Capturing strategy as an everyday practice:quantitative methodologies for analysing practice data

Few works address methodological issues of how to conduct strategy-as-practice research and even fewer focus on how to analyse the subsequent data in ways that illuminate strategy as an everyday, social practice. We address this gap by proposing a quantitative method for analysing observational data, which can complement more traditional qualitative methodologies. We propose that rigorous but context-sensitive coding of transcripts can render everyday practice analysable statistically. Such statistical analysis provides a means for analytically representing patterns and shifts within the mundane, repetitive elements through which practice is accomplished. We call this approach the Event Database (EDB) and it consists of five basic coding categories that help us capture the stream of practice. Indexing codes help to index or categorise the data, in order to give context and offer some basic information about the event under discussion. Indexing codes are descriptive codes, which allow us to catalogue and classify events according to their assigned characteristics. Content codes are to do with the qualitative nature of the event; this is the essence of the event. It is a description that helps to inform judgements about the phenomenon. Nature codes help us distinguish between discursive and tangible events. We include this code to acknowledge that some events differ qualitatively from other events. Type events are codes abstracted from the data in order to help us classify events based on their description or nature. This involves significantly more judgement than the index codes but consequently is also more meaningful. Dynamics codes help us capture some of the movement or fluidity of events. This category has been included to let us capture the flow of activity over time.

Implementing collaborative practices in the healthcare supply chain:insights into hospital-vendor operations

The paper discusses the characteristics of healthcare supply chains, and puts particular emphasis on the implementation of VMI/CMI in this sector specific context. By the means of case study research the paper provides empirical data on the benefits of the above collaborative practices for both the hospital and vendors. The paper contributes to the stream of research on VMI/CMI in the healthcare sector, where limited research attempts have been conducted so far. In contrast to other surveys this case study shows that specific and measurable cost reductions exist, in addition to other improvements such as better control over the inventories, and also in reduction of administrative work. Results obtained may be also relevant to other hospitals and vendors and as they can form a basis for comparisons. Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Indirect ties in knowledge networks:a social network analysis with ordered weighted averaging operators

This PhD thesis analyses networks of knowledge flows, focusing on the role of indirect ties in the knowledge transfer, knowledge accumulation and knowledge creation process. It extends and improves existing methods for mapping networks of knowledge flows in two different applications and contributes to two stream of research. To support the underlying idea of this thesis, which is finding an alternative method to rank indirect network ties to shed a new light on the dynamics of knowledge transfer, we apply Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) to two different network contexts. Knowledge flows in patent citation networks and a company supply chain network are analysed using Social Network Analysis (SNA) and the OWA operator. The OWA is used here for the first time (i) to rank indirect citations in patent networks, providing new insight into their role in transferring knowledge among network nodes; and to analyse a long chain of patent generations along 13 years; (ii) to rank indirect relations in a company supply chain network, to shed light on the role of indirectly connected individuals involved in the knowledge transfer and creation processes and to contribute to the literature on knowledge management in a supply chain. In doing so, indirect ties are measured and their role as means of knowledge transfer is shown. Thus, this thesis represents a first attempt to bridge the OWA and SNA fields and to show that the two methods can be used together to enrich the understanding of the role of indirectly connected nodes in a network. More specifically, the OWA scores enrich our understanding of knowledge evolution over time within complex networks. Future research can show the usefulness of OWA operator in different complex networks, such as the on-line social networks that consists of thousand of nodes.

Coding together at scale:GitHub as a collaborative social network

GitHub is the most popular repository for open source code (Finley 2011). It has more than 3.5 million users, as the company declared in April 2013, and more than 10 million repositories, as of December 2013. It has a publicly accessible API and, since March 2012, it also publishes a stream of all the events occurring on public projects. Interactions among GitHub users are of a complex nature and take place in different forms. Developers create and fork repositories, push code, approve code pushed by others, bookmark their favorite projects and follow other developers to keep track of their activities. In this paper we present a characterization of GitHub, as both a social network and a collaborative platform. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first quantitative study about the interactions happening on GitHub. We analyze the logs from the service over 18 months (between March 11, 2012 and September 11, 2013), describing 183.54 million events and we obtain information about 2.19 million users and 5.68 million repositories, both growing linearly in time. We show that the distributions of the number of contributors per project, watchers per project and followers per user show a power-law-like shape. We analyze social ties and repository-mediated collaboration patterns, and we observe a remarkably low level of reciprocity of the social connections. We also measure the activity of each user in terms of authored events and we observe that very active users do not necessarily have a large number of followers. Finally, we provide a geographic characterization of the centers of activity and we investigate how distance influences collaboration.

Losses, dividend reductions, and market reaction associated with past earnings and dividends patterns

This paper examines investors' reactions to dividend reductions or omissions conditional on past earnings and dividend patterns for a sample of eighty-two U.S. firms that incurred an annual loss. We document that the market reaction for firms with long patterns of past earnings and dividend payouts is significantly more negative than for firms with lessestablished past earnings and dividends records. Our results can be explained by the following line of reasoning. First, consistent with DeAngelo, DeAngelo, and Skinner (1992), a loss following a long stream of earnings and dividend payments represents an unreliable indicator of future earnings. Thus, established firms have higher loss reliability than less-established firms. Second, because current earnings and dividend policy are a substitute source of means of forecasting future earnings, lower loss reliability increases the information content of dividend reductions. Therefore, given the presence of a loss, the longer the stream of prior earnings and dividend payments, (1) the lower the loss reliability and (2) the more reliably dividend cuts are perceived as an indication that earnings difficulties will persist in the future.

Effects of the build-up and resetting of auditory stream segregation on temporal discrimination

The tendency to hear a tone sequence as 2 or more streams (segregated) builds up, but a sudden change in properties can reset the percept to 1 stream (integrated). This effect has not hitherto been explored using an objective measure of streaming. Stimuli comprised a 2.0-s fixed-frequency inducer followed by a 0.6-s test sequence of alternating pure tones (3 low [L]-high [H] cycles). Listeners compared intervals for which the test sequence was either isochronous or the H tones were slightly delayed. Resetting of segregation should make identifying the anisochronous interval easier. The HL frequency separation was varied (0-12 semitones), and properties of the inducer and test sequence were set to the same or different values. Inducer properties manipulated were frequency, number of onsets (several short bursts vs. one continuous tone), tone:silence ratio (short vs. extended bursts), level, and lateralization. All differences between the inducer and the L tones reduced temporal discrimination thresholds toward those for the no-inducer case, including properties shown previously not to affect segregation greatly. Overall, it is concluded that abrupt changes in a sequence cause resetting and improve subsequent temporal discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Auditory stream segregation of tone sequences in cochlear implant listeners

Previous claims that auditory stream segregation occurs in cochlear implant listeners are based on limited evidence. In experiment 1, eight listeners heard tones presented in a 30-s repeating ABA-sequence, with frequencies matching the centre frequencies of the implant's 22 electrodes. Tone A always stimulated electrode 11 (centre of the array); tone B stimulated one of the others. Tone repetition times (TRTs) from 50 to 200 ms were used. Listeners reported when they heard one or two streams. The proportion of time that each sequence was reported as segregated was consistently greater with increased electrode separation. However, TRT had no significant effect, and the perceptual reversals typical of normal-hearing listeners rarely occurred. The results may reflect channel discrimination rather than stream segregation. In experiment 2, six listeners performed a pitch-ranking task using tone pairs (reference = electrode 11). Listeners reported which tone was higher in pitch (or brighter in timbre) and their confidence in the pitch judgement. Similarities were observed in the individual pattern of results for reported segregation and pitch discrimination. Many implant listeners may show little or no sign of automatic stream segregation owing to the reduced perceptual space within which sounds can differ from one another. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of inducer continuity on auditory stream segregation:comparison of physical and perceived continuity in different contexts

The factors influencing the stream segregation of discrete tones and the perceived continuity of discrete tones as continuing through an interrupting masker are well understood as separate phenomena. Two experiments tested whether perceived continuity can influence the build-up of stream segregation by manipulating the perception of continuity during an induction sequence and measuring streaming in a subsequent test sequence comprising three triplets of low and high frequency tones (LHL-…). For experiment 1, a 1.2-s standard induction sequence comprising six 100-ms L-tones strongly promoted segregation, whereas a single extended L-inducer (1.1 s plus 100-ms silence) did not. Segregation was similar to that following the single extended inducer when perceived continuity was evoked by inserting noise bursts between the individual tones. Reported segregation increased when the noise level was reduced such that perceived continuity no longer occurred. Experiment 2 presented a 1.3-s continuous inducer created by bridging the 100-ms silence between an extended L-inducer and the first test-sequence tone. This configuration strongly promoted segregation. Segregation was also increased by filling the silence after the extended inducer with noise, such that it was perceived like a bridging inducer. Like physical continuity, perceived continuity can promote or reduce test-sequence streaming, depending on stimulus context.

Mechanisms of heat and mass transfer to and from single drops freely-suspended in an air stream

A specially-designed vertical wind tunnel was used to freely suspend individual liquid drops of 5 mm initial diameter to investigate drop dynamics, terminal velocity and heat and mass transfer rates. Droplets of distilled, de-ionised water, n-propanol, iso-butanol, monoethanolamine and heptane were studied over a temperature range of 50oC to 82oC. The effects of substances that may provide drop surface rigidity (e.g. surface active agents, binders and polymers) on mass transfer rates were investigated by doping distilled de-ionised water drops with sodium di-octyl sulfo-succinate surfactant. Mass transfer rates decreased with reduced drop oscillation as a result of surfactant addition, confirming the importance of droplet surface instability. Rigid naphthalene spheres and drops which formed a skin were also studied; the results confirmed the reduced transfer rates in the absence of drop fluidity. Following consideration of fundamental drop dynamics in air and experimental results from this study, a novel dimensionless group, the Oteng-Attakora, (OT), number was included in the mass transfer equation to account for droplet surface behaviour and for prediction of heat and mass transfer rates from single drops which exhibit surface instability at Re>=500. The OT number and the modified mass transfer equation are respectively: OT=(ava2/d).de1.5(d/) Sh = 2 + 0.02OT0.15Re0.88Sc0.33 Under all conditions drop terminal velocity increased linearly with the square root of drop diameter and the drag coefficient was 1. The data were correlated with a modified equation by Finlay as follows: CD=0.237.((Re/P0.13)1.55(1/We.P0.13) The relevance of the new model to practical evaporative spray processes is discussed.

Build-up and resetting of auditory stream segregation in quiet and in complex-tone backgrounds

Thirteen experiments investigated the dynamics of stream segregation. Experiments 1-6b used a similar method, where a same-frequency induction sequence (usually 10 repetitions of an identical pure tone) promoted segregation in a subsequent, briefer test sequence (of alternating low- and high-frequency tones). Experiments 1-2 measured streaming using a direct report of perception and a temporal-discrimination task, respectively. Creating a single deviant by altering the final inducer (e.g. in level or replacement with silence) reduced segregation, often substantially. As the prior inducers remained unaltered, it is proposed that the single change actively reset build-up. The extent of resetting varied gradually with the size of a frequency change, once noticeable (experiments 3a-3b). By manipulating the serial position of a change, experiments 4a-4b demonstrated that resetting only occurred when the final inducer was replaced with silence, as build-up is very rapid during a same-frequency induction sequence. Therefore, the observed resetting cannot be explained by fewer inducers being presented. Experiment 5 showed that resetting caused by a single deviant did not increase when prior inducers were made unpredictable in frequency (four-semitone range). Experiments 6a-6b demonstrated that actual and perceived continuity have a similar effect on subsequent streaming judgements promoting either integration or segregation, depending on listening context. Experiment 7 found that same-frequency inducers were considerably more effective at promoting segregation than an alternating-frequency inducer, and that a trend for deviant-tone resetting was only apparent for the same-frequency case. Using temporal-order judgments, experiments 8-9 demonstrated the stream segregation of pure-tone-like percepts, evoked by sudden changes in amplitude or interaural time difference for individual components of a complex tone, Active resetting was observed when a deviant was inserted into a sequence of these percepts (Experiment 10). Overall, these experiments offer new insight into the segregation-promotIng effect of induction sequences, and the factors which can reset this effect.

All-optical passive regeneration of 40 Gbit/s soliton data stream using dispersion management and in-line NOLMs

It is numerically demonstrated, for the first time, that dispersion management and in-line nonlinear optical loop mirrors can achieve all-optical passive regeneration and distance-unlimited transmission of a soliton data stream at 40 Gbit/s over standard fibre.

All-optical passive regeneration of 40 Gbit/s soliton data stream using dispersion-management and in-line nonlinear optical loop mirrors

We numerically demonstrate for the first time that dispersion management and in-line nonlinear optical loop mirrors can achieve all-optical passive regeneration and distance-unlimited transmission of a soliton data stream at 40 Gbit/s over standard fibre.

Differential effects of value consciousness and coupon proneness on consumers’ persuasion knowledge of pricing tactics

Pricing tactics persuasion knowledge (PTPK) is a relatively new concept that seeks to extend the research on persuasion knowledge to the pricing domain. Pricing tactics persuasion knowledge refers to the persuasion knowledge of consumers about marketers’ pricing tactics. Employing an acquisition–transaction utility theoretic perspective, this study examines the differential effects of value consciousness and coupon proneness on the accuracy, confidence, and calibration of consumers’ pricing tactics persuasion knowledge. The study finds that coupon proneness is negatively related to accuracy, confidence, and calibration of PTPK, while value consciousness is positively related to accuracy, confidence, and calibration of PTPK. The implications of the study are outlined.