Your money or your life: a new variation on the Heinz Dilemma

Millions of Medicare-age Americans are drug dependent, not because of addiction but because of common chronic health problems such as diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, and arthritis. Seniors are up in arms because drug company control of distribution and pricing of pharmaceuticals is eating away hard-earned nest eggs. Who cares? Where's the justice?     

Developing the Concept of Transparency for Use in Supply Relationships

Management concern surrounding the supply of goods and services from business to business, and the related attempts to understand the phenomena observed therein, appears to rest upon a broad range of incompatible perspectives, from political science (often limited to considerations of power) to the logistical (akin to manipulation of a great, benign but dynamic jigsaw puzzle). It appears that all perspectives abrade against the difficulties of exchanging information, knowledge and innovation within the relationships between buying and selling organizations and the apparent chronic systemic inefficiency that transactions often represent in this context. This article addresses these concerns, exploring the concept of transparency and the developments necessary for it to be useful in exchanging sensitive information and tacit knowledge in supply relationships. Our central concern is how the understanding of transparency and its commercial importance may change when it is expressed as a manageable element of the relationship between two organizations rather than as a general property of a broader system (e.g. a supply network, industrial sub-sector, geographical cluster) and what utility this differentiation might hold for managers. The conclusion to the article, and the implication for managers, is that transparency might indeed be created and usefully managed within supply relationships but that it would differ fundamentally in meaning from previously posited concepts, with the same name, in different contexts.     

Pipage Rounding: A New Method of Constructing Algorithms with Proven Performance Guarantee

The paper presents a general method of designing constant-factor approximation algorithms for some discrete optimization problems with assignment-type constraints. The core of the method is a simple deterministic procedure of rounding of linear relaxations (referred to as pipage rounding). With the help of the method we design approximation algorithms with better performance guarantees for some well-known problems including MAXIMUM COVERAGE, MAX CUT with given sizes of parts and some of their generalizations.     

On Approximability of Boolean Formula Minimization

For a Boolean function given by a Boolean formula (or a binary circuit) S we discuss the problem of building a Boolean formula (binary circuit) of minimal size, which computes the function g equivalent to , or -equivalent to , i.e., . In this paper we prove that if P NP then this problem can not be approximated with a good approximation ratio by a polynomial time algorithm.     

A Conceptual Model for Researching the Creation and Operation of Supply Networks1

This paper presents a conceptual model for the creation and operation of supply networks. Existing conceptual research relating to interorganizational relationships and networks is reviewed in terms of its relevance to understanding supply networks; this research is drawn from the fields of strategic management, channel management, industrial marketing and purchasing, organizational behaviour and supply‐chain management. The different perspectives each field has on networks are highlighted. Contributions made by each in assisting to understand supply networks are discussed and synthesized. Findings from an exploratory survey are used to structure the design of a conceptual model for analysing the processes involved in the creation and operation of supply networks. The authors identify nine different types of networking activities and discuss the nature of these activities in the context of supply. Four different types of contextual factors relating to supply networks are identified. The model is tested in eight in‐depth case studies and a validating survey of 58 focal firm networks. It is concluded that it provides a robust structure that enabled complex, cross‐case analysis of multi‐variable, multi‐disciplinary data from interorganization product/service supply networks, but that further testing by other researchers is required.     

Restaurant Revenue Management at Chevys: Determining the Best Table Mix

Revenue management has been used in a variety of industries and generally takes the form of managing demand by manipulating length of customer usage and price. Supply mix is rarely considered, although it can have considerable impact on revenue. In this research, we focused on developing an optimal supply mix, specifically on determining the supply mix that would maximize revenue. We used data from a Chevys restaurant, part of a large chain of Mexican restaurants, in conjunction with a simulation model to evaluate and enumerate all possible supply (table) mixes. Compared to the restaurant's existing table mix, the optimal mix is capable of handling a 30% increase in customer volume without increasing waiting times beyond their original levels. While our study was in a restaurant context, the results of this research are applicable to other service businesses.     

On the correlation between fraud and default risk

Identity fraud is one of the fastest growing white-collar crimes today and a serious concern in our information-based economy. This paper studies one type of identity fraud: new account fraud, where an impostor opens lines of credit using a false identity, made-up or stolen. Relying on a unique data set of consumer bank accounts, that contains information on both, fraud and default losses, I analyze the correlation between fraud and default risk. I find that common socio-economic/demographic account holder characteristics have opposite effects on estimated default and fraud probabilities. For example, women possess a lower fraud probability, but a higher default probability, compared to men, and foreigners are more likely to engage in account fraud but less likely to default than Germans. Also, the portfolio level analysis indicates that portfolio loss distributions are quite sensitive to ex ante portfolio characteristics like the share of foreigners or blue-collar workers. These findings have important implications for banks managing their consumer credit portfolios using limiting rules based on borrower characteristics, and for the adequacy of banks’ capital levels.     

Using Frontier Analysis to Evaluate Company Performance

The measurement of performance is critical to nearly all managerial disciplines. Yet little is known about the aggregation characteristics of the components of performance and how our notion of a ‘good performing firm’ relates to what we use as a dependent variable. In this paper we propose an approach to the measurement of performance that uses the logic of frontier analysis and the technique of data envelopment analysis. The approach is shown to be a reasonable representation of the multidimensional nature of performance and is shown to replicate, effectively, the components that strategic management scholars typically consider when discussing performance. It is also shown to be superior to the simpler alternatives based on traditional approaches to performance measurement.