This paper extends earlier work on the application of hidden Markov models (HMMs) to the problem of forecasting international conflict. HMMs are a sequence comparison method widely used in computerized speech recognition as a computationally efficient method of generalizing a set of sequences observed in a noisy environment. The technique is easily be adapted to work with \international event data. The paper provides a theoretical "micro-foundation" for the use of sequence comparison in conflict early-warning based on coadaptation of organizational standard operating procedures. The left-right (LR) HMM used in speech recognition is first extended to a left-right-left (LRL) model that allows a crisis to escalate and de-escalate. This model is tested for its ability to correctly discriminate between BCOW crisis that involve and do not involve war. The LRL model provides slightly more accurate classification than the LR model. The interpretation of the hidden states in the LRL models, how...

1 THE PROCESS OF CREATING DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES The concept of dynamic capabilities (DCs) is receiving significant attention from scholars in strategy and organisational research. However, most of the research is conceptual. In this empirical paper, the process of how DCs are created in two organisations is examined using the grounded theory methodology with the aim of developing a substantive theory of DCs creation. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and this data was analysed using the constant comparison method to identify and explain the process through which DCs are created. The findings from the study reveal that DCs are developed and renewed through continuous internal activities such as in-house innovations, human resource (HR) activities, learning activities and external activities with partners through collaborations and acquisitions. It is the consequence of these activities that leads to the development of DCs. From the findings a framework of the process of creating DCs is developed. Implications for academics and practitioners are discussed and limitations and directions for future

Some scholars of management, organizations and markets expend significant energy disparaging and defending various research methods. Debates about deductive vs. inductive theory-building; casebased information versus large-sample data; and qualitative versus quantitative research are dichotomies that surface almost daily in the lives of those of us who conduct research and review the work of others. This paper asserts that some of this conflict might evolve toward cooperation if we better understood the process by which bodies of understanding are built within communities of researchers. In this paper we first present a model of the process by which bodies of understanding are built. This model is a synthesis of models that have been developed by scholars of this process in a range of

Draft—not to be cited A couple of decades ago, Bass (1990) said compellingly that people are “charisma-hungry ” when it comes to leadership. Invoking charisma and other components of transformational leadership (Burns, 1978; Conger & Kanungo, 1988) has rejuvenated leadership theory and research. To complete the picture, though, we should consider that people also are performance-hungry. Leadership theory and research emphasize leader style, interpersonal relationships, and followers ‟ reactions, and typically (with rare exception) do not include the problem-solving processes that yield desired results attributable at least in part to the leader‟s efforts. Discussing charisma, Madsen and Snow (1991; quoted in Bligh, Kohles, & Meindl, 2004) noted an additional, complementary causal sequence: followers ‟ belief in the leader “surely must be inspired by at least some hint of a real ability to deal with the followers ‟ problems. ” It is this possibility that constitutes the domain of interest in this manuscript. I describe a leadership model invoking the essential elements of: 1) leader performance, 2) leader behavior in the form of problem-solving activities that achieve

In this chapter we explore the benefits of social capital and the harmful affects of social liabilities. Following Allison (1971), two models of the organizations are juxtaposed: those of the Rational and Political Actors. The issues of social capital require different perspectives when its implications for performance are addressed. The mediation through individuals takes a prominent place in the Political Actor, and moves to the background in the Rational Actor. The issue of aggregation from the member to the organization is primarily an issue when we view the organization as a Political Actor in which the members ’ social capital aggregates to that of their organization. Two illustrative cases that fit the two models are then presented, the industrial business groups in Japan and Korea on the one hand, and the population of professional services firms in the Netherlands on the other. In the case of business groups we point to both the benefits of social capital and the drawbacks of social liability. When we shift to the study of professional services firms, we demonstrate that social capital as a distinct organizational resource diminishes the likelihood of dissolution. The implications for social capital and liability are exposed and reviewed. 2

Experimental studies consistently indicate that human information processing and decisionmaking violate basic precepts of rationality. Yet rational choice theory is increasingly used to model organizations, politics, and international relations. Experimental evidence of cognitive bias is often discounted as a methodological artifact because analysis, organization, specialization, and the presence of strong incentives are presumed to eliminate bias outside the laboratory. A controversy in the historiography of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 provides an opportunity to address that assumption. Did “the

The 21st century will require knowledge and skill well beyond the basic levels of reading and arithmetic that American schools know how to produce more or less reliably. Delivering a “thinking curriculum” to all American students requires major reform in the ways schools and districts organize their work. The transformation of the institution of schooling that will be needed to make this aspirational goal a real achievement is daunting. This article examines cognitive science, systems engineering, and social science concepts that are pointing toward a new foundation for policies and practices that may radically improve the proportion of students who can achieve true 21st-century skills. Keywords: education organization; high-demand curriculum; human capital; instructional leadership; learning systems; professional development; routines; social capital; systems engineering; 21st-century skills A decade into the 21st century, we still find ourselves nearly as unprepared for what our students and society need from education as we were when A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) was first published. We are calling for “career and college readiness” for all American high school students and for a focus on learning “21st-century skills, ” yet we find these terms hard to define, much less translate into meaningful action. The overused phrase 21st-century learning can take on real meaning only if we compare the challenges educators face now with those faced at the turn of the past century. The idea that virtually all students can, and should, learn a high-demand curriculum, focused on thinking and reasoning and grounded in mastery of complex bodies of knowledge, would have seemed quixotic to thinkers a century ago. In the last part of the 20th century, we began to imagine such possibilities and even establish them as national goals

or the U.S. Government. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The modern international security environment has undergone significant changes since the end of the Cold War. The nature of the battlefield has changed from rural to urban. New technology promises tremendous capabilities, and there are new actors on the scene. These changes have had an impact on the approaches used by U.S. security instruments to implement U.S. policy. The U.S. Marine Corps identified the changing battlefield in the later half of the 1990s and articulated its vision of future warfare as the Three Block War. Concurrent to Marine Corps’ development of the Three Block War was an explosive growth in information technology developments. The end of the Cold War, budgetary pressures, changing face of war, and technological advancements at the start of the 21 st Century generated tremendous pressure upon the US military establishment to adapt. Emerging from these pressures was a desire to operationalize the information technology advancements realized at the end of the 20 th Century in what is being called Network Centric Warfare. These two vectors, refining the Three Block War model and Network Centric Warfare, have come to be important elements to the strategies and tactics used to fight in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom as well as components to the consequent debate about the

This publication was produced in the Department of Defense school environment in the interest of academic freedom and the advancement of national defense-related concepts. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the United States government. This publication has been reviewed by security and policy review authorities and is cleared for

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