Large-Scale Corruption: Definition,Causes, and Cures

Corruption is a social pathology. It has much the same effect on the development of a nation that cancer has on the life of a biological organism. Through a review of the literature, a definition of corruption is derived. Large-scale corruption is supported by power networks. In order to function and survive, power networks require five capabilities: economic, technical, political, physical, and ideological. Large-scale corruption is an emergent social process. The same governing factors that sustain large-scale corruption are in direct opposition to efforts to promote development. The history and evolution of a government agency for small farmers in a developing country are reviewed. While extracting wealth, corrupt power networks generated waste, reduced production, and caused acrimony on the part of the victims. For each dollar embezzled there was a resulting loss of $2.5. The corrupt networks reached such a level that the government had to disassemble the agencies. The ability to detect and neutralize corrupt networks is essential to development.     

Systems,Design, and Entrepreneurial Thinking: Comparative Frameworks

The philosophies of design thinking, entrepreneurial thinking, and systems thinking have widespread application in diverse fields. However, due to the inherently abstract rhetoric and lack of commonly accepted frameworks, these philosophies are often considered buzzwords and fads. This article deconstructs the rhetoric and literature from leaders of these three philosophies and identifies their fundamental tenets. A conceptual framework that captures the differences and convergences between design thinking, entrepreneurial thinking, and systems thinking is presented. A series of four case studies derived from diverse settings like healthcare, agriculture, and social networks further illustrate these interconnections. The article argues that the emergent integration of these philosophies, as captured in the fundamental tenets, presents the most compelling opportunities for the practical application of these theoretical frameworks.     

Multiple perspectives: Concept,applications, and user guidelines

The evolution of the multiple perspective approach and its range of applications over the past decade are reviewed. The traditional technical perspective of systems analysis is augmented with organizational and personal perspectives. The three types of perspectives have inherently different characteristics and properties. The applications show that each perspective yields insights on a system that are not attainable with the others. The organizational and personal perspectives also focus more attention on problems of implementation. The concept is serving as an effective and practical vehicle to overcome the limitations of systems analysis in dealing with complex real-world situations.     

Wisdom, ethics, and information technology: Some philosophical reflections

An increasing need is felt for wisdom and ethics in our technological society. This is especially the case in connection with information use and decision making. It is one thing to manipulate data and generate information with our new technologies but quite another thing to make proper use of it once we have got it. In the search for wisdom and ethics, one must be alert to the risk that we mold them into the dominating scientific-technological framework. The wisdom and ethics lose their normative power and enriching potential for our human lives. In exploring the traditions that stand at the cradle of our culture, this paper explains the specific character of the Hebrew/Christian view on wisdom and shows how this can contribute to the wise use of our new machines.     

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY,Beijing,China AF:Any Field

<正>The School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University(Tsinghua SEM) invites applications for faculty positions at all levels(Assistant Professor,Associate Professor and Full Professor) in any fields of business administration and management.Tsinghua SEM is the only school     

Control,organization, and accounting: A genealogy of modern knowledge-power

Much social scientizing tends to be ahistorical, particularly with regard to its fundamental terms and constructs, which are implicitly defined atemporally as simply “being there,” the givens of discourse. The history of two such terms, “control” and “organization,” is investigated here. In an elaboration of Foucault's idea of power-knowledge relations, a two-stage history of the terms is set out linked to the historical emergence of accounting. In the first stage, the initial invention of the terms in the thirteenth century is aligned with the contemporaneous invention of the doubleentry system, with all these innovations embodying a new power of writing. However the constructs only develop their modern significance as forms of knowledge-power at a much later stage, following the establishment of a “disciplinary” power-knowledge nexus post-1800. Under this interpretation, accounting, control, and organization, far from being ahistorical givens of discourse, are constructs which help establish the modern world of “disciplinary,” that site where the power of expert knowledge must operate.     

Evolutionary Stable Strategies for Supply Chains: Selfishness,Fairness, and Altruism

The management strategies of a firm are inevitable affected by individual behavior preferences. The effect of individual preference on the evolutionary dynamics for supply chains is studied by employing replicator dynamics. Each firm has three behavior preferences: selfishness, fairness, and altruism. Firstly, the case that the strategy set of manufacturers and retailers including two pure strategies is considered and the effect of preference parameter on the equilibrium outcome in the shortterm interaction is discussed. Secondly, the equilibrium state in the short-term is always disturbed because the change of the environment, firm's structure, and so forth. Using the replicator dynamics,the evolutionary stable strategies of manufacturers and retailers in the long-term interaction are analyzed. Finally, the extend case that the strategy set of manufacturers and retailers include three pure strategies is investigated. These results are found that the strategy profile in which both manufacturer and retailer choose fairness or altruism, or one player chooses fair or altruistic strategy and the other player chooses selfish strategy may be evolutionary stable, the stability of these equilibria depends on the the preference parameters.     

Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering,strategy, and heterogeneity

This paper describes the theory of the actor-network, a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects. The theory is distinctive because it insists that networks are materially heterogeneous and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social. Agents, texts, devices, architectures are all generated in, form part of, and are essential to, the networks of the social. And in the first instance, all should be analyzed in the same terms. Accordingly, in this view, the task of sociology is to characterize the ways in which materials join together to generate themselves and reproduce institutional and organizational patterns in the networks of the social.     

Hybrid Method: Review, Modularization and Application

1　IntroductionDuetothehighcostsofsurvey-basedmodelsandtheinherentinaccuracyofnon-surveymodels,hybridmodelsarebeingusedextensivelyinthepracticeofconstructingInput-Output(IO)tables.Thetrendtowardhybridmodelsisnatural.Hybridmodel,orcalledpartial-survey...     

IDEA: A Collaborative Organizational Design Process Integrating Innovation, Design, Engagement, and Action

This paper describes an innovative and successful 1-year organization change process. It captures a design-based inquiry that simultaneously applies creative, purposeful, and systemic thinking to a complex set of issues. Three significant findings result from this research. First, this paper discusses how the change process created the necessary and sufficient conditions allowing for the creation of an innovative organizational design that embeds both optimization and innovation. Second, Design Thinking was used to develop a 2-day participative design process we have called IDEA, an acronym for integrating innovation, design, engagement, and action. We believe that the IDEA organizational design process is replicable. Third, it describes an emergent and co-created change process. This paper concludes by raising questions for future transformative organizational design efforts.     

复杂脑网络研究进展——结构、功能、计算与应用

对复杂脑网络的研究现状进行综述性介绍。首先回顾复杂网络和脑网络的基本概念,然后分别介绍基于结构性连接、功能性连接、和因效性连接而建立的3种不同类型的脑网络,进一步讨论了关于结构性脑网络和功能性脑网络之间关系的研究,以及基于计算模型的脑网络研究,之后重点介绍复杂脑网络的两个重点应用,即在脑相关疾病和认知神经科学方面的研究现状,最后对脑网络的未来研究方向进行了讨论。     

Breaking the Monolith: Strategy,Variety, and Performance of Enterprise Information Systems

This paper intends to understand the form of implementations of Enterprise Information Systems (EISs). EISs are usually provided as packaged software products. Due to the diversities of implementations, EISs are often characterized by their system architectures. A conceptual framework is proposed to delineate the diversity and dynamics of EIS implementations. This framework is constituted of three components, EIS strategy, variety, and process-level performance (SVP). In particular, the variety of implementations is defined by two constructs, application scope and application depth. A Partial Least Squares structural equation modeling approach is applied to test the hypotheses according to the survey data from 223 project reports of EIS implementations in China. The results show that the EIS strategy and variety can both affect the performance of the implemented EISs. Specifically, application depth has an important mediating effect on the relationship between EIS strategy and performance. EIS strategy and application depth are breakthrough points to improve the performance of the implemented EISs. These findings suggest that the variety plays a central and effective role in the analysis of EIS implementations. This SVP framework highlights the interconnections among its components and captures the form of EIS implementations.     

Triple Task Method: Systemic, Reflective Action Research

This brief article introduces a new methodology for systemic action research—Triple Task (TT)—and sets out its rationale and initial progress in becoming an embedded method for group working. Arising from the authors previous work with soft systems approaches, the Imagine method for sustainable development assessment and action research in a variety of global locations, TT provides a means for groups to engage together in purposive work and, at the same time, for facilitators to understand how the dynamic of the group influences the groups output. TT is based on an ambitious concept and at the time of writing the results of TT applied in the context of an EU Framework 7 funded project are in their early stages but importantly, significant insights are already arising including the answers to some puzzling questions:

• Do purposeful groups always produce the most insightful outcomes?
• Do conflictual groups produce incoherent results?
• What makes a ‘good’ group?

     

风险中性高阶矩:特征、风险与应用

本文采用香港恒生指数期权中的虚值期权计算香港股票市场风险中性高阶矩, 通过其与另一种高阶矩预期——运用历史分布通过AR(1)-GARCH(1,1)模型估计出来的现实世界高阶矩预期之间的关系分析高阶矩风险溢酬.研究结果发现: 在香港股票市场中,偏度、峰度等高阶矩具有非常显著的风险溢酬, 且风险溢酬均小于0. 这表明香港市场的投资者热衷于冒险, 以在短时间内获得较大收益.另外,考察了香港股票市场的期权价格结构,我们发现从恒生指数期权中得到的香港股票市场隐含波动率几乎是一条水平的直线. 在对香港市场整体高阶矩进行分析时,也发现其偏度与峰度不能拒绝市场整体分布为正态分布的假设.     

人因分析:需要、问题和发展趋势

论述了人因分析对人机系统的合理设计、特别是对提高系统可靠性、安全性的重要意义 ,界定了系统人因分析概念的涵义 ,提出了人因分析学科在理论与应用方面面临的九大问题 :人因分析的难度 ;对人因的再认识——个体、群体、组织 ;环境与人行为的关系 ;人员可靠性分析 ( HRA)方法 ;人误机理 ;客观性与一致性 ;数据的可用性 ;文化因素 ;组织管理层的人因分析 .最后从理论与应用两方面讨论了人因分析学科近期应发展的三个范畴 :人因分析基础研究 ;人 -机系统设计指导 ;安全评价与事故防范 .     

可重入柔性调度问题研究:模型、算法与应用

近二十年来,在企业提高生产效率和增加生产灵活性方面的内在需求推动下,一类广泛存在于半导体制造、钢铁生产、汽车制造、武器生产、化工、微生物检测、金融财务等制造和服务领域,且具有多阶段、并行机拓扑结构的柔性生产调度问题的研究和应用正得到学术界和工业界越来越多的重视.考虑到在实际生产过程中,工件在部分阶段的加工工艺路径为循环的技术要求,与实际生产过程更加贴近的可重入系统的特性被引入到柔性制造系统.鉴于可重入柔性调度问题(reentran flexible scheduling problem,REFSP)在理论上的重要性及其对于实际调度的指导性,本文综述了可重入柔性调度问题的研究进展.首先介绍了可重入柔性调度问题的基本数学模型,并基于α|β|γ表示法对已有的复杂环境下的可重入柔性调度问题进行了归类,接着对其优化求解方法进行了归纳,并梳理了其主要应用领域,最后提出了有待进一步研究的若干方向和内容,旨在推进国内在可重入柔性调度问题研究领域的理论研究和工程应用.     

Power in organizations: A contingent,relational view

The concept of power is central to social inquiry, yet it is highly varied and enigmatic. There is a wide-ranging and competing variety of subjectivist, objectivist, and relational conceptions of power. The first part of the paper examines this problem in an exegetical but critical manner. The aim is to develop a critical conception of this social phenomenon. The second part of the paper seeks to probe the nature of three types of systems approach in terms of their underwriting assumptions about power in society. The intent is twofold: to uncover the ideologically suppressed truths about the noxious forms of power and to develop a penetrative understanding of how the mystified “truths” in ideological conceptions of power contain hidden meanings that have the critical potential for educative enlightenment, empowerment, and emancipation for systems theory and practice.     

Knowing Wuli,Sensing Shili,Caring for Renli: Methodology of the WSR Approach

This paper presents an outline of an Oriental systems methodology: the Wuli Shili Renli approach (WSR). The basic theme of WSR contends that wuli (regularities in objective existence), shili (ways of seeing and doing), and renli (patterns underlying human relations) constitute a differentiated whole that conditions systems projects. WSR suggests that we should design and employ appropriate methods to address and tackle wuli shili and renli elements in a theoretically informed and systemic way. The background, philosophy, process, principles, and some practical applications of the methodology are preliminarily outlined.     

Europe as a Knowledge Society: Integrating Universities,Corporations, and Government

Europe is introduced as a knowledge society, with an emphasis on the strategic role of European Commission Framework Programmes as central to the European Project. This introduces changes to traditional nationally based and discipline oriented approaches to the roles of universities, corporations, and governments, which are illustrated through the case of the Centre for Working Life research at Kingston Business School. It is argued that discussion of the new production of knowledge needs to be complemented by encouragement of participative action research.     

Practicality, Positionality, and Emancipation: Reflections on Participatory Action Research with a Watershed Partnership

In the last few decades, there has been a trend towards increased stakeholder and public participation in natural resource management in North America. To a certain extent, the rationale for this trend is found in the complexity and uncertainty of environmental issues, which confront us with the coexistance of multiple legitimate values and perspectives in society. Recognizing this “epistemological plurality” has important implications for both policy and science. In this paper, I critically reflect on my experiences as a doctoral student engaged in participatory action research (PAR) with a watershed partnership in Ontario, Canada. In providing this biographical account, I seek to make a contribution to ongoing discussions regarding the nature, challenges and benefits of this methodological approach for academic research, as well as to emerging debates on PAR in the context of environmental governance and “post-normal” approaches to natural resource management.