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How dangerous are measurement errors to homeland security?
Author(s) -
Chambers Donald R.,
Wernick David A.,
Zdanowicz John S.,
Ann Von Glinow Mary
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
thunderbird international business review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.553
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1520-6874
pISSN - 1096-4762
DOI - 10.1002/tie.20379
Subject(s) - homeland security , terrorism , multinational corporation , government (linguistics) , commodity , business , outlier , computer security , international trade , political science , finance , law , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government instituted rigorous new rules and procedures for screening incoming cargo, with the aim of averting a future catastrophe delivered via the nation's global trade infrastructure. While the efficacy of these policies in curbing terrorism is difficult to assess, sophisticated statistical techniques can be used to help gauge the performance of homeland security policies in mitigating risks. Abnormal weight analysis is one such technique. This study examines the weight characteristics of import transactions processed by U.S. Customs before and after the terrorist attacks to identify patterns of abnormalities that could indicate foul play. Abnormalities are calculated by first determining average weights by commodity, and then estimating and analyzing dispersion among reported weights. Our results indicate that while the vast majority of import transactions are being reported more accurately since 9/11, a small percentage of extreme outliers exist, and this should be cause for concern for multinational managers, policymakers, and society at large. Based on these results, conclusions are drawn and recommendations for policy and practice are offered. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.