Portfolio Concept Research Articles

Combined Assessment Model for EAP Writing Workshop: Portfolio Decision-Making, Criterion-Referenced Grading, and Contract Negotiation

An assessment model that combines portfolio decision-making with criterion-referenced grading is described as applied in an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) pre-university ESL writing program. In this model, portfolio decision-making is combined with criterion-referenced assessment. The portfolio concept is valuable in that learners are encouraged to "own" and to make decisions about their work. At the same time, criterion-referenced assessment allows teachers to set meaningful, consistent standards while encouraging learner self- and peer assessment. Learner involvement may be further encouraged through the use of contract grading and collaborative revision of grading criteria. For academically oriented adult ESL learners, in particular, this assessment scheme encourages learner control while keeping performance-based standards at desirable levels.

Portfolio concepts applied to exploration investments

Portfolio concepts applied to exploration investments

Applying portfolio evaluation concepts to educational program screening

Applying portfolio evaluation concepts to educational program screening

Applying portfolio evaluation concepts to educational program screening

Faced with limited resources, multiple demands, and tight budgets, most colleges and universities use some form of program evaluation to assess operating results, to identify problem areas, and to suggest changes in resource allocation. Many institutions include some sort of periodic screening in their evaluation procedures to determine if more intensive, in-depth evaluation efforts are needed. Screening usually assesses results in relation to performance parameters such as student attraction/enrollment, placement, or cost efficiency. Frequently, it is used in planning and in making operating decisions. For example, programs or services which are inordinately expensive or which yield marginal results may become candidates for revision, for scaled back levels of effort, or for termination. A portfolio approach to evaluation can be especially helpful in limited resource situations. One benefit of the portfolio approach is the treatment of programs as assets which can be collectively compared against common criteria which reflect short and long term interests of the institution. Another benefit is that it can help focus management attention on critical issues and aid decision making regarding marginal performers in the portfolio. An implementation of the portfolio approach in screening the performance of educational programs is discussed herein.

THE PORTFOLIO APPROACH TO DIVISIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGY

Few would argue with the notion that innovation is an investment in the future. The complexity of innovation decisions can be squarely confronted with the use of the portfolio concept by general managers at the division level. When applied at this level, portfolio strategy can be instrumental in achieving broader objectives and economic wealth despite the drawbacks of uncertainty, expense, and inefficiency that are sometimes associated with innovation.

Risk-Return Tradeoffs of Contingent Insurance Strategies for Active Bond Portfolios

(1984). Risk-Return Tradeoffs of Contingent Insurance Strategies for Active Bond Portfolios. Financial Analysts Journal: Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 34-39.

An Interaction Approach to the Management of a Portfolio of Customer Opportunities

Portfolio theory has its roots in financial investment and in the desire to balance the often conflicting objectives of high yield and low risk. It has also found applications in product management, corporate strategy and more recently in attempting to develop a range of customer opportunities. It is possible that, in all the applications except the last‐named, the control of the portfolio rests principally with the “portfolio manager”. In the case of customers, recent work in demonstrating the interactive nature of supplier/customer relationships, particularly in industrial markets, may mean that the portfolio concept has to be modified if it is to find application there. The challenge to marketing management is the planned deployment of resources between different customer opportunities and the adoption of a portfolio approach implies that a company is seeking a balance of customers in an attempt to achieve its objectives, both in the short and longer term. It is the question of how this should be achieved to which this article is addressed, firstly, by tracing the development and application of portfolio theory, secondly by applying it to the industrial market using a three‐dimensional approach to identifying customer groups and, finally, by presenting the data obtained from an empirical study of a supplier and a range of customers in the telecommunications industry, demonstrating that the supplier should adopt an interaction approach to the selection of target customer opportunities.

The business portfolio approach—Where it falls down in practice

During the past decade the SBU (or portfolio) concept has enjoyed widespread popularity as a basis for corporate-wide strategic planning systems within large, diversified firms. This article discusses the implementation of such systems on the basis of 3 years of clinical and small sample research. A ‘basic model’ of implementation is used as a basis for comparison to progressive practice as observed in a sample of 13 firms. Furthermore, a new conceptual perspective for the portfolio concept is developed as a complement to the observed approach to implementation.

Strategic Portfolio Management in the Multibusiness Firm

Evidence suggests that effective use of the portfolio concept may improve financial performance. The authors discuss the implementation of the portfolio concept in large diversified firms, and review its use as both a tool of analysis and a complete system for strategic management.

The Counselor Trainee Portfolio

Problems with both sides of the “skills versus personal growth” dispute are presented as evidence that a third counselor education paradigm is needed. The portfolio concept is introduced as a means of assessing counselor trainees' competence against their own integrated theory of counseling. The portfolio approach, as currently implemented in one counselor education program. is presented. The future of the portfolio system is explored.

Steady state and portfolio concept in R & D management

AbstractThis paper describes a new approach for closing the gap between the tools for strategic goal management and operational management in Pharmaceutical R&D. The strategic level may concern with expectation of sales, rising from new products and with total R & D budget. The operational level concerns with project selection, project and multiproject management problems, solution of project related technical problems, determination of the size of the various functions and the functional management. This new method combines the R & D project portfolio management with a steady state concept allowing the attainment of a constant number of projects under development and a continuous full use of the capacity available.

Cash Recycling in Distribution

The product portfolio and product life cycle concepts are not recent in management education. Indeed the product life cycle has been around for some considerable time and the product portfolio concept of a range of products at various stages of their respective life cycles with differential market share and growth rate values has been implicit in many companies' policies for some time.

A Model for Selecting Commercial Bank Government Security Portfolios

T HE object of this paper is to formulate a normative model for selecting a bank's Government security portfolio. Two major problems arise in constructing a model of bank portfolio selection. First, the model must handle uncertainty. This includes not only uncertain future events but also the decision maker's preferences for the outcomes associated with these events. Second, it must recognize the intertemporal or multi-period character of the decision making process. This means that a decision made in one period will influence subsequent decisions and hence, that subsequent decisions must be considered in arriving at the present one. The present paper applies Bayesian and sequential decision theory to handle both the expectationally stochastic and the dynamic aspects of this important decision problem simultaneously and consistently. No previous model of commercial bank portfolio selection handles either or both problems satisfactorily. Porter's model of bank asset selection recognizes uncertainty by treating future cash flows and security prices as random variables, but it is only one period in length. Moreover, it does not consider the decision maker's preferences.' Since the objective function is linear, the model produces a portfolio diversified between securities and loans only through the selection of distribution functions describing the random variables. These transform the function into a nonlinear one upon integration. Cheng's model of bank security portfolio selection is, in effect, a one period formulation also.2 It incorporates uncertainty and the decision maker's preferences through Markowitz's efficient portfolio concept.3 An efficient portfolio is one which maximizes expected return for a given variance of return (or minimizes the variance of return for a given expected return). As Tobin points out, however, this criterion assumes, quite restrictively, that either the variable return is normally distributed or that the decision maker has a quadratic utility function.4 Cheng also makes the highly unrealistic assumption that securities are held to maturity. Multi-period bank portfolio selection models are all based on the assumption that future events are known with certainty. One such model formulated by Chambers and Charnes attempts to reflect the risk inherent in different portfolio configurations by including the Federal Reserve's capital adequacy formula as a constraint.5 Used in the supervision of banks, the capital adequacy formula allocates a bank's capital to designated asset categories on a fractional basis. The values of the fractions are designed to measure the percent by which the different asset categories would decline in market value if they had to be liquidated quickly.6 The choice of these values is somewhat arbitrary. Moreover, the formula itself implicitly assumes a particular preference structure and a certain probabilistic occurrence of future events. Neither assumption is likely to represent accurately either the decision maker's preferences or expectations.7