Men-Andri Benz, Stefan Buehler, Armin Schmutzler, Quality Provision in Deregulated Industries: The Railtrack Problem, In: Working paper series / Socioeconomic Institute, No. No. 2, 2000. (Working Paper)
This paper studies a network provider's incentives to invest in infrastructure quality. In a simple but general framework, we investigate how various institutional settings affect investment incentives. We show that under reasonable assumptions on demand, investment incentives are smaller under vertical separation than under vertical integration. We consider two strategies for improving investment incentives under vertical separation. First, the introduction of competition for the market can sometimes improve incentives. Second, with non-linear access prices investment incentives under separation become identical to those under integration. |
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Egon Franck, J C Müller, Problemstruktur, Eskalationsvoraussetzungen und eskalationsfördernde Bedingungen so genannter Rattenrennen, Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, Vol. 52 (1), 2000. (Journal Article)
The paper analyzes the economic structure of rat races, which either emerge in signaling (as a means of handling informational problems in labor markets) or in genuine tournaments. The unifying element of such contests is a rank-order reward structure. The pervasive phenomenon that contestants compete with too much effort or wasteful investments, cannot be explained in a satisfying manner if fully rational behavior is assumed. Therefore, systematic distortions of contestants' cost benefit rationales and their causes are an important issue of this paper which closes by addressing some institutional solutions to curb too much effort or wasteful investments in rat races. |
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Uschi Backes-Gellner, Rosemarie Kay, Betriebliche Bildung und Personalpolitik im neuen unternehmensnahen Dienstleistungssektor, In: Jahrbuch zur Mittelstandsforschung, Springer, Bonn, p. 1 - 17, 2000. (Book Chapter)
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Uschi Backes-Gellner, Rosemarie Kay, Qualifizierung des Humankapitals im neuen unternehmensnahen Dienstleistungssektor, Konjunkturpolitik. Beihefte, Vol. 51, 2000. (Journal Article)
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Markus Feurstein, Martin Natter, Fast high precision decision rules for valuing manufacturing flexibility, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 120 (1), 2000. (Journal Article)
The valuation of Flexible Manufacturing Systems is one of the most frequently undertaken productivity improvement activities. In practice, the introduction of an FMS into industry must be done on the basis of cost justification. Recently developed techniques for the evaluation of the value of flexibility typically include the computation of stochastic dynamic programs. However, the computational effort of stochastic dynamic programs grows combinatorially and limits application to real world problems. In this contribution, we derive fast approximations to the stochastic dynamic program and compare their results to the exact solution. The proposed methods show an excellent worst case behavior (1%) for a wide range of volatility of the underlying stochastic profit margins and costs for switching the production mode. The computational effort is reduced by a factor of more than 200. |
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Thomas Reutterer, Martin Natter, Segmentation Based Competitive Analysis with MULTICLUS and Topology Representing Networks, Computers & Operations Research, Vol. 27 (11-12), 2000. (Journal Article)
Two neural network approaches, Kohonen's Self-Organizing (Feature) Map (SOM) and the Topology Representing Network (TRN) of Martinetz and Schulten are employed in the context of competitive market structuring and segmentation analysis. In an empirical study using brands preferences derived from household panel data, we compare the SOM and TRN approach to MULTICLUS, a parametric approach which also simultaneously solves the market structuring and segmentation problem. Our empirical analysis shows several benefits and shortcomings of the three methodologies under investigation, MULTICLUS, SOM, and TRN. As compared to MULTICLUS, we find that the non-parametric neural network approaches show a higher robustness against any kind of data preprocessing and a higher stability of partitioning results. As compared to SOM, we find advantages of TRN which uses a more flexible concept of adjacency structure. In TRN, no rigid grid of units must be specified. A further advantage of TRN lies in the possibility to exploit the information of the neighborhood graph which supports ex-post decisions about the segment configuration at both the micro and the macro level. However, SOM and TRN also have some drawbacks as compared to MULTICLUS. The network approaches are, for instance, not accessible to inferential statistics. Our empirical study indicates that especially TRN may represent a useful expansion of the marketing analysts tool box. |
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Bruno Staffelbach, Rezension des Buches Militärbetriebslehre: Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Streitkräfte, von O. Hahn, Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitschrift, Vol. 166 (5), 2000. (Journal Article)
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Bruno Staffelbach, Personalpolitik bei von Roll: Experiment zum Wissenstransfer, Management & Uni Zürich (1), 2000. (Journal Article)
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Bruno Staffelbach, NIT und Lernen: Auswirkungen der neuen Informationstechnologien (NIT) , Forum, Vol. 10 (39), 2000. (Journal Article)
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Bruno Staffelbach, Genanalyse – vom Labor in die Lebenswelt, UZH Magazin, Vol. 9 (2), 2000. (Journal Article)
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William McKinley, Jun Zhao, K G Rust, A sociocognitive interpretation of organizational downsizing, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25 (1), 2000. (Journal Article)
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William McKinley, Andreas Scherer, Some unanticipated consequences of organizational restructuring, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25 (4), 2000. (Journal Article)
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Bruno Staffelbach, G. Schüpfer, C. Konrad, Privatisierung von öffentlichen Spitälern in der Schweiz: Gedanken aus ärztlicher Sicht, In: Forum Gesundheitsrecht, droit de la santé: Vol. 1. Privatisierung und Wettbewerb im Gesundheitsrecht , Schulthess, Zürich, p. 65 - 73, 2000. (Book Chapter)
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Robert Göx, Capacity planning under uncertainty in a Gutenberg production model, In: Theory of the firm: Erich Gutenberg's foundations and further developments, Springer, Berlin, p. 319 - 335, 2000. (Book Chapter)
The paper considers a two stage capacity and production planning model under uncertainty. The optimal second stage production policy falls into three cases: When capacity is slack the firm will produce with the cost minimizing production rate and adjust the production time to meet its output target. When the capacity constraint is binding, the firm will first adjust the production rate and then again produce with a constant production rate but employ overtime to meet the output target.
The optimal capacity choice of the first stage is determined by the trade off between the sunk costs of slack labor and the expected opportunity costs of adjusting the production rate and employing overtime in the case of a binding capacity constraint.
The key item determining the firm’s labor demand is the overtime premium. The amount of contracted labor strictly increases with the overtime premium and the expected overtime strictly decreases. Since then latter effect dominates the former for small overtime premia, the firm’s labor demand is first decreasing and then increasing with the overtime premium.
A reduction of overtime premia can be Pareto improving because it does not only lead to substantial cost savings but also an increasing labor demand. |
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Robert Göx, Rezension zu: Trost, Stefan: Koordination mit Verrechnungspreisen, Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, Vol. 52 (8), 2000. (Journal Article)
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Robert Göx, Strategic transfer pricing, absorption costing, and observability, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 11 (3), 2000. (Journal Article)
This paper analyses the use of transfer pricing as a strategic device in divisionalized firms facing duopolistic price competition. When transfer prices are observable, both firms’ headquarters will charge a transfer price above the marginal cost of the intermediate product to induce their marketing managers to behave as softer competitors in the final product market. When transfer prices are not observable, strategic transfer pricing is not an equilibrium and the optimal transfer price equals the marginal cost of the intermediate product. As a strategic alternative, however, the firms can signal the use of transfer prices above marginal cost to their competitors by a publicly observable commitment to an absorption costing system. The paper identifies conditions under which the choice of absorption costing is a dominant strategy equilibrium. |
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David Seidl, The construction of the environment, In: 16th European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium. 2000. (Conference Presentation)
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Ulrich Kaiser, A Note on the Calculation of Firm-Specific and Skill-Specific Labor Cost from Firm-Level Data, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 2000. (Journal Article)
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Ulrich Kaiser, On the Lead/Lag Relationship between Manufacturing and Services in the Business Cycle, 2000. (Other Publication)
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Ulrich Kaiser, New Technologies And The Demand For Heterogeneous Labor: Firm-Level Evidence For The German Business-Related Service Sector, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Vol. 9 (5), 2000. (Journal Article)
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