Arnold Reisman

Toward meta research on technology transfer

Technology transfer (TT) literature has grown exponentially during the 25 years up to 1990. As in most emerging fields the literature is quite disjointed. It is especially so in TT because of the cross-disciplinary nature of the field. Although a number of taxonomies have been proposed most are by and for a specific discipline, e.g., economics or sociology. The authors provide a synthesis, an integrative review, of the various taxonomic efforts while taking into account each of the streams of TT knowledge. >

A credit scoring approach for the commercial banking sector

Abstract For managing credit risk, commercial banks use various scoring methodologies to evaluate the financial performance of client firms. This paper upgrades the quantitative analysis used in the financial performance modules of state-of-the-art credit scoring methodologies. This innovation should help lending officers in branch levels filter out the poor risk applicants. The Data Envelopment Analysis-based methodology was applied to current data for 82 industrial/manufacturing firms comprising the credit portfolio of one of Turkeys largest commercial banks. Using financial ratios, the DEA synthesizes a firms overall performance into a single financial efficiency score—the “credibility score”. Results were validated by various supporting (regression and discriminant) analyses and, most importantly, by expert judgments based on data or on current knowledge of the firms.

The Effect of Scale and Mode of Ownership on the Financial Performance of the Turkish Banking Sector: Results of a DEA-Based Analysis

Turkey and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a stand-by arrangement at the outset of 2000. Consequently, Turkey implemented an exchange-rate based stabilization program to combat its high inflation. However, two financial crises followed; one in November, 2000 and the other in February, 2001. As the result some banks became problematic. This necessitated restructuring of the banking sector to increase its financial efficiency. This paper presents a financial performance index for commercial banks. The index allows one to observe the effects of scale and of the mode of ownership (public/domestic, private/domestic/foreign) on bank behavior and, therefore, on bank performance in a developing economy. It documents the effects of financial liberalization, cross-country movements, and the impact of financial crises originating in neighboring countries e.g. Russia. The study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to selected fundamental financial ratios using 1989-1999 data from commercial banks in Turkey. Year-by-year results explain the effects on this sector of major shifts in both national macro-economic policy and various international developments. The banks that were taken over by the regulatory government agency most recently in the analyzed period were observed to perform poorly with respect to their DEA performance index values.

A Taxonomy for Data Envelopment Analysis

This paper presents a scheme for classifying the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) literature. The taxonomy allows one to distinguish articles on the basis of the data source used (D) if any, the type of envelopment (E) invoked, the approach to analysis (A) used, and the nature (N) of the paper. Each of the above attributes D, E, A and N (DEAN) are further subdivided to obtain a detailed description of each article comprising this rather wide-ranging field of knowledge. Sample articles are classified to illustrate the descriptive power and the parsimony of this taxonomy.

Cellular Manufacturing: A Statistical Review of the Literature (1965–1995)

This paper is both an extension and an expansion of two earlier studies concerned with the direction of OR/MS research as reported in its archival literature (Reisman and Kirschnick [Reisman, A., F. Kirshnick. 1994. The devolution of OR/MS: Implications from a statistical content analysis of papers in flagship journals. Opns. Res. 42(4) 577–588], [Reisman, A., F. Kirshnick. 1995. Research strategies used by OR/MS workers as shown by an analysis of papers in flagship journals. Opns. Res. 43(5) 731–739.]). All of these papers provide a content analysis of the OR/MS archival journals. However, this paper focuses on the entire life-cycle literature of Cellular Manufacturing as a module of OR/MS. It addresses the research strategy employed by, and the theory-vs-applied orientation exhibited by, the authors. In all, 235 articles, starting in 1969, were reviewed and classified on a five-point scale, ranging from pure theory to bonafide applications. Secondly, the articles were classified in terms of seven types ...

The Devolution of OR/MS: Implications from a Statistical Content Analysis of Papers in Flagship Journals

Ackoff has decried the “devolution” of OR/MS, Corbett and Van Wassenhove have spoken of its “natural drift,” and a sociologist has described its “regression” as typifying that of other learned professions. To shed light on these views, we undertook a detailed survey of a segment of the OR/MS literature, with particular focus on the space in flagship journals devoted to theory on the one hand and applications on the other. While the literature of OR/MS contains many articles and texts with the word application in the title and the word data in the text, the definitions and uses of these terms are not precise. The claimed applications differ in degree and the actual data differ in kind. To encompass these different meanings we used a five-point scale to classify articles in the 1962 and 1992 volumes of Operations Research and Management Science and the 1972 and 1992 volumes of Interfaces. The resulting statistical analyses shed considerable light on the direction that OR/MS is taking and raise questions abo...

A citation analysis of the technology innovation management journals

This paper is the first citation-analysis-based follow up to the subjective survey conducted in 1993 by the Technology Innovation Management Division (TIMD) of the Academy of Management (see J. Liker, TIM Newslett., vol.7, no.2, p.5-8, 1993). That survey established a hierarchical rating of journals publishing articles in the field of technology innovation management (TIM). For each of the 1204 journals cited in the five highest ranked journals in the TIM specialty group of Likers study (called the base journals) during the (base) period 1990-1993, a citation score is computed using three different methods: the overall score, the normalized score, and the weighted-score method. Rankings of the journals based on each of these three methods are discussed and compared one with the other. Moreover, rankings of the top journals identified by the three methods (modified to adjust for differences in sample size) were compared with Likers survey results ranking. The key finding of the study is that, under all scoring methods, the top six spots were held by the same journals, The variation in ranks, however, became progressively greater at lower ranks. Researchers, metaresearchers, academic administrators, journal editors, and others may find the citation-based trends, ranks, and other results developed in this study helpful in stimulating further scholarly discourse in the field of TIM as it relates to the effectiveness of the journals.

Telemedicine in critical care: An experiment in health care delivery

We hypothesized that telemedicine -- medicine practiced from a distance using telecommunications -- can solve some problems related to the scarcity and maldistribution of specialists in critical care medicine. Using a two-way audiovisual link between a small private hospital and a large university medical center, we have provided daily consultations by an intensivist to patients in the small institution. During the first 175 days of the project we found: 1) regular consultations in critical care can be provided using the audiovisual link; 2) current technology is adequate but expensive; 3) telemedicine consultations can be made acceptable to users and providers; 4) telemedicine can be a valuable educational resource; 5) telemedicine can influence the process and probably the outcome of patient care; 6) the audiovisual link is superior to the telephone for these consultations; and 7) telemedicine can serve as an important link between a small hospital and a large medical center favorably influencing the quality of care in the critical care unit of the small hospital.

On alternative strategies for doing research in the management and social sciences

The author delineates a number of taxonomic approaches to classifying knowledge for research into management and social sciences and points out the need for yet higher order contributions, namely those which embed that which is known in more generalized theoretical frameworks. He also discusses research strategies that do not necessarily contribute to the objective of consolidating knowledge. Lastly, he comments on some of the pitfalls of each research strategy and the relative ease or difficulty in overcoming such pitfalls depending on the strategy chosen. >

Content Analysis of Data Envelopment Analysis Literature and its Comparison with that of Other OR/MS Fields

Content analysis was performed on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature appearing in refereed journals. The extant DEA literature, reported in Gattoufi et al was subdivided into two ways. The first considers all articles appearing during the life cycle of 22 selected major DEA publishing journals. The second considers all post-1995 DEA articles. Content was judged on the basis of a two-point scale representing advancements in theory; a five-point scale indicating contributions to practice; and on seven distinguishable strategies applied by the authors in pursuing their research. Lastly, DEA was compared with similarly obtained results describing the life cycle literatures of flow shop scheduling and of cell manufacturing. This analysis has proven the vitality, robustness, and real-world grounding of DEA on its own and vis-à-vis other OR/MS sub-disciplines. Moreover, the breadth of its diffusion into other disciplines and professions has been shown to be extraordinary.