The Role of Internal and External Complexity in Global Factory Performance: An NKC Application

The global factory literature suggests that MNCs can take advantage of global operations by extensively offshoring and outsourcing activities. However, the added difficulty for the lead firm to coordinate the resulting complex structure is often underestimated. Evidence could be found in Boeing's 787 Dreamliner project, in which the external complexity disrupted MNC performance. Motivated by the gap between theory and practice, this study focuses on systems of MNCs connected with each other with supplier-client relationships and/or outsourcing. In particular it investigates the interplay of the internal and external complexity in such systems and how their balance affects the system performance. The study models the internal and external complexity by using the NKC-simulation methodology and adjusting it to the specific MNC context. The NKC methodology is widely used in organization theory to study complex systems. Simulations comparing the performance of MNCs that use outsourcing to different degrees indicate that a balanced level of internal and external complexity is beneficial in the context of global factory.     

Intervention with heart attack patients and families

Workers who attend to a stage model of acute illness can create linkage with other problems and events to effectuate a comprehensive and dynamic plan of intervention. A systematized approach is proposed to effectively understand the psychological reactions to illness manifested by heart attack patients and their families.     

The clinical social worker as a member of the health team in a coronary care unit

In the course of developing a pattern of assistance to the patient about to be discharged from a coronary care unit, the professional health team at the University of California at Los Angeles Hospital anticipates and treats in advance the medical, social, and emotional problems of the patient which might tend to create a crisis at the time of his re-entry into his former world, possibly a new and much-changed world dictated by the nature of his illness. The professional appraisals at UCLA are continually reinforced by the practical and social approaches of the clinical social worker who, by the nature of her training, is able to see the patient's illness in its full social and psychological framework, rather than as an isolated phenomenon.