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ABSTRACTA decision‐making orientation to systems design has been suggested to overcome some of the current deficiencies of computer‐based information systems. This paper derives several hypotheses from a decision‐making framework proposed by Robert Anthony. These hypotheses are tested with empirical data from a sample of twenty major computer‐based information systems drawn from seven Bay Area manufacturing firms. The results indicate that present computer‐based information systems follow the descriptive aspects of the Anthony framework, but have had little effect on top management. There is little evidence of common guidelines for systems design which are accepted by the different companies. The data also indicate that users have a strong negative reaction to large numbers of computer‐produced reports. The implications of the results for systems design are discussed.

ABSTRACTThis paper describes the results of a simulation study to examine the effects of different organizational structures on the performance of a dual‐constraint job shop production system. A hypothetical shop in which machines and workers are constraining resources is the setting of the study. The shop consists of divisions comprised of work centers which, in turn, contain machines to which workers are assigned. There are fewer workers than machines. Variations in organizational structure are achieved by different allocations of a fixed number of work centers to the divisions. Each structure is studied for three levels of labor flexibility. Mean flow‐time, flow‐time variance, and worker transfers between divisions and work centers are used as performance measures.

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the Stochastic Dominance (SD) approach to the evaluation of risky assets. Given a set of portfolios, the familiar EV procedure chooses a set of EV‐efficient portfolios while the SD procedures choose SD‐efficient sets that usually are quite similar to (but not identical with) the EV‐efficient set. The SD approach can be employed as a refinement of the EV model or as an alternative method of evaluating portfolios. The SD view has certain conceptual advantages in the screening of a set of portfolios, but the EV model has the important advantage of an optimizing algorithm that builds efficient portfolios. Also, the SD approach requires more data than the EV approach.

ABSTRACTSimulation techniques are widely used for analyzing the policy decisions of managers. This paper presents a "higher‐level" use of simulation to analyze the modeling decisions of analysts, which models are, in turn, useful for policy analysis. Methodological systems simulation (MSS) is described in terms of a systems performance prediction problem. The MSS program is outlined and the two major uses of MSS‐evaluation of alternative models and simulation of the analyst–are described in terms of the results of simulation runs using the systems performance prediction context.

ABSTRACTIn this paper a Monte Carlo sampling study consisting of four experiments is described. Two error distributions were employed, the normal and the Laplace; and two small sample sizes (20 and 40) were tested. The question of simultaneous‐equation bias called for two‐stage estimators. The L1, norm was employed as a means of comparing the performance of the L1 or least squares estimators. A relatively new algorithm for computing the direct least absolute (DLA) and two‐stage least absolute (TSLA) estimators was employed for the experiments. The results confirmed the hypotheses that for non‐normal error distributions such as the Laplace the least absolute estimators were better.

ABSTRACTThe usual analysis of the deterministic economic order quantity problem seeks to minimize the average cost of inventory ordering and holding costs per unit time. An alternative approach described in this paper examines the present value of discounted costs over an infinite horizon. Differences in the solutions and implications of errors using the two methodologies are discussed.

ABSTRACTThe problem of scheduling jobs on M‐parallel processors is one of selecting a set of jobs to be processed from a set of available jobs in order to maximize profit. This problem is examined and a dynamic programming solution is presented which decomposes it into a sequencing problem within an allocation problem. The computation required for solution is found to depend on the sequencing problem as it is affected by the waiting cost function. Various forms of the waiting cost function are considered. The solution procedure is illustrated by an example, and possible extensions of the formulation are discussed.

ABSTRACTThe evaluation of the effectiveness of faculty teaching is a difficult process. This paper presents the results of an experimental empirical investigation into the possibility of using a psycho‐linguistic measurement technique, the Semantic Differential, to measure faculty communication of terminology to students. This measurement could be used to supplement other teaching evaluation devices. The paper determines a set of "key concepts," derives a set of S.D. meanings from a Faculty to act as a standard, and measures student meanings at the beginning and end of an introductory course. These sets of meanings are then compared.

ABSTRACTIn an experiment, thirty‐six professional insurance men employed the utility method, the worry method, and the comparison method in two insurance problems to determine the appropriate insurance coverage. It was found that the best act with the utility method almost always was no insurance, whereas the best act with the other two methods tended to be complete insurance. The utility method best act rarely agreed with the subject's actual preferred act, while the comparison method best act usually was the same or almost the same as the actual preferred act. While the worry method suggests that the subjects typically are risk averse, the utility functions obtained tend to show that the subjects typically are not risk averse.