Bulletin Number Three 1985

intermediation process. Specifically, the deficit an d surplus countries or regions will first be identified by examining the flow pattern of funds between the Asian-Pacific countries and the western world through the two centres. A more detailed investigation reveals that the flow pattern in the early eighties is different from that in the seventies with China emerging as a new funding source and with the United States switching to a fund user. However, this change in the flow pattern may be transitory and awaits further confirmation. The flow of funds is determined by three sets of forces, namely, the supply forces, the demand forces, and the intermediaries constraint. The research will give an analysis of each of these factors. Two major functions are carried out by a banking system: maturity transformation and interbank dealings. The research also evaluate how well these functions are performed by the two offshore centres, which are an aggregation of multinational banks. As offshore centres, Hong Kong and Singapore are actually an extension of the two main world financial centres — London and New York. Thus, the fate of these two cities will be heavily influenced by the development of the world financial market, which is rather stagnant in the eighties. However, the China dimension may give a boost to Hong Kong and the potential of the Southern Asian economies may give a major support to the Singapore centre. The research will give an analysis of the relative position o f each of these two centres to other offshore Eurocurrency centres. An Exploratory Study of Decision Support Systems —Simon S.M. Ho Traditionally, utilization of computer in organization has been limited primarily to routinized transaction processing and report generation. However, traditional computer applications involve only a structured, routine flow of information, therefore capable of supporting only a structured, routine set of decisions. Many managers have admitted that the traditional Transaction Processing Systems and Management Reporting Systems offer little help to them in dealing with fuzzy problems and unspecified information needs. An important trend has been evident in the last few years, i.e., the movement of computer application from operational to managerial decision systems. The current developments on Decision Support Systems (DSS) seem to offer great promises for assisting decision-makers with less routine and structured tasks. In general, DSS can be described as a computer-based interactive system which provides users easy access to decision models, data bases and user-friendly query languages. It is usually used personally on an ongoing, ad hoc basis in direct support of comparatively less structured decision tasks, such as financial planning, investment and loan analysis, merger and acquisition decisions, and price and rate analysis etc. Furthermore, DSS represents a relatively new way of thinking and philosophy about the managerial use of computer. DSS does not deliver a product or replace the human decision-making, but is a service to help managers exploit their own abilities. A DSS should support all phases of the decision-making process: intelligence, design and choice. Because of its requirements, the development process of a DSS differs from the traditional system life-cycle approach. The end user must be an active member of the development team.The development process should be evolutionary and iterative. In Hong Kong, a growing number of organizations are developing various decision support system, especially i n the area of financial planning. DSS design is a very new and emerging concept and published studies on how DSS are developed or utilized in Hong Kong are few. The objective of the current research project is to study the design approach and the role of management in the development use of DSS in Hong Kong. It will investigate the relationship between some organizational variables and DSS success. It is also hoped that this project will contribute to the understanding of the potential role of DSS to aid managerial decision process. Primarily data are cultivated mainly through questionnaire and in-depth interview with organizations adopting or developing DSS. The researcher will also involve in the development and evaluation of a strategic financial decision support system in an organization. The present study would also raise or amplify other DSS questions and problems, and help to guide organizations in the acceptance and development o f DSS to assist managerial decisionmaking. Industrial Relations In Hong Kong —C.M. Chang & Peter K.N. Chen Studies on the industrial relations in Hong Kong aim at identifying the factors that affect the industrial relations i n various industries and the unique I.R. features of each of these industries. It is hoped that the findings would induce some insights into the future of the I.R. system in Hong Kong. Surveys have been conducted in four major light industries: the electronics industry, the plastic 20 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS