The Bison: 1961

This digital object was funded in part through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The digitalization of this object was part of a collaborative effort with the Washington Research Library Consortium and George Washington University.

The Bison: 1963

This digital object was funded in part through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The digitalization of this object was part of a collaborative effort with the Washington Research Library Consortium and George Washington University.

The Bison: 1956

This digital object was funded in part through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The digitalization of this object was part of a collaborative effort with the Washington Research Library Consortium and George Washington University.

The Bison: 1925

This digital object was funded in part through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The digitalization of this object was part of a collaborative effort with the Washington Research Library Consortium and George Washington University.

Resource-allocation capabilities of commercial project management software. An experimental analysis

When project managers determine schedules for resource-constrained projects, they commonly use commercial project management software packages. Which resource-allocation methods are implemented in these packages is proprietary information. The resource-allocation problem is in general computationally difficult to solve to optimality. Hence, the question arises if and how various project management software packages differ in quality with respect to their resource-allocation capabilities. None of the few existing papers on this subject uses a sizeable data set and recent versions of common software packages. We experimentally analyze the resource-allocation capabilities of Acos Plus.1, AdeptTracker Professional, CS Project Professional, Microsoft Office Project 2007, Primavera P6, Sciforma PS8, and Turbo Project Professional. Our analysis is based on 1560 instances of the precedence- and resource-constrained project scheduling problem RCPSP. The experiment shows that using the resource-allocation feature of these packages may lead to a project duration increase of almost 115% above the best known feasible schedule. The increase gets larger with increasing resource scarcity and with increasing number of activities. We investigate the impact of different complexity scenarios and priority rules on the project duration obtained by the software packages. We provide a decision table to support managers in selecting a software package and a priority rule.

Student2Student als Organisationsmodell für die Entwicklung von E-Learning-Ressourcen

Die E-Learning-Plattform VBA@HfTL unterstützt das Erlernen von grundlegenden Programmierkonzepten mithilfe der Programmiersprache Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Diese Plattform wurde von Studierenden für Studierende der Fachrichtung Wirtschaftsinformatik entwickelt, so dass ein Student2Student (S2S)-Ansatz umgesetzt wurde. Der Beitrag führt die konzeptionellen Grundlagen dieses Ansatzes ein und erläutert die organisatorischen sowie technischen Rahmenbedingungen des Entwicklungsprojekts als Forschungsfallstudie. Das Projektergebnis zeigt, dass Studierende selbstorganisiert E-Learning-Ressourcen entwickeln und sich dabei interdisziplinäre Fachinhalte der Wirtschaftsinformatik aneignen können. Die resultierende E-Learning-Plattform liefert aufgrund der hohen Resonanz nicht nur einen wertvollen Beitrag zur Unterstützung von Lernprozessen in der Aus- und Weiterbildung, sondern bietet der Hochschule auch eine Möglichkeit zur Profilierung des Bildungsangebots im Rahmen der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit.

Old captains at the helm: chairman age and firm performance

This paper examines whether the chairmen of the boards (COBs) impose their life cycles on the firms over which they preside. Using a large sample of unlisted firms, we find a robust negative relation between COB age and firm performance. COBs age much like ‘ordinary’ people. Their cognitive abilities deteriorate, and they experience significant shifts in motivation. Deteriorating cognitive abilities are the main driver of the performance effect that we observe. The results imply that succession planning problems in unlisted firms are real. Mandatory retirement age clauses cannot solve these problems.

Risiken und Nebenwirkungen der gegenwärtigen Währungspolitik

Bis anhin verfolgt die SNB ihre Mindestkurspolitik souverän. Es gilt, die Risiken zu erkennen und sich auf deren Eintreten vorzubereiten. Eine veränderte Anlagestrategie könnte diese Risiken eindämmen. Eine Ausdehnung der Interventionen würde eine aktivere Rolle der SNB als Investorin bedingen.