
Purpose
Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.


Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.


Findings
As soon as the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU) in 2017, one of the key discussions among businesses throughout Europe centered on what the likely impact would be on supply chains involving UK companies. Whether you were a mainland European country with supply chain partners in the UK, or a UK manufacturer that depended on European companies for supplies, the uncertainty and potential disruption to well-grooved supply chain processes became a major headache. At first, it was the uncertainty that proved the major issue as governments played politics and refused to define the likely deal that would enable supply chain terms to be put in place. As the UK left the EU and the terms of the overall deal became clearer, firms then had to work out how whether any necessary changes to their supply chains were required.


Practical implications
Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.


Original/value
The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


Effective Supply Chain Management

This paper attempts to describe some of the results obtained in the iteration theory of transcendental meromorphic functions, not excluding the case of entire functions. The reader is not expected to be familiar with the iteration theory of rational functions. On the other hand, some aspects where the transcendental case is analogous to the rational case are treated rather briefly here. For example, we introduce the different types of components of the Fatou set that occur in the iteration of rational functions but omit a detailed description of these types. Instead, we concentrate on the types of components that are special to transcendental functions (Baker domains and wandering domains).

/pdf/iteration-of-meromorphic-functions-5an8yxam4g.pdf

Iteration of meromorphic functions

The balanced scorecard (BSC) has emerged as a decision support tool at the strategic management level. Many business leaders now evaluate corporate performance by supplementing financial accounting data with goal-related measures from the following perspectives: customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. It is argued that the BSC concept can be adapted to assist those managing business functions, organizational units and individual projects. This article develops a balanced scorecard for information systems (IS) that measures and evaluates IS activities from the following perspectives: business value, user orientation, internal process, and future readiness. Case study evidence suggests that a balanced IS scorecard can be the foundation for a strategic IS management system provided that certain development guidelines are followed, appropriate metrics are identified, and key implementation obstacles are overcome.

The balanced scorecard: a foundation for the strategic management of information systems

We investigate the growth of the Nevanlinna characteristic of f(z+η) for a fixed η∈C in this paper. In particular, we obtain a precise asymptotic relation between T(r,f(z+η)) and T(r,f), which is only true for finite order meromorphic functions. We have also obtained the proximity function and pointwise estimates of f(z+η)/f(z) which is a discrete version of the classical logarithmic derivative estimates of f(z). We apply these results to give new growth estimates of meromorphic solutions to higher order linear difference equations. This also allows us to solve an old problem of Whittaker (Interpolatory Function Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1935) concerning a first order difference equation. We show by giving a number of examples that all of our results are best possible in certain senses. Finally, we give a direct proof of a result in Ablowitz, Halburd and Herbst (Nonlinearity 13:889–905, 2000) concerning integrable difference equations.

/pdf/on-the-nevanlinna-characteristic-of-f-z-e-and-difference-3hx04cyhj0.pdf

On the Nevanlinna characteristic of f(z+η) and difference equations in the complex plane

Foundations of Economic Analysis

Let f and h be transcendental entire functions and let g be a continuous and open map of the complex plane into itself with g∘f=h∘g. We show that if f satisfies a certain condition, which holds, in particular, if f has no wandering domains, then g−1(J(h))=J(f). Here J(·) denotes the Julia set of a function. We conclude that if f has no wandering domains, then h has no wandering domains. Further, we show that for given transcendental entire functions f and h, there are only countably many entire functions g such that g∘f=h∘g.

/pdf/on-semiconjugation-of-entire-functions-2mr5b9px3l.pdf

On semiconjugation of entire functions

This paper is concerned with a generalisation of the classical theory of the dynamics associated to the iteration of a rational mapping of the Riemann sphere, to the more general setting of the dynamics associated to an arbitrary semigroup of rational mappings. We are partly motivated by results of Gehring and Martin which show that certain parameter spaces for KJeinian groups are essentially the stable basins of infinity for certain polynomial semigroups. Here we discuss the structure of the Fatou and Julia sets and their basic properties. We investigate to what extent Sullivan's 'no wandering domains' theorem remains valid. We obtain a complete generalisation of the classical results concerning classification of basins and their associated dynamics under an algebraic hypothesis analogous to the group-theoretical notion of 'virtually abelian'. We show that, in general, polynomial semigroups can have wandering domains. We put forward some conjectures regarding what we believe might be true. We also prove a theorem about the existence of filled in Julia sets for certain polynomial semigroups with specific applications to the theory of Kleinian groups in mind.

Aimo Hinkkanen

Papers

On semiconjugation of entire functions

The Dynamics of Semigroups of Rational Functions I

Solutions of the first and second Painlevé equations are meromorphic

Julia sets of rational semigroups

Distributed decision support systems for real-time supply chain management using agent technologies