Misplaced Inventory and Radio‐Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology: Information and Coordination

Misplaced inventory is a major operational problem in many supply chains. Radio‐frequency identification (RFID) technology has been publicized as a promising solution for the misplaced inventory. Adoption of this technology has a fixed cost and variable cost of implementation, which can cause incentive issues in the supply chain. In this paper, we consider a supply chain under misplacement of inventory subject to uncertain demand. We study both centralized and decentralized cases and identify the conditions to coordinate the supply chain under implementation of RFID. We show that the incentives of the parties for investing in the technology are not perfectly aligned in the existence of the fixed cost of investment. Based on the relative payments of the parties for the fixed cost of investment, the incentives to adopt RFID can be characterized into regions, where we observe only one party or two parties benefiting from the technology when the tag price falls in a region specified in the paper. We further establish the effects of changes in mean and variance of a uniform demand on the incentives for investing in RFID and find that the incentives of the firms may indeed decrease as demand becomes more variable.     

Macro stress testing and resilience assessment of Indian banking

This study conducts policy-based macro stress testing of the Indian banking sector and also assesses its resilience towards compliance with BASEL norms with the aid of an empirical macro-financial model. It uses scenario analysis and quantitative techniques to capture the impact of macroeconomic stress on the stability of the Indian banks by evaluating financial soundness indicators (credit quality, quantity and quality of capital adequacy). The scenarios are generated through policy-based shocks vis-à-vis other external shocks. The results from the estimation of the model indicate a cointegrating relationship between credit quality and key macroeconomic variables including output growth rate, interest rate, money growth rate and exchange rate. The results of the scenario analysis reveal that the Indian banking sector remains largely sound in terms of total regulatory capital adequacy ratio as per current BASEL II and even BASEL III requirement. The results also show that expansionary monetary policy impacts credit quality and capital adequacy in a positive and significant manner via its effect on the economy’s growth rate.     

Impact of Take‐Back Regulation on the Remanufacturing Industry

As waste from used electronic products grows steadily, manufacturers face take‐back regulations mandating its collection and proper treatment through recycling, or remanufacturing. Environmentalists greet such regulation with enthusiasm, but its effect on remanufacturing activity and industry competition remains unclear. We research these questions, using a stylized model with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) facing competition from an independent remanufacturer (IR). We examine the effects of regulation on three key factors: remanufacturing levels, consumer surplus, and the OEM profit. First, we find that total OEM remanufacturing actually may decrease under high collection and/or reuse targets, meaning more stringent targets do not imply more remanufacturing. Consumer surplus and the OEM profit, meanwhile, may increase when OEM‐IR competition exists in a regulated market. Finally, through a numerical study, we investigate how total welfare changes in the collection target, what happens when the cost of collection is not linear, and what happens when IR products are valued differently by consumers.     

Physiological stress assessment of female workers at kitchen workstation

This paper explores the extent of the physiological stresses of female workers at kitchen workstation while performing the various activities. For this a survey of eighty homemakers and experiment on sixteen respondents having similar physical and physiological parameters was done. Five activities in which the respondents faced maximum problems were selected and were standardized. Physiological stresses including cardiovascular, muscular, and energy expenditure during these activities were then assessed. Study revealed that fatigue during the selected five activities i.e. cutting, grating, rolling, kneading, dish washing, was felt mainly at the wrist, fore arm, followed by discomfort in the shoulders, upper arm, lower back and neck. Energy expenditure for these activities ranged from 7.0 to10 kJ\min, total cardiac cost of work (TCCW) was between 200.81 to 364.30 beats, physiological cost of work (PCW) was 12.82 to 26.26 beats\min; maximum for grating and minimum for rolling. The percent increase in heart rate was maximum for grating 38.56 and minimum for rolling 16.20. Reduction in grip and pinch strength of right hand was found more as compared to the left hand.     

Estimating the Impact of Understaffing on Sales and Profitability in Retail Stores

In this study, we use hourly data on store traffic, sales, and labor from 41 stores of a large retail chain to identify the extent of understaffing in retail stores and quantify its impact on sales and profitability. Using an empirical model motivated from queueing theory, we calculate the benchmark staffing level for each store, and establish the presence of systematic understaffing during peak hours. We find that all 41 stores in our sample are systematically understaffed during a 3‐hour peak period. Eliminating understaffing in these stores can result in a significant increase in sales and profitability in these stores. Also, we examine the extent to which forecasting errors and scheduling constraints drive understaffing in retail stores and quantify their relative impacts on store profits for the retailer in our study.     

Improving Valuation Under Consumer Search: Implications for Pricing and Profits

There is a growing trend in the retail industry to improve customer experience. In this article, we study retailer‐initiated strategies to increase consumer valuation for a product under duopoly. In such a setting, it is possible that a consumer's valuation may be increased by one retailer; however, the consumer may decide to buy the product from the competitor. We consider a two‐stage game where retailers first decide whether to invest in improvements in customer valuation and then engage in price competition. We computationally explore the Nash equilibria in terms of both investment and pricing. We find that in the majority of cases retailers price in a manner to discourage their local customers to buy from the competitor. Next, we focus on the pricing game and theoretically characterize the pricing Nash equilibrium. We find that a retailer could overcome competitive effects by improving consumer valuation beyond a certain threshold. We also find that a retailer who does not invest could benefit from competition in situations where his competitor increases consumer valuation beyond a threshold. Finally, we explore through a computational study the Nash equilibria of the two‐stage game using an alternate model to establish the robustness of our findings.     

Property rights and the gender distribution of wealth in Ecuador, Ghana and India

Women’s ability to accumulate wealth is often attributed to whether they have property rights; i.e., a legal personality to own and manage property. In this paper we argue that basic property rights are insufficient; whether women are able to accumulate wealth also depends upon the marital and inheritance regimes in particular contexts. Drawing upon surveys which collected individual level ownership data in Ecuador, Ghana and the state of Karnataka in India, we estimate married women’s share of couple wealth and relate it to how assets are owned within marriage as well as to different inheritance regimes and practices. In Ecuador, married women own 44 %, in Ghana, 19 %, and in Karnataka, 9 % of couple wealth. Ecuador is characterized by the partial community property regime in marriage while inheritance laws provide for all children, irrespective of sex, to be treated equally, norms that are largely followed in practice. In contrast, Ghana and India are characterized by the separation of property regime which does not recognize wives’ contribution to the formation of marital property, and by inheritance practices that are strongly male biased. Reforming marital and inheritance regimes must remain a top priority if gender economic equality is to be attained.     

Take‐Back Legislation: Consequences for Remanufacturing and Environment

In the last two decades, many countries have enacted product take‐back legislation that holds manufacturers responsible for the collection and environmentally sound treatment of end‐of‐use products. In an industry regulated by such legislation, we consider a manufacturer that also sells remanufactured products under its brand name. Using a stylized model, we consider three levels of legislation: no take‐back legislation, legislation with collection targets, and legislation with collection and reuse targets. We characterize the optimal solution for the manufacturer and analyze how various levels of legislation affect manufacturing, remanufacturing, and collection decisions. First, we explore whether legislation with only collection targets causes an increase in remanufacturing levels, which is argued to be an environmentally friendlier option for end‐of‐use treatment than other options such as recycling. While increased remanufacturing alone is usually perceived as a favorable environmental outcome, if one considers the overall environmental impact of new and remanufactured products, this might not be the case. To study this issue, we model the environmental impact of the product following a life cycle analysis–based approach. We characterize the conditions under which increased remanufacturing due to take‐back legislation causes an increase in total environmental impact. Finally, we model the impact of legislation on consumer surplus and manufacturer profits and identify when total welfare goes down because of legislation.     

Knowledge Diversity,Turnover, and Organizational‐Unit Productivity: An Empirical Analysis in a Knowledge‐Intensive Context

We examine the role of knowledge diversity among unit members on an organizational unit's productivity. Utilizing a proprietary data set of corrective maintenance tasks from a large software‐services firm, we investigate the impact of two key within‐unit diversity metrics: interpersonal diversity and intrapersonal diversity. We analyze the independent influence of interpersonal diversity and the interactive influence of interpersonal diversity and intrapersonal diversity on organizational unit's productivity. Finally, we examine how diversity moderates productivity of an organizational unit when employee turnover occurs. Our analysis reveals the following key insights: (a) interpersonal diversity has an inverted U‐shaped effect on organizational unit's productivity; (b) intrapersonal diversity moderates the influence of interpersonal diversity on organizational‐unit productivity; (c) at higher levels of interpersonal diversity, rate of decrease in productivity of the organizational unit due to turnover is higher. We discuss the resulting theoretical and managerial insights associated with these findings.