Business Commons^™

Management Consultancy: Issues, Perspectives, And Agendas [Preface], Robin Fincham, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This issue of International Studies of Management and Organizationbrings together five articles that reflect the rich array of contemporaryresearch that is being conducted into the activities of the managementconsultancy industry. Management consultancy, in various forms, has existed foras long as complex organizations. However, its increasing economicsignificance, associated with the rapid expansion in the number ofconsultancies and the rise of large multinational consultancy firms, as well asthe influence and impact of the fashionable management knowledge and techniqueson which much of their work is based, are more recent phenomena. To date,detailed conceptual and empirical research into the work of consultants hasbeen slight …

The Culture Of Technology Of Singapore, Alwyn Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The objective of this paper is to map the sociological context in which the cultural economy of technology of Singapore exists. Taking a socio-histori cal perspective, this paper argues that the development of Singapore as a technological 'intelligent island' must take centre stage in relation to the soci ological analysis of modern Singapore's political, economic, and socio-cultural structure. This involves a critique of theories of the information society and empirical research on East Asian developmental states. The aim is to chart the development of technology in Singapore, from its founding as a colonial port-city to its current status as an …

Situational Tests In Student Selection: An Examination Of Predictive Validity, Adverse Impact, And Construct Validity, Filip Lievens, Pol Coetsier

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Flemish Admission Exam 'Medical and Dental Studies' is comprised of four cognitive ability tests and four situational tests, namely two work samples (i.e., a lecture and a medical text) and two video-based situational judgement tests (i.e., a physician-patient interaction and a medical expert discussion). On the basis of the Admission Exam scores of 941 candidates (359 men, 582 women) this study shows that situational tests significantly can predict better than cognitive ability tests, with lecture and text emerging as significant predictors. When situational tests are combined with cognitive ability tests, there are no mean gender differences. Situational tests also …

Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variation To Chaos, Arnoud De Meyer, Christoph H. Loch, Michael T. Pich

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The article cites a study finding that accurately gauging the degree of uncertainty inherent in the projects can help project managers quickly adapt to it. Researchers studied 16 projects in areas including personal-computer development, telecommunications, Internet startups, pharmaceutical development, iron-ore processing, airship development, and building construction, to examine risk management and project outcomes. They found that most managers failed to recognize that there are different types of uncertainty, each requiring a different management approach. This paper explores uncertainty-based management, which derives planning, monitoring and management style from an uncertainty profile comprising four types of uncertainty: variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty, …

Venture Capital And Economic Growth: An Industry Overview And Singapore's Experience, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides an overview of the venture capital industry, and its development in Asia and Singapore. Venture capital plays an important role in innovation and economic growth. Indeed, the resurgence of the United States as a technology leader is intimately linked to the success of Silicon Valley. As Singapore enters the next phase of economic development, the creation of internal engines of growth is an urgent task. The Singapore government has done much to provide an environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. Its success at replicating the Silicon Valley culture will be important for Singapore’s future economic success.

The Choice Between Joint Venture And Wholly Owned Subsidiary: An Institutional Perspective, Daphne W. Yiu, Shige Makino

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The study of foreign entry-mode choice has been based almost exclusively on transaction-cost theory. This theory focuses mainly on the impacts of firm- and industry-specific factors on the choice of entry mode, taking the effects of country-specific contextual factors as constant or less important. In contrast, the institutional perspective emphasizes the importance of the influence of both institutional forces embedded in national environments and decision makers' cognitive constraints on the founding conditions of new ventures. Still, this theoretical perspective has yet to provide insights into how institutional factors influence the choice of foreign entry mode. The primary goal of the …

Medical Students' Personality Characteristics And Academic Performance: A Five-Factor Model Perspective, Filip Lievens, Pol Coetsier, Filip De Fruyt, Jan De Maeseneer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objectives: This study investigates: (1) which personality traits are typical of medical students as compared to other students, and (2) which personality traits predict medical student performance in pre-clinical years. Design: This paper reports a cross-sectional inventory study of students in nine academic majors and a prospective longitudinal study of one cohort of medical students assessed by inventory during their first pre-clinical year and by university examination at the end of each pre-clinical year. Subjects and methods: In 1997, a combined total of 785 students entered medical studies courses in five Flemish universities. Of these, 631 (80.4%) completed the NEO-PI-R …

Venture Capital And Economic Growth: An Industry Overview And Singapore's Experience, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper provides an overview of the venture capital industry, and its development in Asia and Singapore. Venture capital plays an important role in innovation and economic growth. Indeed, the resurgence of the United States as a technology leader is intimately linked to the success of Silicon Valley. As Singapore enters the next phase of economic development, the creation of internal engines of growth is an urgent task. The Singapore government has done much to provide an environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. Its success at replicating the Silicon Valley culture will be important for Singapore's future economic success.

Structural Analysis Of Audit Evidence Using Belief Functions, Hai Lu, Hai Lu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This article performs two types of analysis using Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions for evidential reasoning. The first analysis deals with the impact of the structure of audit evidence on the overall belief at each variable in the network, variables being the account balance to be audited, the related transaction streams, and the associated audit objectives. The second analysis deals with the impact of the relationship (logical "and" and "algebraic relationship") among various variables in the network on the overall belief. For our first analysis, we change the evidential structure from a network to a tree and determine its impact.

Investigating The Effects Of Store-Brand Introduction On Retailer Demand And Pricing Behavior, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Andre Bonfrer, Inseong Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The effects of the introduction of a store-brand into a particular product category are studied. The paper focuses on the effect of store-brand introduction on the demand as well as on the supply side. On the demand side, the changes in preferences for the national brands and price elasticities in the category are investigated. On the supply side, the effects of the new entrant on the interactions between the national brand manufacturers and the retailer introducing the store brand are studied, including how these interactions influence the retailer's pricing behavior. In doing so, it is possible to test whether the …

The Effects Of Business-University Alliances On Innovative Output And Financial Performance: A Study Of Publicly Traded Biotechnology Companies, Gerard George, Shaker A. Zahra, D. Robley Wood

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Companies in the biotechnology industry face major challenges in developing and commercializing new products. Focusing on publicly traded biotechnology firms that are not members of university incubators or research parks, this paper argues that the links these companies develop with universities can have beneficial effects on a company's operations. Analysis of 2457 alliances undertaken by 147 biotechnology firms shows that companies with university linkages have lower research and development (R&D) expenses while having higher levels of innovative output. However, the results do not support the proposition that companies with university linkages achieve higher financial performance than similar firms without such …

Laughing With The Gurus, David Greatbatch, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Management gurus are among the most influential public orators of the day. But mastery of age–old rhetorical devices, including the use of humour, is central to their effectiveness.

Social Entrepreneurship In Singapore, Wee Liang Tan, Teck Meng Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Social entrepreneurship is a new phenomenon in Singapore. Unlike the US, where there are entrepreneurship programs offered at various ACCSB accredited universities such programs do not as yet exist in Asia. The motivations for social entrepreneurship in Asia differ from those in developed countries. While as social entrepreneurship often stem from the social agenda of successful entrepreneurs who are motivated to repay society, the recent trend of social entrepreneurship in Asia may stem from initiatives directed at political liberalisation and the development of civil society on the part of existing governments. The Singapore government in 1997 introduced a series of …

Solving The Pickup And Delivery Problem With Time Windows Using "Squeaky Wheel" Optimization With Local Search, Hongping Lim, Andrew Lim, Brian Rodrigues

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows (PDPTW) is an important problem in fleet planning where decisions can involve not only dispatching company fleets but also the selection of carriers on certain routes. In this problem, vehicles travel to a variety of locations to deliver or pick up goods and to provide services. The increasing costs for additional vehicles motivate managers to optimize fleet usage. Managers also seek to achieve economical use of fuel, maintenance and overtime costs by minimizing travel distance and duration. As such, PDPTW impacts the interface of supplier-customer relationship management in the supply chain process …

On Uncertainty, Ambiguity, And Complexity In Project Management, Michael T. Pich, Christoph H. Loch, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article develops a model of a project as a payoff function that depends on the state of the world and the choice of a sequence of actions. A causal mapping, which may be incompletely known by the project team, represents the impact of possible actions on the states of the world. An underlying probability space represents available information about the state of the world. Interactions among actions and states of the world determine the complexity of the payoff function. Activities are endogenous, in that they are the result of a policy that maximizes the expected project payoff.

A key …

Trust In Leadership: Meta-Analytic Findings And Implications For Research And Practice, Kurt T. Dirks, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this study, the authors examined the findings and implications of the research on trust in leadership that has been conducted during the past 4 decades. First, the study provides estimates of the primary relationships between trust in leadership and key outcomes, antecedents, and correlates (k = 106). Second, the study explores how specifying the construct with alternative leadership referents (direct leaders vs. organizational leadership) and definitions (types of trust) results in systematically different relationships between trust in leadership and outcomes and antecedents. Direct leaders (e.g., supervisors) appear to be a particularly important referent of trust. Last, a theoretical framework …

Making Justice Sense Of Local-Expatriate Compensation Disparity: Mitigation By Local Referents, Ideological Explanations, And Interpersonal Sensitivity In China-Foreign Joint Ventures, Chao C. Chen, Jaepil Choi, Chu-Cheng Chi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examined how local employees of international joint ventures (IJVs) perceived disparity between their compensation and foreign expatriates' compensation from equity theory and social justice perspectives. Chinese locals perceived less fairness when comparing their compensation with expatriates' than when comparing it with other locals'. However, fairness vis-a-vis expatriates increased if the locals were compensated higher than their peers in other IJVs or endorsed ideological explanations for expatriates' advantage. Furthermore, expatriates' interpersonal sensitivity toward locals reduced the effect of disparity on perceived fairness. Finally, perceived compensation fairness was related positively to compensation satisfaction but negatively to intentions to quit.

Trying To Understand The Different Pieces Of The Construct Validity Puzzle Of Assessment Centers: An Examination Of Assessor And Assessee Effects, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined the effects of assessor-related factors (i.e., type of assessor) and assessee-related factors (i.e., type of assessee profile) on the construct validity of assessment center ratings. In particular, 3 types of assessors (26 industrial/organizational [I/O] psychologists, 20 managers, and 27 students), rated assessee performances that varied according to cross-exercise consistency (i.e., relatively inconsistent vs. relatively consistent) and dimension differentiation (relatively undifferentiated vs. relatively differentiated). Construct validity evidence was established for only one assessee profile and only in the I/O psychologist and managerial samples. More generally, these results indicate that 3 factors (poor design, assessor unreliability, and especially cross-situational …

Integrating Local Search And Network Flow To Solve The Inventory Routing Problem, Hoong Chuin Lau, Q Liu, H. Ono

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The inventory routing problem is one of important and practical problems in logistics. It involves the integration of inventory management and vehicle routing, both of which are known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we combine local search and network flows to solve the inventory management problem, by utilizing the minimum cost flow sub-solutions as a guiding measure for local search. We then integrate with a standard VRPTW solver to present experimental results for the overall inventory routing problem, based on instances extended from the Solomon benchmark problems.

The Impact Of Housing Prices On Aggregate Consumption: Evidence From An East Asian City-State, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using aggregate consumption data for Singapore, this paper rejects the life-cycle/permanent income and myopia hypotheses as explanations for aggregate consumption behavior. We confirm the presence of liquidity constraints from the asymmetric reaction of consumption to income increases vis-a-vis income declines. When we allow for asymmetric response, anticipated house price increases appear to have a dampening effect on aggregate consumption while declines in expected house price growth also had a negative effect on consumption, although the results are statistically insignificant. There is no evidence that the housing price increases have produced either wealth or collateral enhancement effects on consumption.

Human Resource Development Programs For Overseas Assignments In The Asia-Pacific: A Study Of Managers In Singapore, A. Ahad M. Osman-Gani, Wee Liang Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Asia-Pacific region form a major arena of increasing interest for overseas business operations. In this regard, human resource development (HRD) issues are found to play significant roles in major international business decisions. Yet little is known about the international HRD programs and practices employed by companies to train and develop managers for this dynamic region. This paper presents the empirical findings of a study on the relative importance of training on several key factors that are crucial to companies for their managers to succeed in overseas assignments in the Asia Pacific region. The study is based on a sample of …

Leadership Antecedents Of Informal Knowledge Acquisition And Dissemination, Siu Loon Hoe, Steve Mcshane

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Knowledge management is emerging as one of the leading influences on an organisation’s survival and competitive advantage (Blumentritt & Johnston 1999). Knowledge management is concerned with the effective acquisition, sharing, storage and utilisation of knowledge (Huber 1991; Saffady 1998). Corporate leaders are increasingly aware of the notion that an organisation’s long-term survival depends on its ability to generate new knowledge and continuously learn from the environment. The importance of a superior organisational learning capability as a source of competitive advantage is a common refrain among both managers and scholars (e.g. Kohli & Jaworski 1990; Nonaka 1991; Quinn 1992; Slater & …

The Implications Of Technology Networks On Diffusion And Economic Growth, Hing-Man Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

After the record-breaking run of high-speed growth in the United States during the late 1990s, a pressing question is Has anything fundamental changed in our growth engine? This paper examines an IT-led endogenous growth model driven by technology diffusion. Diffusion is in turn driven by network effect embodied in new technologies. The equilibrium long-term growth rate is however found to be independent of such technology networks. A novelty in our model is that innovation is discontinuous and it is separated by periods of diffusion. This (IT) network-diffusion is shown to be Sigmoid, and diffusion speed is slower than socially optimal.

National Culture And Entrepreneurship: A Review Of Behavioral Research, James C. Hayton, Gerard George, Shaker A. Zahra

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conceptual arguments for the association between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship have existed for decades but only in the last 10 years has this relationship been the focus of empirical scrutiny. In this article, we review and synthesize the findings of 21 empirical studies that examine the association between national cultural characteristics and aggregate measures of entrepreneurship, individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, and aspects of corporate entrepreneurship. The study concedes that a predominant number of empirical studies have used Hofstede's conceptualization of national culture and that other domains have been underdeveloped. A preliminary model that integrates past findings is extended. The review …

Combining Two Heuristics To Solve A Supply Chain Optimization Problem, Hoong Chuin Lau, Yuyue Song

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we consider a real-life supply chain optimization problem concerned with supplying a product from multiple warehouses to multiple geographically dispersed retailers. Each retailer faces a deterministic and period-dependent demand over some finite planning horizon. The demand of each retailer is satisfied by the supply from some predetermined warehouse through a fleet of vehicles which are only available within certain time windows at each period. Our goal is to identify a combined inventory and routing schedule such that the system-wide total cost over the planning horizon is minimised. This problem in essence is an amalgamation of two classical …

Culture And Its Consequences For Entrepreneurship, Gerard George, Shaker A Zahra

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This special issue of the Journal "Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice" focuses on the relationship between culture and entrepreneurship. It adopts a broad definition of both culture and entrepreneurship. Culture is used to refer to the enduring set of values of a nation, a region, or an organization. Entrepreneurship is defined as the act and process by which societies, regions, organizations, or individuals identify and pursue business opportunities to create wealth. The articles in this special issue highlight opportunities for future research, both theoretical and empirical. These studies offer a preliminary roadmap for conducting influential and insightful research that can enrich …

Exchanging Preliminary Information In Concurrent Engineering: Alternative Coordination Strategies, Christian Terwiesch, Christoph H. Loch, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Successful application of concurrent development processes (concurrent engineering) requires tight coordination. To speed development, tasks often proceed in parallel by relying on preliminary information from other tasks, information that has not yet been finalized. This frequently causes substantial rework using as much as 50% of total engineering capacity. Previous studies have either described coordination as a complex social process, or have focused on the frequency, but not the content, of information exchanges. Through extensive fieldwork in a high-end German automotive manufacturer, we develop a framework of preliminary information that distinguishes information precision and information stability. Information precision refers to the …

An Innovative Public-Private Partnership: New Approach To Development, Ramina Samii, Luk N. Van Wassenhove, Shantanu Bhattacharya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper is focused on the development of new services by nonprofit organizations for groups of companies within a particular sector in industry. It is based oil a case study of ail actual implementation by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in collaboration with a number of other organizations to upgrade the capabilities of automotive component suppliers in India, to enable them to supply to world-class Manufacturers. We draw upon the traditional literature available on new product and service development for firms introducing new products and services for maximizing profit, and contrast those approaches with the approach adopted by nonprofit …

Product Schema Integration For Electronic Commerce: A Synonym Comparison Approach, Guanghao Yan, Wee-Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In any electronic commerce system, the heterogeneity of product descriptions is a critical impediment to efficient business information exchange. In the ABECOS electronic commerce system, buyer agents, seller agents, and directory agents liaise with one another in e-commerce activities. Only when agents have a common ontology of product descriptions (also called product schemas) are they able to interact seamlessly in e-commerce activities. This gives rise to the product schema integration problem (PSI); the problem of integrating heterogeneous schemas of a certain product into one globally compatible schema. We adopt an integration approach based on product attribute synonyms. We give a …

Investing In Hedge Funds: Risks, Returns And Pitfalls, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh, David Kuo Chuen Lee, Kok Fai Phoon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Hedge funds are collective investment vehicles fast becoming popular with high net worth individuals as well as institutional investors. These are funds that are often established with a special legal status that allows their investment managers a free hand to use derivatives, short sell, and exploit leverage to raise returns and cushion risk. Given that that they have substantial latitude to invest, it is instructive to examine the performance of hedge funds compared to other forms of managed funds. This paper provides an overview of hedge funds and discusses their empirical risk and return profiles. It also poses some concerns …