The simple analytics of optimal growth with illegal migrants

This paper analyses the impact of illegal migration on the optimal path of domestic (resident) consumption. The analysis draws two important conclusions. First, if illegal migrants and domestic labour are perfect substitutes, illegal migration necessarily lowers the long-run per capita consumption of domestic residents. Second, if illegal migrants and domestic labour are imperfect substitutes, the effect on the long-run per capita domestic consumption is ambiguous, however, in the Cobb–Douglas case, the result is clear cut and per capita domestic consumption rises as a result of illegal migration.

Operational experiences with rockbed storage systems

Many rockbed thermal storage systems were installed in solar homes and greenhouses in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. However, this technology appears to have waned in popularity since that time, although other storage options such as phase change materials are still not established alternatives. This paper re-evaluates rockbed storage technology, in the light of the experiences of users over the last 20 years. Of the 31 systems investigated, only seven were determined to be still working. There are a number of reasons for this, depending on the type and use of the system, which are discussed.

Critical operational management in international construction

The construction activities of a contractor may physically take place in the home country or overseas, and the latter, particularly of a large company, has an increasing proportion with the globalisation. Globalisation of the construction industry and its market is a trend in every country, Which increases the opportunities of both international construction, and competition or collaboration with foreign construction companies. International construction project management is undertaken in a complicated circumstance, and requires a synthetic management approach. This research aims to establish a primary framework for the critical operational management in achieving international construction projects in a novel construction market.

The conceptualisation of operational risk management models

Operational risk is evolving as a specialist field of risk management that must be practiced within all organisations, but currently has a particular relevance to banks. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has circulated a consultative paper which, if adopted by nation-state bank supervisors, will impose an operational risk capital charge on banks as part of a new Capital Accord. The definition of operational risk is wide-ranging and creates some unique issues related to the development of appropriate risk management models. This paper conceptualises two distinct operational risk management models; being a predictive model that will result in a known outcome upon its implementation, and a pre-emptive operational risk management model which prepares an organisation in the event that a future risk occurrence results in a disruption to critical business operations.

Impetus to explore: approaching operational deficiency optimistically

‘Impetus to explore’ is studied through post-lesson video-stimulated student interviews. This impetus focuses ‘spontaneous’ decisions to explore unfamiliar mathematics. Uncertainty, quests for elegance and curiosity have been found to contribute to this impetus. This study identified other contributing factors: inability to undertake the teacher’s task, ‘optimistic explanatory style’ (Seligman, 1995), and identifying relevant complexities (Williams, 2002). Explanatory style affects how a person perceives successes and failures. Enactment of optimism in this study illuminated its role in creating an impetus to explore. Re-conceptualising ‘operational deficiency’ (Chen & Siegler, 2000) to include absence of resources to undertake a task illuminated a task design feature that can increase exploration.

Customer analytics and marketing research : antithesis and synthesis

Customer Analytics provide a new type of marketing knowledge in terms of modelling past and present customer behaviour. This paper considers how such knowledge might fit with more traditional Marketing Research. Considerable overlap in the knowledge-based capability of the two functions suggests a need for rationalisation, especially where organisational relationships lead to conflict over the resources assigned to each. Nine testable propositions are developed which suggest that a synthesis of these knowledge-based functions should, in fact, enhance the marketing capability and success of the firm.

The conceptualisation of operational risk management models

Operational risk is evolving as a specialist field of risk management that must be practiced within all organisations, but currently has a particular relevance to banks. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has circulated a consultative paper which, if adopted by nation-state bank supervisors, will impose an operational risk capital charge on banks as part of a new Capital Accord. The definition of operational risk is wide-ranging and creates some unique issues related to the development of appropriate risk management models. This paper conceptualises two distinct operational risk management models; being a predictive model that will result in a known outcome upon its implementation, and a pre-emptive operational risk management model which prepares an organisation in the event that a future risk occurrence results in a disruption to critical business operations.

Marketing research and customer analytics : interfunctional knowledge integration

The Customer Analytics (CA) function is increasingly leveraged for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), however it may lack the value of marketing knowledge available from the Marketing Research (MR) function due to inadequate interfunctional knowledge integration. This paper develops a set of sixteen propositions from a synthesis of the marketing and knowledge management literatures relating key organisational influences on the integration of knowledge between the MR and CA functions. A range of strategic, cultural, structural and technical influences is reflected by the propositions. It is planned to test the propositions in future empirical research.

An operational approach to validate the path of BGP

BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is a fundamental component of the current Internet infrastructure. However, BGP is vulnerable to a variety of attacks, since it cannot ensure the authenticity of the path attributes announced by BGP routers. Despite several solutions have been proposed to address this vulnerability, none of them is operational in real-world due to their immense impact on original BGP. In this paper, we propose a Deployable Path Validation Authentication scheme, which can effectively validate the path of BGP. Through analysis and simulation we show that this scheme has little impact on the performance and memory usage for the original BGP, and can be adopted in practice as an operational approach.

Integration of market research and customer analytics : a study of CRM manager perspectives

The study examined key relationships between two overlapping customer knowledge systems, Market Research (MR) and Customer Analytics (CA). Their integration can provide valuable new marketing insights. However a survey of 286 US CRM and CA managers showed that many companies do not fully integrate MR and CA. Organisations with a Prospector strategic orientation were more likely to integrate the two and judge the CA system a success. Trust between the two functions enhanced knowledge integration. This in turn was shown to make a strong contribution to the value of CA and a modest indirect contribution to firm success.