Wensley (1994) makes three key points. First, it is worthwhile to conduct empirical studies of the value of management techniques. Second, managers probably misuse portfolio methods. Third, the Armstrong and Brodie study is flawed. We agree with all three points

My review of empirical research on scientific publication led to the following conclusions. Three criteria are useful for identifying whether findings are important: replication, validity, and usefulness. A fourth criterion, surprise, applies in some situations. Based on these criteria,...

This second edition of the Age of Propaganda is excellent. (Should I explicitly tell you my conclusion?) I will use a two-sided argument to try to convince you to read this book. (Is a two-sided argument relevant in this situation and, if so, should I tell you the good news first or last?) I...

In forecasting demand for expensive consumer goods, direct questioning of potential consumers about their future purchasing plans has had considerable predictive success [1, 2, 4]. Any attempt to apply such intention to purchase methods to forecast demand for proposed products or services must...

Tom Swift, who began his career with factor analysis (1967), is pleased to announce that the "1973 Tom Swift Award for Data Abuse" has been won by LeRoy Stone and James Brosseau. They originally (Stone, et al., 1973) used 115 variables in a stepwise regression analysis to explain differences...

The science court provides safeguards. Because most of the seven scientists took exception to the conclusions in Folklore versus Fact, one gains confidence that the evidence against these conclusions has been fairly presented. However, little new evidence was generated. The science court...

This article presents a study on the predictive value of scientific knowledge of consumer behavior. It does this by obtaining predictions from people who should be well acquainted with such knowledge, and comparing their predictions with those by people who are unlikely to have this knowledge....

We report on the opinions of 49 forecasting experts on guidelines for extrapolation methods. They agreed that seasonality, trend, aggregation, and discontinuities were key features to use for selecting extrapolation methods. The strong agreement about the importance of discontinuities was...

This study evaluated measures for making comparisons of errors across time series. We analyzed 90 annual and 101 quarterly economic time series. We judged error measures on reliability, construct validity, sensitivity to small changes, protection against outliers, and their relationship to...

Two studies were conducted to examine expert opinions of criteria used to select forecasting techniques. In Study One, while accuracy was a dominant criterion, the ratings of five of thirteen criteria varied by the role of the forecaster. Researchers rated accuracy relatively higher than did...