Report of the Committee of the Senate of Georgia to His Excellency Joseph E. Brown.

Letter of transmittal to Gov. Brown dated and signed: Macon, Ga., July 26, 1858. Thos. P. Stubbs, Chairman, Sen. Committee.

Annual Report

1889/90-1941 are called 10th-62nd Annual Reports

Annual Report

Includes also reports of affiliated companies, e.g., Fort Worth and Denver Railway Company

Northern Vermont /

Mode of access: Internet.

Proceedings of the late Rail-road Commission /

NUC pre-1956

Lakes & streams of New England with some bits of land that charm.

Mode of access: Internet.

Select orations of Cicero

Mode of access: Internet.

GOVERNANÇA CORPORATIVA E ÍNDICE DE SUSTENTABILIDADE EMPRESARIAL: UMA ANÁLISE DO VALOR DAS AÇÕES

A Governança Corporativa, que surge com uma superação ao conflito de agência, exige dentre seus princípios que as organizações adotem uma estrutura que proteja os direitos dos acionistas e assegure a divulgação e a transparência de fatos relevantes e suas demonstrações contábeis. No Brasil, em 2000, a BM&FBOVESPA criou níveis diferenciados de Governança Corporativa a fim de estimular o interesse de investidores e auxiliar na valorização das empresas que podem aderir voluntariamente a um dos segmentos. Juntamente à preocupação quanto às boas práticas de governança, existe outra questão altamente importante e preocupante que se refere à sustentabilidade. Cada vez mais investidores buscam empresas que atuam sob os princípios do Triple Bottom Line, o qual abrange elementos das esferas ambientais, sociais e econômicas, como uma forma de segurança para seus investimentos. Em 2005, foi criado o Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE), pela BM&FBOVESPA, como uma referência nas boas práticas de sustentabilidade e comprometimento das empresas com a sustentabilidade empresarial. Neste contexto, este estudo visa verificar se existem diferenças entre as médias dos retornos mensais das ações, no período de cinco anos antes e após a sua adesão à Governança Corporativa e ao Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial. O método utilizado para testar as hipóteses das três amostras selecionadas foi o Paired-Samples T Test, por meio do software SPSS, versão 18.0. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que, no caso das amostras do ISE (p= 0,006 < 0,05) e GC_ISE (p= 0,030 < 0,05) a hipótese nula é rejeitada, pois existe diferença significativa entre as médias dos retornos mensais e no caso da amostra de GC (p= 0,081 > 0,05) a hipótese nula não é rejeitada, pois não existe diferença significativa entre estas médias. Analisando os valores das médias é possível perceber que a maioria delas sofre queda no segundo momento de análise, apesar disso não é possível generalizar afirmando que a Governança Corporativa e o Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial não agregam valor às empresas e aos acionistas. Isto porque o momento econômico analisado coincide com a crise financeira do subprime, que atingiu as principais bolsas de valores do mundo e influenciou fortemente as ações na BM&FBovespa, principalmente em 2008.

AS RELAÇÕES ENTRE INTELIGÊNCIA EMOCIONAL E BEM-ESTAR NO TRABALHO

Estudos em ambiente laboral acerca do comportamento humano e saúde no trabalho, bem como a melhor forma de se aplicar as competências e habilidades do trabalhador, vêm ganhando maior corpo devido à crescente busca por melhores resultados organizacionais, ao aumento da competitividade no mercado e à necessidade empresarial de atingir melhor desempenho de suas equipes. Gestores procuram por recursos e inovações a fim de tornar possível o alcance das metas organizacionais. Empregados mais capacitados, satisfeitos e envolvidos com seu trabalho são também aqueles que têm maior comprometimento afetivo com a organização. Para a empresa, isto pode significar um aumento da produtividade, o rebaixamento do número de absenteísmo e turnover. A dimensão saúde no trabalho ganha relevância porque bem-estar no trabalho significa também empregado mais feliz, com menor probabilidade de adoecimento físico, psíquico ou moral, reduzindo custos relativos à restituição da saúde do trabalhador. Por outro lado, estudo realizado sobre a inteligência emocional em gestores sugere que pessoas com alto nível deste tipo de inteligência são capazes de ter relacionamentos mais profundos e constituir uma rede social mais segura, ajudar os outros de seu grupo, bem como desenvolver uma liderança onde se possa construir uma equipe coesa e uma comunicação mais efetiva com os outros e levar a cabo planos estratégicos empresariais com mais eficiência. Este estudo teve como objetivo geral analisar as relações entre as habilidades da inteligência emocional e as dimensões de bem-estar no trabalho. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma empresa do setor de plásticos e metalurgia, em uma amostra constituída por 386 participantes dos sexos masculino e feminino, com faixa etária entre 18 e 58 anos. Foi utilizado para a coleta de dados um questionário composto de quatro escalas que mediram os três componentes de bem-estar no trabalho e as habilidades da inteligência emocional. Os resultados do estudo revelaram que apenas três habilidades da inteligência emocional tiveram correlações significativas com as dimensões de bem-estar no trabalho: empatia, sociabilidade e automotivação. Foram observadas correlações mais significativas entre sociabilidade e bem-estar no trabalho. Portanto, o bem-estar no trabalho parece associar-se às habilidades intelectuais e emocionais dos trabalhadores de serem empáticos, manterem-se automotivados e, especialmente, de estabelecerem e conservarem suas amizades (sociabilidade)

Optimization of physical distribution problem in logistics management

Physical distribution plays an imporant role in contemporary logistics management. Both satisfaction level of of customer and competitiveness of company can be enhanced if the distribution problem is solved optimally. The multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP) belongs to a practical logistics distribution problem, which consists of three critical issues: customer assignment, customer routing, and vehicle sequencing. According to the literatures, the solution approaches for the MDVRP are not satisfactory because some unrealistic assumptions were made on the first sub-problem of the MDVRP, ot the customer assignment problem. To refine the approaches, the focus of this paper is confined to this problem only. This paper formulates the customer assignment problem as a minimax-type integer linear programming model with the objective of minimizing the cycle time of the depots where setup times are explicitly considered. Since the model is proven to be MP-complete, a genetic algorithm is developed for solving the problem. The efficiency and effectiveness of the genetic algorithm are illustrated by a numerical example.

Editorial

This special issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society is dedicated to papers on the related subjects of knowledge management and intellectual capital. These subjects continue to generate considerable interest amongst both practitioners and academics. This issue demonstrates that operational researchers have many contributions to offer to the area, especially by bringing multi-disciplinary, integrated and holistic perspectives. The papers included are both theoretical as well as practical, and include a number of case studies showing how knowledge management has been implemented in practice that may assist other organisations in their search for a better means of managing what is now recognised as a core organisational activity. It has been accepted by a growing number of organisations that the precise handling of information and knowledge is a significant factor in facilitating their success but that there is a challenge in how to implement a strategy and processes for this handling. It is here, in the particular area of knowledge process handling that we can see the contributions of operational researchers most clearly as is illustrated in the papers included in this journal edition. The issue comprises nine papers, contributed by authors based in eight different countries on five continents. Lind and Seigerroth describe an approach that they call team-based reconstruction, intended to help articulate knowledge in a particular organisational. context. They illustrate the use of this approach with three case studies, two in manufacturing and one in public sector health care. Different ways of carrying out reconstruction are analysed, and the benefits of team-based reconstruction are established. Edwards and Kidd, and Connell, Powell and Klein both concentrate on knowledge transfer. Edwards and Kidd discuss the issues involved in transferring knowledge across frontières (borders) of various kinds, from those borders within organisations to those between countries. They present two examples, one in distribution and the other in manufacturing. They conclude that trust and culture both play an important part in facilitating such transfers, that IT should be kept in a supporting role in knowledge management projects, and that a staged approach to this IT support may be the most effective. Connell, Powell and Klein consider the oft-quoted distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge, and argue that such a distinction is sometimes unhelpful. They suggest that knowledge should rather be regarded as a holistic systemic property. The consequences of this for knowledge transfer are examined, with a particular emphasis on what this might mean for the practice of OR Their view of OR in the context of knowledge management very much echoes Lind and Seigerroth's focus on knowledge for human action. This is an interesting convergence of views given that, broadly speaking, one set of authors comes from within the OR community, and the other from outside it. Hafeez and Abdelmeguid present the nearest to a 'hard' OR contribution of the papers in this special issue. In their paper they construct and use system dynamics models to investigate alternative ways in which an organisation might close a knowledge gap or skills gap. The methods they use have the potential to be generalised to any other quantifiable aspects of intellectual capital. The contribution by Revilla, Sarkis and Modrego is also at the 'hard' end of the spectrum. They evaluate the performance of public–private research collaborations in Spain, using an approach based on data envelopment analysis. They found that larger organisations tended to perform relatively better than smaller ones, even though the approach used takes into account scale effects. Perhaps more interesting was that many factors that might have been thought relevant, such as the organisation's existing knowledge base or how widely applicable the results of the project would be, had no significant effect on the performance. It may be that how well the partnership between the collaborators works (not a factor it was possible to take into account in this study) is more important than most other factors. Mak and Ramaprasad introduce the concept of a knowledge supply network. This builds on existing ideas of supply chain management, but also integrates the design chain and the marketing chain, to address all the intellectual property connected with the network as a whole. The authors regard the knowledge supply network as the natural focus for considering knowledge management issues. They propose seven criteria for evaluating knowledge supply network architecture, and illustrate their argument with an example from the electronics industry—integrated circuit design and fabrication. In the paper by Hasan and Crawford, their interest lies in the holistic approach to knowledge management. They demonstrate their argument—that there is no simple IT solution for organisational knowledge management efforts—through two case study investigations. These case studies, in Australian universities, are investigated through cultural historical activity theory, which focuses the study on the activities that are carried out by people in support of their interpretations of their role, the opportunities available and the organisation's purpose. Human activities, it is argued, are mediated by the available tools, including IT and IS and in this particular context, KMS. It is this argument that places the available technology into the knowledge activity process and permits the future design of KMS to be improved through the lessons learnt by studying these knowledge activity systems in practice. Wijnhoven concentrates on knowledge management at the operational level of the organisation. He is concerned with studying the transformation of certain inputs to outputs—the operations function—and the consequent realisation of organisational goals via the management of these operations. He argues that the inputs and outputs of this process in the context of knowledge management are different types of knowledge and names the operation method the knowledge logistics. The method of transformation he calls learning. This theoretical paper discusses the operational management of four types of knowledge objects—explicit understanding; information; skills; and norms and values; and shows how through the proposed framework learning can transfer these objects to clients in a logistical process without a major transformation in content. Millie Kwan continues this theme with a paper about process-oriented knowledge management. In her case study she discusses an implementation of knowledge management where the knowledge is centred around an organisational process and the mission, rationale and objectives of the process define the scope of the project. In her case they are concerned with the effective use of real estate (property and buildings) within a Fortune 100 company. In order to manage the knowledge about this property and the process by which the best 'deal' for internal customers and the overall company was reached, a KMS was devised. She argues that process knowledge is a source of core competence and thus needs to be strategically managed. Finally, you may also wish to read a related paper originally submitted for this Special Issue, 'Customer knowledge management' by Garcia-Murillo and Annabi, which was published in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society, 53(8), 875–884.

The public health role of community pharmacies

This article describes the experience of developing an enhanced public health role for a community pharmacy in the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham. It shows that the neighbourhood-based regeneration context of Castle Vale has created a stimulating setting for an ambitious and innovative pharmacy company to demonstrate what might be possible on a much wider scale in the UK. A core ethos of the Castle Vale regeneration initiative has been public-private partnership and this project reveals some 'critical success factors' for on-the-ground achievement.

Business implications of manufacturing innovation : the experience of increasing automation in smaller to medium sized companies.

Despite the considerable potential of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) for improving the economic performance of many firms, a growing body of literature highlights many instances where realising this potential has proven to be a more difficult task than initially envisaged. Focussing upon the implementation of new manufacturing technologies in several smaller to medium sized enterprises (SME), the research examines the proposition that many of these problems can be attributed in part to inadequate consideration of the integrated nature of such technologies, where the effects of their implementation are not localised, but are felt throughout a business. The criteria for the economic evaluation of such technologies are seen as needing to reflect this, and the research develops an innovative methodology employing micro-computer based spreadsheets, to demonstrate how a series of financial models can be used to quantify the effects of new investments upon overall company performance. Case studies include: the development of a prototype machine based absorption costing system to assist in the evaluation of CNC machine tool purchases in a press making company; the economics and strategy of introducing a flexible manufacturing system for the production of ballscrews; and analysing the progressive introduction of computer based printing presses in a packaging and general print company. Complementary insights are also provided from discussion with the management of several other companies which have experienced technological change. The research was conducted as a collaborative CASE project in the Interdisciplinary Higher Degrees Scheme and was jointly funded by the SERC and Gaydon Technology Limited and later assisted by PE-Inbucon. The findings of the research shows that the introduction of new manufacturing technologies usually requires a fundamental rethink of the existing practices of a business. In particular, its implementation is seen as ideally needing to take place as part of a longer term business and manufacturing strategy, but that short term commercial pressures and limited resources often mean that firms experience difficulty in realising this. The use of a spreadsheet based methodology is shown to be of considerable assistance in evaluating new investments, and is seen as being the limit of sophistication that a smaller business is willing to employ. Several points for effective modelling practice are also given, together with an outline of the context in which a modelling approach is most applicable.

The process of strategic change:a management perspective

This thesis is concerned with the management processes concerned with complex strategic decision in organisations. The research has sought to explore these processes by taking as its focus the reconstruction of decision processes a) on the basis of an historical study of an industry and in particular a major company in that industry; and b) the perception and understanding of strategic decision processes and change by managers involved in companies in that industry. The main body of analysis and theoretical contributions arise from the detailed analysis of extended depth interviews with managers carried out in 1980 and 1983 which trace thirteen years of the strategic development of a firm. In so doing, extensive use is made of verbatim accounts by managers of events and their interpretation of events. This is then compared with data gathered from.similar interviews with managers of two other companies and examined in the light of existing research and theory in the field. The thesis both provides a detailed insight into the processes associated with the identification and resolution of complex strategic issues and also generates a body of theory concerning the mechanisms by which strategic decisions and the processes of strategic change are interwoven with the cultural and political fabric of organisations. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the background to the research, provid1ng a fuller summary of the purpose, structure and content of the thesis and a discussion of relevant previous research and the methodology employed herein. The second part mainly provides case studies of the industry and the main company studied. The third part is a detailed presentation and analysis of data. The fourth part is a synthesis of the findings and consolidation of the theoretical interpretation advanced in the thesis.

Unilever as a "multi-local" multinational 1945-1979

Explores the opportunities and threats to Unilever's global business in 1978 based on the commercial and political challenges faced by three of its subsidiaries, Lever Brothers in the United States, Hindustan Lever in India, and United Africa Company in West Africa. Management faced several problems: criticism of multinational companies, anti-trust legislation, expropriations, and rising competition from international and local rivals. Focuses on developing a new global strategy for a company that placed a premium on a consensual management style and local autonomy.