New Results Concerning Probability Distributions with Increasing Generalized Failure Rates

The generalized failure rate of a continuous random variable has demonstrable importance in operations management. If the valuation distribution of a product has an increasing generalized failure rate (that is, the distribution is IGFR), then the associated revenue function is unimodal, and when the generalized failure rate is strictly increasing, the global maximum is uniquely specified. The assumption that the distribution is IGFR is thus useful and frequently held in recent pricing, revenue, and supply chain management literature. This note contributes to the IGFR literature in several ways. First, it investigates the prevalence of the IGFR property for the left and right truncations of valuation distributions. Second, we extend the IGFR notion to discrete distributions and contrast it with the continuous distribution case. The note also addresses two errors in the previous IGFR literature. Finally, for future reference, we analyze all common (continuous and discrete) distributions for the prevalence of the IGFR property, and derive and tabulate their generalized failure rates.

Psychological Sense of Community: A New Construct for the Field of Management

This article introduces a new construct to the field of management called Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC). This is important because management scholars are calling for the creation of communities in organizations in an environment that lacks appropriate construct development. The aims of this article are threefold: (a) develop a working definition of PSOC via a review of the extant literature on PSOC from other disciplines with the goal of translating it into the domain of management, (b) synthesize findings from parallel literatures on the outcomes of PSOC with an eye toward exploring the relevance of such outcomes in management contexts, and (c) assess the value of PSOC as it relates to its uniqueness in relation to other prominent management constructs and its scope of applicability in a variety of management inquiry areas.