Value of and Interaction between Production Postponement and Information Sharing Strategies for Supply Chain Firms

We analyze the value of and interaction between production postponement and information sharing, which are two distinct strategies to reduce manufacturers’ uncertainty about demand. In both single‐level and two‐level supply chains, from the manufacturer's perspective, while information sharing is always valuable, production postponement can sometimes be detrimental. Furthermore, the value of production postponement is not merely driven by savings in inventory holding cost as postponement enables the manufacturer to avoid both excess and shortfall in production. We find that production postponement and information sharing strategies may substitute, complement, or conflict with each other, depending on the extent of the increase in the unit production cost when production is postponed. In a two‐level supply chain, from the retailer's perspective, information sharing and production postponement can be beneficial or detrimental. When information sharing is beneficial to the retailer, the retailer always shares her demand information with the manufacturer voluntarily. In addition, this voluntary information sharing is truthful because inflated or deflated demand information hurts the retailer through a higher wholesale price or a stock‐out. However, the retailer never shares her demand information voluntarily if the manufacturer has already adopted production postponement because production postponement and information sharing strategies always conflict with each other. Even when the retailer does not benefit from information sharing, we show that the manufacturer can always design an incentive mechanism to induce the retailer to share the demand information, irrespective of whether the manufacturer has already implemented production postponement or not. The above findings underscore the need for a careful assessment of demand uncertainty‐reduction strategies before the supply chain players embark upon them.     

Online scheduling with a buffer on related machines

Online scheduling with a buffer is a semi-online problem which is strongly related to the basic online scheduling problem. Jobs arrive one by one and are to be assigned to parallel machines. A buffer of a fixed capacity K is available for storing at most K input jobs. An arriving job must be either assigned to a machine immediately upon arrival, or it can be stored in the buffer for unlimited time. A stored job which is removed from the buffer (possibly, in order to allocate a space in the buffer for a new job) must be assigned immediately as well. We study the case of two uniformly related machines of speed ratio s≥1, with the goal of makespan minimization.     

Adult attachment styles and their relationship to burnout: a preliminary,cross-cultural investigation

While many studies have addressed the relationship between adult attachment styles and stress, so far no studies have addressed the relationship between attachment styles and burnout, which is thought often to characterize highly motivated individuals. Based on a psychodynamic existential perspective it was predicted that adult attachment styles would correlate with burnout: that there would be a negative correlation between secure attachment style and burnout and a positive correlation between insecure attachment styles (avoidant or anxious/ambivalent) and burnout. A pilot study was conducted in a sample of Israeli MBA students (N=41), nearly all of whom were in full-time employment. A further four studies were then conducted on Hungarian social studies students (N=751), Israeli dialysis nurses (N=216) and national samples of Israeli Jews (N=511) and Arabs (N=505). These studies supported this hypothesis. Finally, a follow-up study involving Israeli students (N=160), who described the importance of various work features and their strategies for coping with burnout-causing situations, helps to explain the findings. These results have a theoretical and a practical implication: burnout research and intervention should include greater emphasis on personal factors in addition to contextual factors.     

Ethics beyond the model: How social dynamics can interfere with ethical practice in operational research/management science

Responding to a call for more attention to be given to ethics within operational research, Marc Le Menestrel and Luk Van Wassenhove have recently outlined a perspective on the relationship between OR models and ethics that squarely ties ethical engagement to daily practice and, more specifically, to the manner in which a practitioner uses a model or other technique in a particular setting. They refer to this approach as “ethics beyond OR models”.This paper seeks to extend the debate on this topic by examining some of the difficulties of ethical action when it is defined in these terms. Specifically the paper seeks to show how the social dynamics that circumscribe much professional practice can easily override good intentions on the part of the people concerned. Ethical practice dictates that those involved in OR/MS practice should seriously contemplate their own involvement in the process of knowledge production and be fully aware of the wider ramifications of employing particular modelling techniques and other tools. However, this is not always easy since the complex social dynamics that surround an inquiry can surreptitiously undermine these intentions. In extreme cases, these processes can create an ethical trap that those involved may not be fully recognise until after the event.In exploring such a disjuncture between ethical intentionality and outcomes the paper re-examines and reflects upon a major consulting assignment which was led by the author and subsequently published through a leading journal and text.     

A Characterization of Rationalizable Consumer Behavior

For an arbitrary data set D = {(p, x)} ⊆ (ℝ₊^m∖ {0}) × ℝ₊^m, finite or infinite, it is shown that the following three conditions are equivalent: (a) D satisfies GARP; (b) D can be rationalized by a utility function; (c) D can be rationalized by a utility function that is quasiconcave, nondecreasing, and that strictly increases when all its coordinates strictly increase. Examples of infinite data sets satisfying GARP are provided for which every utility rationalization fails to be lower semicontinuous, upper semicontinuous, or concave. Thus condition (c) cannot be substantively improved upon.     

Cognitive model of patient aggression towards health care staff: The patient's perspective

Abstract

Aggression towards health care staff has become the focus for research as well as for government intervention. Negative effects upon staff and organizations have been established, yet few detailed explanations are offered for this aggression, and none represents the patient's perspective. This paper presents a model from the patient's perspective that takes account of situational variables, while also focusing upon patient cognitions. It also considers physiological responses related to arousal that might underpin aggression in an anxiety-provoking situation. In a previous study the frequency with which aggression was preceded by some anxiety-provoking event and the extent to which assailants displayed diminished cognitive processing were established; these were incorporated into the model. Increased anxiety commonly experienced by patients can have a negative effect upon cognitive processing. Anxiety generates a hyper-vigilance for threatening stimuli, induces selective attentional bias for threat, and causes a narrowing of attention, thus reducing cues and information upon which to make accurate appraisals and attributions. With such impairments, patients may make negative rather than positive attributions regarding actions of staff, which are frequently anxiety provoking. Thus, patients perceive staff behaviour as threatening rather than benign, and in the absence of positive attributions it will invoke an aggressive response. What health care staff perceive as aggression may be seen by patients as a defence against perceived attack. Changes in policy that take this into account may reduce future aggressive incidents.     

Managing as a Performing Art

This paper considers the activities of senior managers as isomorphic with the activities of actors. It takes performing as not a matter of metaphor, but a matter of form; life at the top of an organization is intrinsically theatrical; each of us is blessed or cursed with histrionic sensibility. Proceeding by way of a comparison of Edmund Kean and Lee lacocca it touches upon matters of text and interpretation, rehearsal and performance and the importance of individuation. The argument – such as it is – is that both Kean and lacocca perform themselves, the former's Richard III, the latter's Chrysler being the fullest realizations of that which was, hitherto, inchoate and emergent. The final part of the paper is concerned with the implications of this perspective for education, training and development; current management education appears geared to reduce rather than to promote individuality. Techniques are imposed and answers are provided and the entire educational performance revolves around teachers as performers rather than managers as performers. The way to become a management star, it is suggested, is to do managing, not simply to be audience for academic stars.     

Revisiting management innovation and change programmes: strategic vision or tunnel vision?

The information systems (IS) and management literature, broadly conceived, is replete with management innovation and change programmes. All are designed to enhance business performance and competitive advantage. This paper examines five approaches which have been developed in the post-war period to improve business performance. They are Total Quality Management (TQM), Just-In-Time production management (JIT), Activity Based Costing (ABC), Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), and Process Innovation. By comparing and contrasting these approaches, it is found that considerable overlap exists in their scope, style, content, aims and objectives. In view of this, the paper argues that instead of re-inventing the wheel every few years with a new management innovation and change panacea or fad, a broader, inter-disciplinary perspective should be adopted which seeks to understand the wider ideological, historical and empirical perspective which underpins these ideas. This is instead of the tunnel vision approach which seeks only to place these ideas in a narrow organisational or managerial context.     

Human Resource Management as a Field of Research*

Drawing on Snow and Thomas's (Journal of Management Studies, 31 (1994), pp. 457–480) matrix, we empirically explore the state of the art in human resource management (HRM) research. The data were obtained through a questionnaire directed to HRM scholars all over the world, in which they were asked about their particular theoretical and methodological approaches. The evidence obtained shows clearly that HRM scholars are progressively abandoning the universalistic perspective and completing their models with contingent and contextual variables. Trying to classify the different contributions proposed and discuss their integration, HRM is described as a field of research with three dimensions: subfunctional, strategic and international. The paper concludes that to provide reliable explanations and valid responses to professional problems, HRM research must advance simultaneously in these three dimensions. As follows from our analysis, there are certain HR issues that still need to be addressed: (1) the strategic use of HR practices, (2) their international applicability, (3) global HR strategies and (4) the synergic integration of HR activities. Nevertheless, to advance our knowledge in these issues, it seems necessary to integrate previous research in subfunctional, strategic and international aspects of HRM.     

Amplifying a Relational Ethic: A Contribution to PRME Praxis

Western economically driven instrumental ethics fuel the dominant institutional logic in many business schools and are associated with the negative social and environmental situation widely linked to the mode of global development. Other ethical framings have been subordinated, marginalized, or denied. Through the explicit commitment of prominent international certifying bodies of management education, educators, researchers, and practitioners will be encouraged to give increasing effect to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The PRME is a United Nations‐led, institution‐level mechanism for reorienting the direction of business schools and for increasing both educator and student capacities to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable mode of development globally. We propose greater emphasis be given to various forms of relational ethics from which to guide the functional aspirations of institutions. We explore the creative opportunity for institutional change by contrasting the prevailing Western economically driven instrumental institutional logic with indigenous ethical framings. We draw upon Seo and Creed's conceptual framework of institutional change to discuss two films—Mann v. Ford and Waste = Food—to bring greater attention to the generative potential of indigenous perspectives in institutional praxis. Our examples could equally invite an application of other systems of relational ethics that have been overshadowed by the current domination of economic instrumentalism in almost all realms of decision making. We conclude by providing some teaching resources that can be used or adapted for geographical‐ or disciplinary‐specific attention to the issues we raise.     

A Systems Perspective on Forgiveness in Organizations

Despite the widespread interest in forgiveness across a diversity of disciplines, the study of forgiveness has been strongly influenced by a psychological (i.e. individual-level) approach. Although this has provided many fruitful insights, it has also resulted in a fragmented literature that has underemphasized the multilevel and contextual nature of this phenomenon. Drawing upon a broad multidisciplinary approach, we provide a singular definition of forgiveness and integrate research on forgiveness into a multilevel systems approach. In doing so, we demonstrate that a deeper understanding can be realized by conceptualizing forgiveness as a part of a system of interconnecting psychological, social, structural, and cultural relations. By embedding forgiveness into context, our systems perspective provides novel insights into the factors that facilitate and constrain forgiveness at multiple levels of analysis, how the interplay between contextual levels can shape forgiveness at lower levels (e.g. individual level), and how examining forgiveness in organizational contexts can highlight the importance of examining other outcomes (e.g. reconciliation, peaceful co-existence, and détente) as well as facilitate the development of actionable theory.     

Comparing Spatial Planning Practice in Europe: A Plea for Cultural Sensitization

Abstract

Comparative research into spatial planning systems typically adopts a structuralist/legalistic approach. This article presents and argues for an integrated perspective which embraces both systemic structures and concrete planning practices . The article begins with a short survey of the current state of comparative research on planning and its weaknesses. At the heart of the article is the endeavor to sensitize the discourse in planning theory towards a culturalistically oriented interpretational context. The studies which display the greatest potential for connectivity in this regard come from comparative research on governance. The concept of the institutional milieu which such research has produced provides the starting-point for an outline of some of the key aspects of a culturally sensitized form of comparative planning research which focuses primarily on the micro level. This represents something akin to a research agenda.     

Relational Leadership Theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing

Relational leadership is a relatively new term in the leadership literature, and because of this, its meaning is open to interpretation. In the present article I describe two perspectives of relational leadership: an entity perspective that focuses on identifying attributes of individuals as they engage in interpersonal relationships, and a relational perspective that views leadership as a process of social construction through which certain understandings of leadership come about and are given privileged ontology. These approaches can be complementary, but their implications for study and practice are quite different. After reviewing leadership research relative to these two perspectives I offer Relational Leadership Theory (RLT) as an overarching framework for the study of leadership as a social influence process through which emergent coordination (e.g., evolving social order) and change (e.g., new approaches, values, attitudes, behaviors, ideologies) are constructed and produced. This framework addresses relationships both as an outcome of investigation (e.g., How are leadership relationships produced?) and a context for action (e.g., How do relational dynamics contribute to structuring?). RLT draws from both entity and relational ontologies and methodologies to more fully explore the relational dynamics of leadership and organizing.     

Beyond products: new strategic imperatives for developing competencies in dynamic environments

Strategy research has often taken a product-centered perspective. When firms compete in environments characterized by accelerating product life cycles, mass customization, and technological discontinuities, a product-centered perspective on strategy may help explain a firm’s current competitive advantage. However, this perspective adds little guidance in making strategies that create competitive advantage in the future. In this paper, we present a perspective in which dynamic environments require firms to focus on (1) building market-driven, technological, and integration competencies, not a stream of product improvements, and (2) decoupling these competencies from current products in order to create and exploit new opportunities. We discuss the perspective of products as a temporary integration of market and technology trajectories. Research propositions are presented and future implications are discussed.     

Advice to Risk Assessors Modeling Viral Health Risk Associated with Household Graywater

Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) is a valuable tool that can be used to predict the risk associated with human exposure to specific microbial contaminants in water sources. The transparency inherent in the QMRA process benefits discussions between multidisciplinary teams because members of such teams have different expertise and their confidence in the risk assessment output will depend upon whether they regard the selected input data and assumptions as being suitable and/or plausible. Selection of input data requires knowledge of the availability of appropriate data sets, the limitations of using a particular data set, and the logic of using alternative approaches. In performing QMRA modeling and in the absence of directly relevant data, compromises must be made. One such compromise made is to use available Escherichia coli data and apply a ratio of enteric viruses to indicator E. coli in wastewater obtained from prior studies to estimate the concentration of enteric viruses in other wastewater types/sources. In this article, we have provided an argument for why we do not recommend the use of a pathogen to E. coli ratio to estimate virus concentrations in single household graywater and additionally suggested circumstances in which use of such a ratio may be justified.     

Dangerous Knowledge: The Political,Personal, and Epistemological Promise of Feminist Research in Management and Organization Studies

Feminism is a theoretical perspective and social movement that seeks to reduce, and ultimately eradicate, sexist inequality and oppression. Yet feminist research remains marginal in the most prestigious management and organization studies (MOS) journals, as defined by the Financial Times 50 (FT50) list. Based on a review of how feminism is framed in these journals (1990–2018), we identify three overlapping categories of how feminism is represented: (i) as a conceptual resource which is used to address specific topics; (ii) as an empirical category associated with the study of specific types of organization or organizing practice; and, rarely, (iii) as a methodology for producing knowledge. While feminist knowledge exists beyond these parameters, such as in the journal Gender, Work & Organization, we suggest that the relative absence of explicitly feminist scholarship in the most prestigious MOS journals reflects an epistemic oppression which arises from the threat that feminism presents to established ways of knowing. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's work, we use the ‘sweaty concept’ of dangerous knowledge to show how feminism positions knowledge as personal, introducing a radical form of researcher subjectivity which relies on the acknowledgment of uncertainty. We conclude by calling for the epistemic oppression of feminist scholarship to be recognized and redressed so the potential of feminism as a way of knowing about organizations and management can be realized. This, we argue, would enable feminist research praxis in MOS to develop as an alternative location of, in bell hooks' term, healing that challenges the main/malestream.     

Supplier Encroachment as an Enhancement or a Hindrance to Nonlinear Pricing

The objective of this study was to extend existing understanding of supplier encroachment to contexts in which there is information asymmetry and the supplier can use nonlinear pricing. Prior research has shown that supplier encroachment can mitigate double marginalization and thus benefit both the supplier and the reseller. However, under symmetric information, this benefit disappears if the supplier can use nonlinear pricing. In our model, the reseller observes the true market size while the supplier knows only the prior distribution, that is, a seemingly ideal setting for implementing mechanism design through nonlinear pricing. We first show that, because encroachment capability enables the supplier to make an ex post output decision, it fundamentally alters the structure of the optimal nonlinear pricing policy. In addition to the usual downward distortion effect, where the reseller may purchase less than the efficient quantity, we also have the possibility for upward distortion. Thus, under asymmetric information and nonlinear pricing, supplier encroachment has two opposing effects. On one hand, the ability to shift sales to the direct channel allows the supplier to reduce information rents with less sacrifice of efficiency; but on the other hand, by introducing the possibility of her own opportunistic behavior, it can result in upward distortion of the quantities sold through the reselling channel, which is a new source of inefficiency. Depending upon the relative efficiency of the reselling channel and the demand distribution, either of these two effects may dominate and the supplier's ability to encroach may either benefit or hurt both the supplier and the reseller.     

Decision Theory Applied to a Linear Panel Data Model

This paper applies some general concepts in decision theory to a linear panel data model. A simple version of the model is an autoregression with a separate intercept for each unit in the cross section, with errors that are independent and identically distributed with a normal distribution. There is a parameter of interest γ and a nuisance parameter τ, a N×K matrix, where N is the cross‐section sample size. The focus is on dealing with the incidental parameters problem created by a potentially high‐dimension nuisance parameter. We adopt a “fixed‐effects” approach that seeks to protect against any sequence of incidental parameters. We transform τ to (δ, ρ, ω), where δ is a J×K matrix of coefficients from the least‐squares projection of τ on a N×J matrix x of strictly exogenous variables, ρ is a K×K symmetric, positive semidefinite matrix obtained from the residual sums of squares and cross‐products in the projection of τ on x, and ω is a (N−J) ×K matrix whose columns are orthogonal and have unit length. The model is invariant under the actions of a group on the sample space and the parameter space, and we find a maximal invariant statistic. The distribution of the maximal invariant statistic does not depend upon ω. There is a unique invariant distribution for ω. We use this invariant distribution as a prior distribution to obtain an integrated likelihood function. It depends upon the observation only through the maximal invariant statistic. We use the maximal invariant statistic to construct a marginal likelihood function, so we can eliminate ω by integration with respect to the invariant prior distribution or by working with the marginal likelihood function. The two approaches coincide. Decision rules based on the invariant distribution for ω have a minimax property. Given a loss function that does not depend upon ω and given a prior distribution for (γ, δ, ρ), we show how to minimize the average—with respect to the prior distribution for (γ, δ, ρ)—of the maximum risk, where the maximum is with respect to ω. There is a family of prior distributions for (δ, ρ) that leads to a simple closed form for the integrated likelihood function. This integrated likelihood function coincides with the likelihood function for a normal, correlated random‐effects model. Under random sampling, the corresponding quasi maximum likelihood estimator is consistent for γ as N→∞, with a standard limiting distribution. The limit results do not require normality or homoskedasticity (conditional on x) assumptions.     

Living to Work and Working to Live: Income as a Driver of Organizational Behavior

Abstract

Income as a relatively stable aspect of a job (e.g. annual salary, non-incentive wages, or weekly or hourly pay) has received relatively little consideration in organizational theorizing and research, despite its critical importance to workers, organizations, and society at large. Income inequality has similarly received scant attention, although it is a topic of great intellectual and practical importance. In this paper we describe the ways in which income and income inequality affect how people behave in both their professional and personal lives, and suggest ways in which organizations may influence, and be influenced by, these effects. We integrate research from a number of disciplines, highlight leading findings across them, and suggest ways in which organizational scholarship can inform research and practice in this domain. Our goal is to facilitate the development of income-related research programs in organizational science.     

Finding an anti-risk path between two nodes in undirected graphs

Given a weighted graph G=(V,E) with a source s and a destination t, a traveler has to go from s to t. However, some of the edges may be blocked at certain times, and the traveler only observes that upon reaching an adjacent site of the blocked edge. Let ℘={P _G (s,t)} be the set of all paths from s to t. The risk of a path is defined as the longest travel under the assumption that any edge of the path may be blocked. The paper will propose the Anti-risk Path Problem of finding a path P _G (s,t) in ℘ such that it has minimum risk. We will show that this problem can be solved in O(mn+n ²log n) time suppose that at most one edge may be blocked, where n and m denote the number of vertices and edges in G, respectively. This research is supported by NSF of China under Grants 70525004, 60736027, 70121001 and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China under Grant 20060401003.