Editorial for May 2013 Issue - IEEE Xplore

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http://ieee-tem.uark.edu/depts.html for further information and links for this and other departments .... Sam M. Walton College of Business. University of Arkansas.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 2, MAY 2013

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Editorial for May 2013 Issue I. SPECIAL ISSUE PROPOSALS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME ROPOSALS for special issues on topics of current interest in engineering, technology, and innovation management are always welcome. Please send a brief description of the concept for the issue to me ([email protected]). I will circulate it to department editors, and if the initial response is favorable, I will request a specific plan and more detailed information to be used in the final decision about proceeding with the special issue.

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II. ONLINE SUBMISSION AND REVIEW SYSTEM The journal office currently experiences many returned e-mails via the journal’s online system. Since e-mails are used to communicate with corresponding authors, coauthors, and reviewers during the review process, it is very important for users to keep updating their accounts in the system. Please login to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tem-ieee to update your contact information when you change your e-mail addresses. New users are also welcome to create your own accounts in the system. Also, please be sure that the SPAM filters on your own servers are set to receive mail from Manuscript Central. The journal’s online server should be whitelisted to mark it as a valid e-mail sender: 170.107.181.135. III. ABOUT THIS ISSUE This issue of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT includes 18 articles, including seven regular research articles, a guest editorial, and ten articles that, along with five articles published in the November 2012 (Volume 59, Number 4) issue, comprise a special issue on Engineering Management and Sustainability. This timely and highly successful special issue was edited by J. Sarkis, T. D. Bruijn, and Q. Zhu, and has led to the creation of a new department on Social Issues and Sustainability in Engineering Management (please see http://ieee-tem.uark.edu/depts.html for further information and links for this and other departments of the journal). The guest editors of the special issue have prepared an editorial that examines the history and current state of research on sustainability in engineering management and discusses the contributions of the ten sustainability articles included in this issue. Next, I summarize the contributions of the first seven articles from this issue, which were selected through a regular review process. “Predicting Project Portfolio Success by Measuring Management Quality—A Longitudinal Study” (by Jonas, Kock, and Gemunden): This paper offers managers a validated measure for Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEM.2013.2253422

project portfolio management quality (consisting of information quality, allocation quality, and cooperation quality), with which portfolio success can be anticipated. It provides a hands-on measure to test the performance effects of portfolio management instruments without having to wait for a longitudinal comparison. Senior and middle managements can apply the suggested measures to appraise their portfolio management process and to assess and monitor the performance effects of specific management decisions in a timely manner. Furthermore, the study stresses the informal side of project portfolio management in addition to technocratic process definitions. Collaboration between the different actors involved in the project portfolio management process is highly success relevant. This also implies a strong need for role clarity of all different management roles. Finally, the performance relevance of the three qualities helps managers to concentrate on those managerial activities that matter in the portfolio management process. “Vintage Innovation: How to Improve the Service Characteristics and Costumer Effectiveness of Products Becoming Obsolete” (by Schiavone): This paper contends that firms can find powerful insights for their innovation strategy also by looking “back” at the technological antecedents of an emerging technology and its products. The case outlined in the paper shows technology managers of incumbent firms, under given conditions, might develop a vintage innovation linking together the use of old and new technologies and products. In these cases, collaboration between technologies is more profitable for firms than their competition. “Incentive Alignment and Risk Perception: An Information Security Application” (by Farahmand, Atallah, and Spafford): As concerns for information security and privacy increase, so do management concerns about the expenditures needed to address them. Aligning incentives and resolving information asymmetries are an important part of any practical solution. This paper addresses these issues by presenting a framework that enhances understanding of appropriate factors in the alignment of interests of all parties in information security practice. A quantitative methodology is provided for managers to identify and to correct perverse incentives, and to help align stakeholder perceptions of information security risks with governance goals. A revision is presented to a commonly accepted risk perception model. This enhanced mode can assist managers in understanding how different stakeholders perceive and react to information security risks, and thus to adjust alignment of incentives. Forty-two senior information systems and security executives in industry (e.g., chief security officers) and governmental organizations (e.g., law enforcement agents) across the U.S were interviewed about the proposed model in the study. Also a few real-world illustrations indicating the practical value of the results are presented when addressing some typical business operations.

0018-9391/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 2, MAY 2013

“Coordinating a Supply Chain With a Manufacturer-Owned Online Channel: A Dual Channel Model Under Price Competition” (by Ryan, Sun, and Zhao): Systems in which there exist dual channels of distribution are studied as traditional retail channels and manufacturer-owned direct online channel, e.g., companies such as HP, IBM, Eastman Kodak, Nike, and Apple. As noted by the existing literature, this dual channel approach is common in practice because it allows the manufacturer to take advantage of the benefits of each form of distribution. While there has been significant previous literature weighing the advantages and disadvantages of this dual channel approach, little of this literature addresses the obvious next questions: Given that the manufacturer has chosen to take a dual channel approach to distributing his product, how can the system be designed in order to achieve supply chain coordination? What kinds of mechanisms can be designed to reduce or eliminate channel conflict? Addressing these questions is the primary focus of the current paper. Understanding the nature of supply chain conflicts and developing coordination mechanisms to eliminate these conflicts is particularly important for companies that have their own direct online channels. “Direct and Mediated Effects of Product Modularity on Development Time and Product Performance” (by Danese and Filippini): This paper provides several implications for managerial practice. First, findings of this study suggests to managers that a product modularity-based strategy can determine substantial benefits at an aggregate plant level, in terms of new product development (NPD) time and product performance, especially in manufacturing sectors characterized by high product variety and continuously evolving demand. In these industries, the need for continuously updating product features and functionalities over time to respond to rapidly changing markets and technology trends makes modularity particularly beneficial in order to offer innovative products, while reducing NPD time. In addition, the findings on the partial mediation effect of supplier involvement in NPD are particularly valuable to practitioners, as they recommend an actionable path to realize the potential of modularity in improving the NPD process. Evidence from this study suggests that modularity can help to improve NPD time and product performance also because it serves as an enabler to supplier involvement in NPD. Therefore, managers should be aware of this effect and be prepared to take the opportunities that modularity can offer, by ensuring that the resources supporting

supplier integration are adequate and that the firm is willing to accept the consequent transformation of its relationships with suppliers. “The Value of Capacity Sizing Under Risk Aversion and Operational Flexibility” (by Chronopoulos, De Reyck, and Siddiqui): Firms can find powerful insights for their innovation strategy also by looking “back” at the technological antecedents of an emerging technology and its products. The case outlined in the paper shows technology managers of incumbent firms, under given conditions, might develop a vintage innovation linking together the use of old and new technologies and products. In these cases, collaboration between technologies is more profitable for firms than their competition. “Analyzing Product Architecture Under Technological Change: Modular Upgradeability Tradeoffs” (by Kamrad, Schmidt, and Ulku): In this paper, an economic framework is developed to evaluate modular upgradeability as a design feature. First, the results indicate that firms benefit from a modularly upgradeable product, either when the cost of introduction is high, or when the market size is small. In all other cases, the firm is better off selling an integral product. Second, several factors reduce the value of modular upgradeability to the users. Typically, modularly upgradeable products require a higher degree of effort in order to evaluate, and to integrate new components. This reduces their net utility directly, increasing the opportunity cost in terms of foregone utility. Moreover, the performance “slippage” diminishes the value of new components. Third, modular upgradeability makes early access to improved components possible. Yet, due to slippage, an integral product introduced less frequently may still provide a higher overall performance. Further, when users are not technologically unsophisticated, modular upgradeability slows down the absorption of innovation. Even when better components are available, they may be replaced at a slower rate. Finally, at given fixed prices, the value of modular upgrades for the user peaks when the components improve at different rates.

RAJIV SABHERWAL, Editor-in-Chief Sam M. Walton College of Business University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA [email protected]