child and Youth Coaching is a promising programme for improving psychosocial skills and participation of children

Social Dilemmas as Exchange Dilemmas

We develop a new paradigm to study social dilemmas, called exchange dilemmas. Exchange dilemmas arise from externalities of exchanges with third parties, and many real-life social dilemmas are more accurately modeled as exchange dilemmas rather than prisoner's dilemmas. Bulding on focusing and framing research we predict that defection is omnipresent in exchange dilemmas, which is corroborated in to very different experiments. Our results suggest that the fundamental problem of cooperation in many real-life social dilemmas may be more severe and harder to solve than suggested by traditional prisoner's dilemma research, due to the presence of third parties. Directions for future research are suggested, focusing on relations with third parties

A New Methodology for Multiscale Myocardial Deformation and Strain Analysis Based on Tagging MRI

Myocardial deformation and strain can be investigated using suitably encoded cine MRI that admits disambiguation of material motion. Practical limitations currently restrict the analysis to in-plane motion in cross-sections of the heart (2D + time), but the proposed method readily generalizes to 3D + time. We propose a new, promising methodology, which departs from a multiscale algorithm that exploits local scale selection so as to obtain a robust estimate for the velocity gradient tensor field. Time evolution of the deformation tensor is governed by a first-order ordinary differential equation, which is completely determined by this velocity gradient tensor field. We solve this matrix-ODE analytically and present results obtained from healthy volunteers as well as from patient data. The proposed method requires only off-the-shelf algorithms and is readily applicable to planar or volumetric tagging MRI sampled on arbitrary coordinate grids

An empirical Kaiser criterion

In exploratory factor analysis (EFA), most popular methods for dimensionality assessment such as the screeplot, the Kaiser criterion, or—the current gold standard—parallel analysis, are based on eigenvalues of the correlation matrix. To further understanding and development of factor retention methods, results on population and sample eigenvalue distributions are introduced based on random matrix theory and Monte Carlo simulations. These results are used to develop a new factor retention method, the Empirical Kaiser Criterion. The performance of the Empirical Kaiser Criterion and parallel analysis is examined in typical research settings, with multiple scales that are desired to be relatively short, but still reliable. Theoretical and simulation results illustrate that the new Empirical Kaiser Criterion performs as well as parallel analysis in typical research settings with uncorrelated scales, but much better when scales are both correlated and short. We conclude that the Empirical Kaiser Criterion is a powerful and promising factor retention method, because it is based on distribution theory of eigenvalues, shows good performance, is easily visualized and computed, and is useful for power analysis and sample size planning for EF

The service concept – a missing link in lean for services

This paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature on lean implementation for services by examining how the relation between lean implementation and operational performance improvement is moderated by the degree of service concept diffusion. The effect of explicit service concept diffusion on the outcome of lean implementation processes is tested by a sample of 153 respondents from Dutch service organizations. By means of hierarchical regression analysis this research shows that lean implementation in service organizations with an explicit and widely disseminated service concept positively affects organizational performance. Additionally, it is found that the moderating influence of service concept diffusion on performance improvement is especially apparent in case of explicit presence and a clearly disseminated service concept or an explicitly absent and unclear service concept. These results are corroborated by the finding that lean implementation in service environments without the moderating influence of service concept diffusion does not result in enhanced organizational performance. Finally, the positive sole effect of a disseminated service concept on organizational performance is empirically corroborated. These findings show the importance of clarity on what is expected of employee- and improvement specialist’s involvement in terms of goals, roles, responsibilities and activities with respect to the service concept in service-based organizations. Having such clarity enhances their ability to make a meaningful contribution to improvement initiatives in lean implementations. Thereby, this research is the first to provide empirical evidence for explaining how employee involvement in service-based organizations can yield better lean implementation results.<br/