MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95
The Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) is an activity,
jointly sponsored by the Sloan School , the Energy Laboratory, and the
Department of Economics, that funds policy-related research in energy and
environmental economics. The Center receives financial support from 23
corporate sponsors and 3 government agencies who contribute a minimum of
$35,000 annually to the Center's research program.
For the past several years, CEEPR's principal research focus has been the
Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, conducted in
collaboration with MIT's Center for Global Change Science. This program, led
by Professors Henry Jacoby and Ronald Prinn, draws on MIT's traditional
strengths in science and economics to conduct interdisciplinary research to
support global climate policy. In the past year, the economic and climate
components of an interactive integrated global model have been created and the
integration of these components is underway. Also, a strong collaborative
research effort has been established with the Woods Hole Marine Biology
Laboratory to provide the eco-system models required to link global climate to
local and regional effects.
At CEEPR, the most notable new activity is the start of work under a two year
grant from the U.S. Government to evaluate the costs of compliance with the
acid rain provisions of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. This evaluation
provides the first "ex post" assessment of the emissions trading provisions
which established the largest public policy experiment to date on alternatives
to command and control for achieving compliance with environmental objectives.
The Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) continues to conduct
research on the management of information technology (IT) in today's global and
dynamic business environment. Highlights from 1994-95 include:
- With financial support from six companies, CISR designed an executive
education course on the topic of managing the corporate telecommunications
network and wrote several case studies. The broader topic of managing the IT
infrastructure has become a major focus of CISR's ongoing research into the
role of the IT function.
- As part of ongoing research into improving systems delivery, CISR initiated a
working group of seven companies that have adopted a "model-based" approach to
systems development.
- The 20th annual CISR "Summer Session" conference, held in June 1995, was very
well received. Attendance was up and the 135 participants represented a
diversity of organizations and countries.
- CISR ran four research seminars, plus a board meeting, for its core group of
16 corporate sponsors. The seminar on groupware was held jointly with the MIT
Center for Coordination Science, and the seminar on IT infrastructure included
faculty and sponsors from London Business School's Centre for Research in
Information Management.
The 1994-95 academic year marked the fourth full year of operation of the Sloan
School's International Center for Research on the Management of Technology
(ICRMOT). Most of the center's research projects have entered the stage in
which concrete results are becoming apparent.
- Scholarly output: Sixteen working papers were released; most of which have
been submitted to refereed journals for publication. One doctoral dissertation
was completed this year and two others are nearly complete. During this year
Professor Michael Cusumano's ICRMOT-funded research on the software development
process has led to the completion of a book to be published in October 1995 by
the Free Press: Microsoft Secrets.
- Dissemination of research results to the broader managerial profession: The
ICRMOT has been a sponsor of two major symposia based upon center-sponsored
research. The first, held in September 1994 in Singapore and chaired by ICRMOT
co-director Professor Edward B. Roberts, was sponsored jointly with the
National Science and Technology Board of Singapore. That symposium focused on
the strategic direction of technology. In May 1995 the ICRMOT, together with a
number of other MIT research programs and the MIT Industrial Liaison Program,
sponsored a meeting focusing on technology supply chains. This symposium was
chaired by Professor Charles Fine, drew an audience of more than 400 people to
MIT.
- Expansion of the center's set of partner firms: During this year the ICRMOT
welcomed two new partner firms, both from the UK: British Petroleum Company
p.l.c. and Imperial Chemical Industries PLC.
The International Financial Services Research Center (IFSRC) is a partnership
of industry and MIT designed to advance the knowledge and improve the practice
of management in the global financial services industry. More than 30 Sloan
faculty and relevant research staff are participating in research projects to
the international financial services industry. The Center presently has nine
sponsors and two associate sponsors located in New York, England and Japan. It
has developed research programs in several areas, including major initiatives
in risk management and corporate finance. The center has provided seminars and
roundtable discussions on such topics as "Global Risk Management for Investment
Institutions and Multinational Corporations", "Public Risk Management
Standards", and "Inefficient Markets & Corporate Finance". Research
sponsored by the center has resulted in hundreds of publications in areas such
as "The Paradox of Liquidity", "Risk Measurement in Global Financial Markets
With Asynchronous, Partially Missing Price Data" and "Distributed Knowledge and
Strategic Responsiveness -- A Study of Corporate Responses to Volatile Exchange
Rates". The center continues to have active projects with both individual and
groups of sponsors. Professor Steward C. Myers has been the Director of the
IFSRC for nearly seven years. Recently, he has been succeeded by Professor
Paul M. Healy. The associate Director is Dr. Michael D. Siegel.
Fiscal Year 95 witnessed continued growth of the Center for Organizational
Learnig, founded in 1991, as two new sponsors - Texas Instruments and Chrysler
Corporation -- have joined the 17 other Fortune 500 companies and Health Care
Consortium which sponsor the Center. The number of sponsors has been capped at
twenty and there now is a waiting lest of organizations interested in joining.
In-depth field research projects continue in a number of companies, including
Ford Motor Company, Harley Davidson, National Semiconductor and Philips
Display. The first field project initiated at the Center came to completion
with the launch of the new 1995 Lincoln-Continental in '94, now among the
highest rated quality cars in the Ford fleet. The Center is also developing
new partnerships with other Sloan faculty, including working with the Center
for Coordination Science and the Center for Information Systems Research on
Sloan's new research initiative - Inventing the Organizations of the 21st
Century. Lastly, there is growing world-wide recognition of the Center, as
evidenced by feature articles in major business periodicals and the initiation
of Organization Learning collaboratives patterned after the MIT model in
Europe, Taiwan, Singapore, South Africa, Peru, Argentina, Australia and New
Zealand.
The MIT Program on the Pharmaceutical Industry continued to engage faculty and
students in its portfolio of research and educational activities. Articles or
working papers were released from POPI's major studies in the areas of drug
development, manufacturing, the marketplace and the evolving public policy
environment. POPI's research is conducted with ongoing input from colleagues
in industry and government. POPI continued to offer several academic subjects
for members of the MIT community, on-campus and off-campus executive courses
for industry staff and research briefings to colleagues in academia, government
and industry. Major new directions for the coming year will include an
expanded focus on characteristics of drug development, manufacturing and the
marketplace on the part of firms operating outside the U.S. Funding support for
POPI is from the Sloan Foundation and six pharmaceutical and biotechnology
firms.
PROFIT was established two years ago at MIT's Sloan School of Management to
define new processes and technologies required to increase productivity from IT
in both the private and public sectors. Four themes drive profit to maximize
the value of data and make it a truly valuable corporate resource. These
include: (1) automated data gathering; (2) efficient data integration and
dissemination; (3) re-engineering of processes; and (4) better appreciation of
the relationship between investments and information technology and overall
productivity. In its first two years, PROFIT has created transferable
technology in two areas. The first is for lifting information automatically
from paper. The research team has developed a prototype system that can read
bank checks and other documents with very high speed and accuracy. A promising
aspect of this technology lies in its potential to eliminate cumbersome
processes (and reduce consumer costs) in many different industries, from
insurance to manufacturing to health care. The second area of progress focuses
on the integration of disparate data sources. One theme of this effort is to
develop systematic techniques for integrating islands of disparate information
systems that characterize virtually all large organizations. Two prototypes
have been developed in this area. One operates in a three-tiered client server
environment as an extension to existing commercial software. The other
operates on the World Wide Web to integrate numerous data sources (e.g. text,
databases) from a wide range of data publishers. PROFIT is co-directed by
Professor Stuart Madnick, Dr. Amar Gupta and Dr. Michael Siegel.
The System Design and Management Program, offered jointly by Sloan and the MIT
School of Engineering, aims to provide engineers in industry and government
with advanced technical and management education required to conceive,
development, or procure and integrate, sophisticated products and complex
systems. This past year, in collaboration with a small set of companies drawn
from the aerospace, automotive, computer, and telecommunications sectors as
well as the federal government, a core set of faculty have been creating a one
year (September 1995 to August 1996) pilot version of the program and designing
the full program. The pilot program, which will lead to a Master's degree,
will include one semester on-campus and four courses given by distance learning
technology. The full program, targeted for launch in the summer of 1996, will
be conducted as a one and one-half to two-year graduate degree program
featuring an option for both on-campus instruction and courses delivered to
company sites via distance learning. Degree candidates must also complete a
major applied project intended to integrate and exercise curricular learnings.
The full program will also offer opportunities for company and government
employees to enroll in a subset of the program for certificate credit, as well
as internships for undergraduates. During the next academic year, the core
faculty will be revising the program design and seeking MIT approval for the
full program.
ADMINISTRATION
MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95