Strategic Candidacy and Voting Procedures

We study the incentives of candidates to strategically affect the outcome of a voting procedure. We show that the outcomes of every nondictatorial voting procedure that satisfies unanimity will be affected by the incentives of noncontending candidates (i.e., who cannot win the election) to influence the outcome by entering or exiting the election.     

Cultural Barriers and Familial Resources for Negotiation of Engineering Careers Among Young Women: Relational Dialectics Theory in an Asian Perspective

The study takes a critical approach to understanding how girls/women discursively navigate engineering career discourses with their families by using the lens of relational dialectics theory 2.0. In particular, the study examines 28 interviews of Asian women engineers to explore the ways in which cultural meanings of engineering careers influence families’ messages towards girls in choosing their future careers. Contrapuntal analysis shows that competing culturally circulating discourses intersect with familial material/discursive resources through which girls make sense of the support and barriers they experience from parents and other family members regarding their engineering careers. Findings have considerable implications for the role of culture in familial understanding of engineering careers and how families contribute towards sustaining young women in engineering from an Asian perspective.     

Concepts,Theory, and Techniques DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER SYSTEM DESIGN: A MULTICRITERIA DECISION-MAKING METHODOLOGY*

The design of distributed computer systems (DCSs) requires compromise among several conflicting objectives. For instance, high system availability conflicts with low cost which in turn conflicts with quick response time. This paper presents an approach, based on multi-criteria decision-making techniques, to arrive at a good design in this multiobjective environment. An interactive procedure is developed to support the decision making of system designers. Starting from an initial solution, the procedure presents a sequence of non-dominated vectors to designers, allowing them to explore systematically alternative possibilities on the path to a final design. The model user has control over trade-offs among different design objectives. This paper focuses on the details of the mathematical model used to provide decision support. Accordingly, a formulation of DCS design as a multicriteria decision problem is developed. The exchange search heuristic used to generate nondominated solutions also is presented. We argue that multicriteria models provide a more realistic formulation of the DCS design problem than the single-criterion models used widely in the literature. While obtaining a clear definition of design objectives (single or multiple) is an important activity, by explicitly acknowledging the trade-offs among multiple objectives in the design process, our methodology is more likely to produce a better overall design than methods addressing a single criterion in isolation.     

Implementing generalized Condorcet social choice functions via backward induction

It is shown that solutions of generalized binary voting procedures are implementable via backward induction in sequential mechanisms. This implies that a rich class of generalized Condorcet Social Choice Functions including, for example, selections from the uncovered set, are implementable via backward induction. However, there are no implementable selections from the Copeland or Kramer Correspondences.We are grateful to an anonymous referee for valuable comments.     

Determination of the optimal number of kanbans and kanban allocation in a FMS: A simulationbased study

A simulation-based study is presented to compare the performance of a set of kanban allocation rules in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) operating in a pull mode. This paper also presents a simulation-based direct search approach to determine the optimal number of kanbans and their simultaneous allocation to different part types. This paper presents a realistic cost function that includes a penalty for failing to meet the demand on time, and a penalty for rescheduling delivery of materials from vendors. The model captures limited flexibility in the form of operational flexibility in a FMS. Future extensions to this study are discussed.     

A condition for Nash-stability under binary and democratic group decision functions

A necessary and sufficient condition is established in terms of restrictions on individual preferences for a class of democratic systems to be Nash-stable: that there is no one in the society who can profitably misrepresent his preferences. It is shown that only a very strong similarity of preferences can eliminate the incentive for individuals to misreveal their preferences. Since individual preferences in actual practice are not likely to be so similar, the result in this paper shows that strategic misrevelation of preferences by individuals remains a disturbing possibility under this class of democratic rules.We are grateful to Professor Prasanta K. Pattanaik for many helpful suggestions.     

Radiofrequency Identification Applications in Private and Public Sector Operations: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue of the Production and Operations Management journal offers a sample of ongoing research arising from the deployment of radiofrequency identification technology in organizational operations. The articles were selected to cover a spectrum of application areas and methodologies. There is also an attempt to identify interesting open areas for further investigation.