Journal of Management Policy and Practice

From Causal Inferences to Predictive Analytics: Using AI to Settle on Damages

2024-03-04T02:30:11-05:00

From the perspective of both plaintiffs and defendants, the measurement of damages quantum is of the utmost importance. It is surprising to see this process left entirely to the court’s discretion, as quantum is traditionally considered a question of fact. Quantifying damages presents significant challenges due to the subjective nature of court discretion, leading to uncertainty for both plaintiffs and defendants. This research addresses this issue by examining difficult-to-quantify contract damages through empirical and comparative methodologies. Based on prior studies on French civil law and American common law, this empirical study involved quantitative analysis of various contract cases. Methodological advancements, including Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, facilitated automated extraction and analysis of key variables. With a focus on overcoming sample size limitations and enhancing accuracy, this study achieved a classification accuracy of over 85% for identified essential variables. The more recent integration of generative AI and Large Language Modeling marked significant progress in quantifying damages. I conclude with recommendations for sustainable management practices in this field.

For a Contemporary Vision of the History and the Phenomenology of Fashion

2024-03-04T02:36:52-05:00

This paper traces the salient phenomena that have marked the history of fashion and define it as it is now-adays. Foremost, an attempt is made to value the term “fashion” under different lights. From the 18th century onward, there was a succession of historical, political, social, and cultural changes that accelerated the phenomenon consolidation of fashion as a cultural phenomenon of great importance and dynamism, both in terms of its incursions into the languages of art and in terms of the international economy.

A few focuses follow: on Lombard clothing, on how some items played different roles besides clothing, on the costume in the Goldoni’s theater, on the twentieth-century Decadentism of Oscar Wilde, and others. Other aspects that characterize the industry today follow: the intersection of fashion with all the other arts, the role of magazines in the process of women’s emancipation, the meaning of “fashion showcase”, luxury brands and the phenomenon of their counterfeiting, the role of the “prosumer”, and sustainable fashion laws, looking toward a future zero-carbon society.

Lean Accounting: A Decision-Making Tool

2024-03-04T02:40:50-05:00

Lean accounting is a management decision-making tool available to companies involving streamlining a company’s competitive internal management strategy to minimize waste, such as excess inventory, to maximize profits. This exploration of lean accounting processes looks at how companies can maximize continuous improvement using reporting and accounting methods. Barriers to lean accounting implementation are identified together with means for their resolution. The basic understanding of lean accounting is it targets waste and non-value-adding activities especially those that do not benefit the internal or external stakeholder in the manufacturing or service setting. Lean accounting offers specific styled reports, performance measures.

Protecting Intellectual Property in International Expansion: Preparing an Innovation-Based SME

2024-03-24T23:02:21-04:00

A key concern among innovation-based SMEs is to protect their intellectual property (IP) as they grow internationally. To explore the challenges such resource-constrained firms face, we conducted action research at a technology-based SME that aspired to expand internationally. Through collaborative and periodic interventions, we sought to help managers of the organization work around the issues that surfaced while preparing to internationalize further. Our collaboration led us to examine isolating mechanisms, such as rapid international expansion, that the SME could deploy to pre-empt competitive imitation of their innovative products and processes, especially as their IP is not protected legally (e.g., by patents). Results point to inevitable identified tensions and paradoxes, leading us to approaches and practices the firm can adopt.

A Health Systems Policy Framework on “How to” Build Cross-Sector Collaboration: Perspectives From Health Administrators and Leaders

2024-04-17T03:44:22-04:00

There are many barriers/challenges bringing multiple stakeholders within health and non-health together to collaborate to address population health. This study aims to identify the key components to build successful cross-sector collaboration and develop a policy framework for health systems integration and transformation. We conducted quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with health administrators and leaders who volunteered to participate on six newly established teams or “Tables” to improve population health locally in Ontario, Canada. Using thematic analysis and methodological triangulation, we identified emergent themes that were confirmed by member checking. The Relational Coordination survey response rate was 62% (n=45). The survey results were correlated with the twelve interviews and member checking. Drawing from the perspectives of the health administrators and leaders of the “Tables”, the emergent themes identified for successful cross-sector collaboration were: 1) systems change mindset, 2) inter-dependency, 3) inter-organizational relationships, and 4) self-organizing capacity. A health systems policy framework on “how to” build cross-sector collaboration was developed to support and achieve health systems integration.

Who Participates in Local Elections? Evidence From Current Population Survey

2024-04-17T03:51:43-04:00

Local elections have had historically low participation rates in the United States. Knowing who participates in local elections is important because it will allow democracy scholars to better understand whose interests are being represented in local governing bodies and explain how and why local governing bodies make the decisions they do. I use binary logistic regression analysis on survey responses from the U.S. Census Bureau’s September 2021 Current Population Survey Volunteering and Civic Life Supplement to analyze self-reported participation regarding demographic characteristics and state-level election policies. This paper finds that age, gender, education, race, homeownership, and family income are all important predictors of participation in local elections. Likewise, this paper finds that all mail elections and Same Day Registration have strong, statistically significant effects on local-level voter turnout, voter ID laws have a counterintuitive effect, the length of early voting periods has a small but statistically significant effect, and Automatic Voter Registration and direct democracy processes have no statistically significant effects on participation in local elections.

Do Monetary Aggregates Improve Inflation Forecasting in Switzerland?

2024-04-26T01:12:28-04:00

This study examines whether or not Swiss monetary aggregates enhance inflation forecasting in Switzerland during the out-of-sample period, December 2008 to November 2019. We use a state-of-the-art multi-recurrent neural network endowed with a sluggish state-based memory to approximate a non-linear auto-regressive moving average model. Conventional monetary aggregates have been shown to lose dynamic information, potentially explaining why many deem traditional measures of the money supply to have minimal economic relevance. Our findings suggest that when conventional monetary aggregates, Divisia money measures, and a short-term interest rate are combined, forecasts of Swiss inflation over the 12, 24 and 36-month forecasting horizons are significantly improved compared to a model that excludes a measure of the money supply.

Intentional Community Building: The Development of the Whitneyville Cultural Commons

2024-04-26T01:16:28-04:00

Although historically intolerance was an identifying characteristic of communities, can modern urban communities nurture inclusion and diversity? This paper takes a qualitative case study approach to analyzing the development of a community organization in an urban setting. As a non-profit, the Whitneyville Cultural Commons (WCC) serves as an example of an intentional civil society organization designed to serve the community of the surrounding neighborhood. By interviewing the leaders and members of the WCC community, I address the techniques this organization has used to strengthen itself and support the surrounding community in inclusive ways.