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Maintenance service plans (MSPs) are contracts for the provision of maintenance by a service provider to an equipment operator. These plans can have different payment structures and risk allocations, which induce various types of incentives for agents in the service chain. How do such structures affect service performance and service chain value? We provide an empirical answer to this question by using a unique panel data covering the sales and service records of more than 700 diagnostic body scanners. We exploit the presence of a standard warranty period and employ a matching approach to isolate the incentive effects of MSPs from the confounding effects of endogenous contract selection. We find that moving the equipment operator from a basic, pay-per-service plan to a fixed-fee, full-protection plan not only reduces reliability but also increases equipment service costs. Furthermore, that increase is driven by both the operator and the service provider. Our results indicate that incentive effects arising from MSPs leads to losses in service chain value, and we provide the first evidence that a basic pay-per-service plan—under which risk of equipment failure is borne by the operator—can improve performance and reduce costs.

Copyright © 2019, INFORMS

It is 25 years since the European Union (EU) agreed to complete the European Single Market (SM) in goods, services, people, and capital. While many barriers to the free movement of capital across borders have been removed, some important practical hurdles are still in place. The euro crisis has shown that the European financial sector in particular remains vulnerable and fragmented and this poses serious risks to the stability of both national economies and the euro area as a whole. In 2015, the European Commission therefore set out a list of measures to establish an integrated capital market in the EU by 2019.
The first part of this policy paper analyzes the channels through which financial integration affects growth, stability, and convergence in the EU, including capital allocation, production specialization, diversification of risk, and access to investment opportunities. The second part takes stock of persisting administrative and legal hurdles that impede full market integration. In particular, this paper distinguishes between a firm-level perspective, investors, and banks in its analysis. The final part provides some specific recommendations to improve the internal market for capital in the EU.

This chapter summarizes the need to transfer leadership development in Russian organizations from the hands of HR to senior executives and boards.

The thre­at of in­s­er­ting hard­ware Tro­jans du­ring the de­sign, pro­duc­tion, or in-field poses a dan­ger for in­te­gra­ted cir­cuits in re­al-world ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons. A par­ti­cu­lar cri­ti­cal case of hard­ware Tro­jans is the ma­li­cious ma­ni­pu­la­ti­on of third-par­ty FPGA con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons. In ad­di­ti­on to at­tack vec­tors du­ring the de­sign pro­cess, FPGAs can be in­fil­tra­ted in a non-in­va­si­ve man­ner after ship­ment through al­te­ra­ti­ons of the bit­stream. First, we pre­sent an im­pro­ved me­tho­do­lo­gy for bit­stream file for­mat re­ver­sing. Se­cond, we in­tro­du­ce a novel idea for Tro­jan in­s­er­ti­on.