bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism
Authors: Adler Paul S.
Published: December 2003

Recent conceptualizations of trends in the structure of U.S. industry have focused on the relative importance of markets, hierarchies, and hybrid intermediate forms. This paper advances the discussion by distinguishing three ideal-typical forms of organization and their corresponding coordination mechanisms: market/price, hierarchy/authority, and community/trust. Different institutions combine the three forms/mechanisms in different proportions. Economic and organizational theory have shown that, compared to trust, price and authority are relatively ineffective means of dealing with knowledge-based assets. Therefore, as knowledge becomes increasingly important in our economy, we should expect high-trust institutional forms to proliferate.

A review of trends in employment relations, interdivisional relations, and interfirm relations finds evidence suggesting that the effect of growing knowledge-intensity may indeed be a trend toward greater reliance on trust. There is also reason to believe that the form of trust most effective in this context is a distinctively modern kind—“reflective trust”—as opposed to traditionalistic, “blind” trust. Such a trend to reflective trust appears to threaten the privileges of currently dominant social actors, and these actors' resistance, in combination with the complex interdependencies between price, authority, and trust mechanisms, imparts a halting character to the trend. But the momentum of this trend nevertheless appears to be self-reinforcing, which suggests that it may ultimately challenge the foundations of our capitalist form of society while simultaneously creating the foundations of a new, postcapitalist form.
Personal Versus Market Logics of Control: A Historically Contingent Theory of the Risk of Acquisition
Authors: Thornton Patricia H.
Published: December 2003

This paper develops and tests a theory of the historical contingency of the risk of acquisition using data from the higher education publishing market from 1958–1990. Interviews and historical analyses are combined to identify two forms of capitalism—personal and market, and in particular to publishing, to identify the institutional logics identified with each form of capitalism (an editorial and a market logic). Hazard-rate models are used to test for differences in the effects of these two logics on the organization and market determinants of acquisition. Publishers with relational network forms of organization in production and distribution were at a higher risk of acquisition in the market period but not in the editorial period. Competition in the product market increased the risk of acquisition in the market period, but not the editorial period. The covariates explaining the risk of acquisition change as a consequence of the evolution of capitalism and as a result of a firm's strategic and structural conformity with the institutional logic of the prevailing form of capitalism.
Emulation in Academia: Balancing Structure and Identity
Authors: Labianca Giuseppe , Fairbank James F. , Thomas James B. , Gioia Dennis A. , Umphress Elizabeth E.
Published: December 2003

This study seeks to expand our understanding of interorganizational emulation decisions made by top administrators in a broad sample of American colleges and universities. We analyze their emulation choices and show that these decision makers tend to emulate universities similar to their own. Our findings suggest, however, that the choice of emulation target within one's industry is not simply a matter of choosing the most structurally similar organization, but rather that identity-related attributes, such as reputation, organizational image, and organizational identity, also play a significant role in the emulation decision. The data also show that industry subgroups based on emulation decisions (strategic reference groups) differ in both structural and identity-related attributes. Further, interorganizational emulation decisions based on tactics of upward comparison (e.g., emulating universities with better reputations) are associated with greater strategic change, while downward comparisons are associated with greater perceived external threat. Finally, the data show that top management's perceptions of the university's level of environmental threat are related to their choice of a more coarse-grained or fine-grained set of attributes when determining the emulation target. We discuss some of these findings’implications for theory and practice.
Understanding Interorganizational Cooperation: Public-Private Collaboration in Regulating Financial Market Innovation
Authors: Faerman Sue R. , McCaffrey David P. , Slyke David M. Van
Published: December 2003

This paper examines how a collaborative effort between the private and public sectors, called the Derivatives Policy Group (DPG), helped shape current regulation of financial innovation. In 1994 and 1995, this group of six large financial firms developed procedures for risk management, internal controls, and reporting for largely unregulated areas of finance, in cooperation with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The process succeeded despite strong competition among the firms themselves and incentives for both the public and private sectors to resort to adversarial lobbying and legal challenges. The Derivatives Policy Group was a path-setting event in the development of flexible regulation of financial innovation that is now the norm for related policy making.

The case is important in and of itself--the financial markets are a major concern of national and international economic policy--but here we treat it as an instance of a larger class of problems. Organizational science constantly encounters settings that involve numerous participants who compete or have histories of conflicts; who are interdependent, and collectively would gain (and even individually gain long term) by cooperating rather than competing on an issue; who fall under different governance systems; and who try as a group to design rules and principles governing their behavior. Four factors appear repeatedly in the research on the success or failure of such arrangements. These are (1) the initial dispositions toward cooperation, (2) the extant issues and incentives, (3) leadership, and (4) the number and variety of organizations involved. This paper focuses on how these factors shaped the development and consequences of the Derivatives Policy Group, and the general implications of this process for interorganizational cooperation.
The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings
Authors: Dirks Kurt T. , Ferrin Donald L.
Published: December 2003

Numerous researchers from various disciplines seem to agree that trust has a number of important benefits for organizations, although they have not necessarily come to agreement on how these benefits occur. In this article, we explore two fundamentally different models that describe how trust might have positive effects on attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and performance outcomes within organizational settings. In the first section of the article, we examine the model that has dominated the literature: Trust results in direct (main) effects on a variety of outcomes. In the second section of the article we develop an alternative model: Trust facilitates or hinders (i.e., moderates) the effects of other determinants on attitudinal, perceptual, behavioral and performance outcomes via two distinct perceptual processes. Lastly, we discuss the conditions under which each of the models is most likely to be applicable. The theory is supplemented with a review of empirical studies spanning 40 years regarding the consequences of trust in organizational settings. The theoretical framework presented in this article provides insight into the processes through which trust affects organizational outcomes, provides guidance to researchers for more accurately assessing the impact of trust, provides a framework for better understanding past research on the consequences of trust, and suggests ways that organizational settings can be modified to capitalize on high levels of trust or mitigate the effects of low levels of trust.
Adaptation as Information Restriction: The Hot Stove Effect
Authors: Denrell Jerker , March James G.
Published: December 2003

Individuals and social systems are often portrayed as risk averse and resistant to change. Such propensities are characteristically attributed to individual, organizational, and cultural traits such as risk aversion, uncertainty-avoidance, discounting, and an unwillingness to change. This paper explores an alternative interpretation of such phenomena. We show how the reproduction of successful actions inherent in adaptive processes, such as learning and competitive selection and reproduction, results in a bias against alternatives that initially may appear to be worse than they actually are. In particular, learning and selection are biased against both risky and novel alternatives. Because the biases are products of the tendency to reproduce success that is inherent in the sequential sampling of adaptation, they are reduced whenever the reproduction of success is attenuated. In particular, when adaptation is slowed, made imprecise, or recalled less reliably, the propensity to engage in risky and new activities is increased. These protections against the error of rejecting potentially good alternatives on inadequate experiential evidence are costly, however. They increase the likelihood of persisting with alternatives that are poor in the long run as well as in the short run.
Too Much of a Good Thing? Product Proliferation and Organizational Failure
Authors: Barnett William P. , Freeman John
Published: December 2003

When organizations make important changes, such as introducing products based on new technologies, they may gain strategic advantages but they also experience disruptions. We argue that these disruptions are especially strong when organizations introduce multiple products simultaneously, leading to a temporary increase in the hazard of organizational failure. To test this hypothesis, we study the effects of new product introduction on the survival of U.S. semiconductor manufacturers. We find that having a large number of products—especially innovative products—lowers organizational mortality rates, but that mortality rates increase because of the simultaneous introduction of multiple products. This hazard is substantial, amounting to an increase in the market exit rate of over 40% for the “average” case of simultaneous product innovation. These results are robust in models that control for a wide variety of other factors. Our findings call into question the idea that organizations can overcome disruptions from structural inertia by introducing multiple products simultaneously.
The Illusion of Leadership: Misattribution of Cause in Coordination Games
Authors: Weber Roberto , Camerer Colin , Rottenstreich Yuval , Knez Marc
Published: December 2003

This paper reports the results of experiments which examine attributions of leadership quality. Subjects played an abstract coordination game which is like many organizational problems. Previous research showed that when larger groups play the game, they rarely coordinate on the Pareto-optimal (efficient) outcome, but small groups almost always coordinate on the efficient outcome. After two or three periods of playing the game, one subject who was randomly selected from among the participants to be the “leader” for the experiment was instructed to make a speech exhorting others to choose the efficient action. Based on previous studies, we predicted that small groups would succeed in achieving efficiency but that large groups would fail. Based on social psychological studies of the fundamental attribution error, we predicted that the subjects would underestimate the strength of the situational effect (group size) and attribute cause to personal traits of the leaders instead—leaders would be credited for the success of the small groups, and blamed for the failure of the large groups. This hypothesis proved true: Subjects attributed differences in outcomes between conditions to differences in the effectiveness of leaders. In a second experiment, subjects voted to replace the leaders more frequently in the large-group condition (at a small cost to themselves), showing that misattributions of leadership ability also affect actual behavior by subjects. Previous research has demonstrated a tendency to credit or blame leaders for unusual performance. The difference in our study is that subjects should be blaming a structural condition—the size of the group—but they blame the leaders instead. Thus, our experiment is the first to establish a mistaken illusion of leadership.
Reimagining the Differentiation and Integration of Work for Sustained Product Innovation
Authors: Dougherty Deborah
Published: December 2003

This study describes the image of organizing that underlies a complex organization's ability to incorporate streams of innovation with continuing operations. I argue that a mechanistic organization archetype prevents people from seeing in their minds' eyes—from imagining—how to do the work of innovation organizationwide, but that theorists have failed to articulate an alternative to this archetype in its own terms. The study focuses on two elements of organizing: the differentiation and the integration of work. I build grounded theory for an alternate, innovative archetype of organizing by exploring the shared image of work differentiation and integration in twelve firms that vary in innovative ability. I find a fundamentally different image in innovative organizations that is centered on hands-on practice: People understand value creation as a long-term working relationship with customers, in which they apply the firm's skills to anticipate and solve customer problems. This practice is differentiated into distinct problems in value creation, each of which embodies the integral flow of work like a lateral slice, but which situates those problems in their own contexts. People understand themselves to be organized in an autonomous community of practice that takes charge of one of the problems. The communities of practice are integrated by standards for action: vivid, simple representations of value that frame work and that are reenacted in practice.

The analysis details this different image of organizing by describing four autonomous communities of practice and contrasting them with the image of organizing found in noninnovative firms. The paper illustrates how this new image straightforwardly organizes and controls innovative work, and how the noninnovative image of differentiation and integration makes this work unimaginable. I conclude that innovation can be incorporated with continuing operations, provided that managers and theorists reimagine the differentiation and integration of work. I offer preliminary ideas for doing so, and suggest some next steps in this research stream.
When Hot and Cold Collide in Radical Change Processes: Lessons from Community Development
Authors: Fiol C. Marlene , O'Connor Edward J.
Published: December 2003

A group's tendency to protect its identity often inhibits it from initiating radical change. For this reason, external interventions are typically needed to engage a group in reexamining and moving beyond its current identity. If threatened by these external interventions, however, identity beliefs can become emotionally heated and resistant to the cognitively rational efforts of outsiders. At the same time, the insider group's emotional energy is essential to mobilize and sustain radical change. This paper draws on community development theories and practices, as well as identity theories, to develop a model that traces the dynamic processes by which hot emotional interpretations and relatively colder cognitive interpretations interact to initiate, mobilize, and sustain radical change. It highlights the roles that emotion and cognition play as both barriers and essential facilitators of the change at different stages of the process, and proposes a set of strategies for managing them.
Being Efficiently Fickle: A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Choice
Authors: Nickerson Jack A. , Zenger Todd R.
Published: December 2003

A central proposition in organization theory is that discrete organizational forms are matched to environmental conditions, market strategies, or exchange conditions. This paper develops a contrary theoretical proposition. We argue that efficiency may dictate modulating between discrete governance modes (i.e., structural modulation) in response to a stable set of exchange conditions. If governance choices are discrete, as much of organization theory argues, then the consequent steady-state functionality delivered by these organizational forms is itself discrete. However, if the desired functionality lies in-between the steady-state functionality delivered by two discrete choices, then efficiency gains may be available by modulating between modes. We develop an analytical model of structural modulation and examine factors that influence when modulation is ef- ficiency enhancing, as well as the optimal rate of modulation. We conclude that under certain conditions structural modulation is efficiency enhancing. Further, contrary to theories that highlight the potentially destructive consequences of inertia on organizational survival, we identify important efficiencyyielding benefits of inertia.
On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change
Authors: Tsoukas Haridimos , Chia Robert
Published: December 2003

Traditional approaches to organizational change have been dominated by assumptions privileging stability, routine, and order. As a result, organizational change has been reified and treated as exceptional rather than natural. In this paper, we set out to offer an account of organizational change on its own terms—to treat change as the normal condition of organizational life. The central question we address is as follows: What must organization(s) be like if change is constitutive of reality? Wishing to highlight the pervasiveness of change in organizations, we talk about organizational becoming. Change, we argue, is the reweaving of actors' webs of beliefs and habits of action to accommodate new experiences obtained through interactions. Insofar as this is an ongoing process, that is to the extent actors try to make sense of and act coherently in the world, change is inherent in human action, and organizations are sites of continuously evolving human action. In this view, organization is a secondary accomplishment, in a double sense. Firstly, organization is the attempt to order the intrinsic flux of human action, to channel it towards certain ends by generalizing and institutionalizing particular cognitive representations. Secondly, organization is a pattern that is constituted, shaped, and emerging from change. Organization aims at stemming change but, in the process of doing so, it is generated by it. These claims are illustrated by drawing on the work of several organizational ethnographers. The implications of this view for theory and practice are outlined.
Perceived Trustworthiness Within the Organization: The Moderating Impact of Communication Frequency on Trustor and Trustee Effects
Authors: Becerra Manuel , Gupta Anil K.
Published: December 2003

This paper investigates the antecedents of intraorganizational trust and, more specifically, how the frequency of communication between trustor and trustee moderates the impact of these factors on perceived trustworthiness. Data on 157 dyadic relationships among 50 senior managers within a multinational corporation confirm that the effect of both trustor, as well as trustee characteristics on the level of perceived trustworthiness, is moderated by the frequency of communication between the two parties. As communication frequency increases, the trustor's general attitudinal predisposition towards peers becomes less important as a determinant of his/her evaluation of trustworthiness of other managers within the organization. In contrast, as communication frequency increases, the trustor's and trustee's contexts within the organization become more important determinants of perceived trustworthiness.
The Role of Trustworthiness in Reducing Transaction Costs and Improving Performance: Empirical Evidence from the United States, Japan, and Korea
Authors: Dyer Jeffrey H. , Chu Wujin
Published: December 2003

In this paper we investigate the relationship between supplier trust in the buyer and transaction costs and information sharing in a sample of 344 supplier-automaker exchange relationships in the United States, Japan, and Korea. Our findings indicate that perceived trustworthiness reduces transaction costs and is correlated with greater information sharing in supplier-buyer relationships. Moreover, the findings suggest that the value created for transactors, in terms of lower transaction costs, may be substantial. In particular, we found that the least-trusted automaker spent significantly more of its face-to-face interaction time with suppliers on contracting and haggling when compared to the most trusted automaker. This translated into procurement (transaction) costs that were five times higher for the least trusted automaker. Finally, we argue that trust is unique as a governance mechanism because it not only minimizes transaction costs, but also has a mutually causal relationship with information sharing, which also creates value in the exchange relationship. Other governance mechanisms (e.g., contracts, financial hostages) are necessary costs incurred to prevent opportunistic behavior, but do not create value beyond transaction cost minimization. Our findings provide empirical evidence that trustworthiness lowers transaction costs and may be an important source of competitive advantage.
Trust as an Organizing Principle
Authors: McEvily Bill , Perrone Vincenzo , Zaheer Akbar
Published: December 2003

Although research on trust in an organizational context has advanced considerably in recent years, the literature has yet to produce a set of generalizable propositions that inform our understanding of the organization and coordination of work. We propose that conceptualizing trust as an organizing principle is a powerful way of integrating the diverse trust literature and distilling generalizable implications for how trust affects organizing. We develop the notion of trust as an organizing principle by specifying structuring and mobilizing as two sets of causal pathways through which trust influences several important properties of organizations. We further describe specific mechanisms within structuring and mobilizing that influence interaction patterns and organizational processes. The principal aim of the framework is to advance the literature by connecting the psychological and sociological micro-foundations of trust with the macro-bases of organizing. The paper concludes by demonstrating how the framework can be applied to yield novel insights into traditional views of organizations and to stimulate original and innovative avenues of organizational research that consider both the benefits and downsides of trust.
Social Institutions and Work Centrality: Explorations Beyond National Culture
Authors: Parboteeah K. Praveen , Cullen John B.
Published: December 2003

In spite of the popularity of institutional explanations of organizational form, most international management research uses dimensions of national culture to explain cross-national differences in individual work centrality. In this study, we show that social institutions explain variance in work centrality in addition to Hofstede's (2001) dimensions of national culture. Using individual-level data from 30,270 interview respondents from the World Value Survey and institutional data for their 26 countries, we developed hypotheses to investigate whether selected social institutions (i.e., socialism, union strength, educational accessibility, social inequality, and industrialization) affect individual work centrality. We tested our cross-level hypotheses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Findings showed that all of the social institutional variables studied predicted lower work centrality.
Selective Intervention and Internal Hybrids: Interpreting and Learning from the Rise and Decline of the Oticon Spaghetti Organization
Authors: Foss Nicolai J.
Published: December 2003

Infusing hierarchies with elements of market control has become a much-used way of simultaneously increasing entrepreneurialism and motivation in firms. However, this paper argues that such “internal hybrids,” particularly in their radical forms, are inherently hard to successfully design and implement because of a fundamental incentive problem of establishing credible managerial commitments to not intervene in delegated decision making. This theme is developed and illustrated, using the case of the world-leading hearing aids producer, Oticon. In the beginning of the 1990s, Oticon became famous for its radical internal hybrid, the “spaghetti organization.” Recent work has interpreted the spaghetti organization as a radical attempt to foster dynamic capabilities by organizational means, neglecting, however, that about a decade later the spaghetti organization has given way to a more traditional matrix organization. In contrast, an organizational economics interpretation of Oticon organizational changes is developed. This lens suggests that a strong liability of the spaghetti organization was the above incentive problem: Frequent managerial meddling with delegated rights led to a severe loss of motivation, and arguably caused the change to a more structured organization. Refutable implications are developed, and the discussion is broadened to more general issues of economic organization.
Managing Interdisciplinary, Longitudinal Research Teams: Extending Grounded Theory-Building Methodologies
Authors: O'Connor Gina Colarelli , Rice Mark P. , Peters Lois , Veryzer Robert W.
Published: December 2003

The purpose of this study is to extend the literature on grounded theory development to incorporate considerations for team-based, interdisciplinary longitudinal research projects in the domain of organizational studies. Every element of the research process is affected if the research questions call for team-based data collection and interpretation over a lengthy period of time. It is unusual for a team of scholars from different disciplines to work together, not because the need doesn't exist, but because the mechanisms for doing so are not well established. We draw from the writings of scholars in the fields of research methodology, team and work-group design, and project management to inform our thinking on the subject. The work presented here is based on the authors' experiences during 1995–1999 as members of the Radical Innovation Research Program (RIRP). The RIRP is an ongoing multidisciplinary study of the development and management of radical innovations in established firms. Here, we do not describe the findings or insights associated with the content of the study, radical innovation, which is surely a complex managerial phenomenon. Rather, we focus on the processes used to conduct the research that were affected by the need for a multidisciplinary research team. A framework is presented for thinking about managing such a project. Challenges that we encountered within this framework are identified. Mechanisms we used (or, in some cases, wish we had used in retrospect) for confronting those challenges are also described. Throughout, we compare our study objectives and resultant methodological design choices with those of other multidisciplinary research teams that are by now well known in the organizational management literature. Our objective is to help researchers who are considering launching interdisciplinary, longitudinal studies of organizational processes as they plan and manage those pursuits.
Free to Be Trusted? Organizational Constraints on Trust in Boundary Spanners
Authors: Perrone Vincenzo , Zaheer Akbar , McEvily Bill
Published: December 2003

We present a view of trust in boundary spanners as explained by the extent of role autonomy, a multidimensional concept that reflects the discretion that agents have in interpreting and enacting their roles. We argue that, in a buyer-supplier context, purchasing managers will be trusted to a greater extent by supplier representatives when they are free from constraints that limit their ability to interpret their boundary-spanning roles. We conceptualize and measure three key components of role autonomy: Functional influence, tenure, and clan culture. Taken together, these components of role autonomy shape and define the purchasing manager's willingness and capacity to make and uphold commitments to supplier representatives. Role autonomy permits purchasing managers to engage in discretionary behaviors that allow supplier representatives to learn about their underlying motives and intentions. We test hypotheses linking the components of role autonomy to trust on a sample of 119 buyer-supplier relationships. We use a dyadic research design that combines data from purchasing managers and supplier representatives. The results suggest that granting purchasing managers greater autonomy enhances supplier representative trust in purchasing managers. By drawing attention to role autonomy as a feature of organizations that influences trust we highlight the importance of organizational context in contributing to a deeper understanding of trust.
When is More Better? The Effects of Racial Composition on Voluntary Turnover
Authors: Zatzick Christopher D. , Elvira Marta M. , Cohen Lisa E.
Published: December 2003

This study examines the relationship between racial composition and individual, voluntary turnover for minorities (i.e., Asians, blacks, and Hispanics) in a large organization. We present a critical test for two sets of contrasting predictions. The first draws on similarity attraction, social contact, and social identity theories to suggest that working with racially similar others enhances the work environment in terms of perceived career opportunities, mentoring relationships, and network ties, all of which would increase the likelihood of remaining in an organization. The contrasting predictions draw on group competition and group threat theories and propose that working with racially similar others might increase competition for resources and generate a backlash effect against minorities that would induce their turnover. We suggest the paradox that these two approaches might be compatible if the effect of demographic composition is nonlinear. Our data analyses show that individuals' likelihood of turnover decreases as the proportion of employees in a job from one's own race increases. Furthermore, this relationship is nonlinear: Members of minority groups with very small representation benefited more from the increased presence of their own race than minorities who already had a substantial presence. This finding suggests a potential backlash effect at higher minority proportions. Results also show that turnover decreases as the proportion of employees from one's own race increases in the level above an employee's job. Overall, these findings suggest that working with others of the same race reduces the likelihood of minority exits. Interestingly, the proportion of other minorities in a job has a marginally significant, negative effect on employees' voluntary turnover. Thus, increasing racial diversity from one's own race and other minorities appears to strengthen minority workforce retention.
From Issues to Actions: The Importance of Individual Concerns and Organizational Values in Responding to Natural Environmental Issues
Authors: Bansal Pratima
Published: December 2003

In this research, we traced the development of natural environmental issues in two organizations in real time over the period of a year. Participant observations, discussions with organizational members, and corporate documents yielded insights used to develop a model describing issue flows in both organizations. With this model, we identified the factors that influenced the scope, scale, and speed of organizational response to issues. Our methods provided insights into why issues generated organizational responses and also why they did not.

Two factors appeared to be critical in explaining organizational responses to issues: individual concerns and organizational values. Individual concerns gave rise to an issue champion or seller. An issue consistent with organizational values was perceived as strategic. These were necessary conditions; without either condition, the issue would not be resolved. It is argued further that individual discretion and excess resource slack will moderate the relationship between these direct effects and the scope, scale, and speed of organizational response. The framework that emerged from the data is conveyed through a set of four propositions.
Making a Difference: Organization as Design
Authors: Romme A. Georges L.
Published: December 2003

Mainstream organizational research is based on science and the humanities. Science helps us to understand organized systems, from an outsider position, as empirical objects. The humanities contribute to understanding, and critically reflecting on, the human experience of actors inside organized practices. This paper argues that, in view of the persistent relevance gap between theory and practice, organization studies should be broadened to include design as one of its primary modes of engaging in research. Design is characterized by its emphasis on solution finding, guided by broader purposes and ideal target systems. Moreover, design develops, and draws on, design propositions that are tested in pragmatic experiments and grounded in organization science. This study first explores the main differences and synergies between science and design, and explores how and why the design discipline has largely moved away from academia to other sites in the economy. The argument then turns to the genealogy of design methodologies in organization and management studies. Subsequently, this paper explores the circular design methodology that serves to illustrate the nature of design research, that is, the pragmatic focus on actionable knowledge as well as the key role of ideal target systems in design processes. Finally, the author proposes a framework for communication and collaboration between the science and design modes, and argues that scholars in organization studies can guide human beings in the process of designing and developing their organizations toward more humane, participative, and productive futures. In this respect, the organization discipline can make a difference.
The Holding Problem with Real–Time Information Available
Authors: Eberlein Xu Jun , Wilson Nigel H. M. , Bernstein David
Published: December 2003

Holding is one of the most commonly used real–time control strategies in transit operations. Given a transit network and its operations plan, the holding problem is to decide at a given time at a control station, which vehicle is to be held and for how long, such that the total passenger cost along the route is minimized over a time period. Previous research on the holding problem has always assumed no real–time information available. Such an assumption not only poses great difficulties in solving the problem, but also limits practical applications in a real–time, dynamic operations environment. In this paper we formulate the holding problem as a deterministic quadratic program in a rolling horizon scheme, and develop an efficient solution algorithm to solve it. Using headway data collected by an automated system, we tested the algorithm and evaluated the impact of the resulting holding policies. Important and interesting properties of the holding solution, obtained from both theoretical and computational analyses, are presented.
A Dynamic Model for Airline Seat Allocation with Passenger Diversion and No-Shows
Authors: Zhao Wen , Zheng Yu-Sheng
Published: December 2003

For airlines selling the same seats on a scheduled flight at different fares, the demand for a fare class is affected not only by the current availability of lower fares but also by the possibility of future availability of them. To address this type of passenger behavior, this paper studies a two-class dynamic seat allocation model, which has two distinctive features. The model assumes first that the discount fare cannot be reopened once closed and, second, that a fraction of the customers are flexible, i.e., while willing to pay the full fare, they would buy discount fare tickets if available. These assumptions not only reflect customers' behavior but also are consistent with a class of existing static models that are widely accepted by the industry.

For this model, we derive structural properties of the optimal policy. We show that the optimal policy is a threshold policy: The discount fare should be closed as soon as the number of seats remaining reaches a predetermined threshold, which is a function of the time remaining before departure. We show that the threshold does not always decrease over time, and that its time-monotonicity depends on how the proportion of flexible customers changes over time. Our model explains why airlines close discount fares as the departure time approaches. We also show a close relationship between the optimal policy and the policies suggested by the existing static models (the Littlewood rule and its variants). Our numerical study shows that, for parameters plausible to real applications, the latter policies, although not optimal for our dynamic model, perform well, compared to the performance of the optimal policies.
A Cell-Based Traffic Control Formulation: Strategies and Benefits of Dynamic Timing Plans
Authors: Lo Hong K.
Published: December 2003

This study developed a dynamic traffic-control formulation that considers the entire Fundamental Diagram. This incorporation of the Fundamental Diagram is especially important for modeling oversaturated traffic. For this purpose, traffic is modeled after the cell-transmission model (CTM), which is a convergent numerical approximation to the hydrodynamic model. We transformed CTM to a set of mixed-integer constraints and subsequently cast the dynamic signal-control problem to a mixed-integer linear program. As a dynamic platform, the formulation is flexible in dealing with dynamic timing plans and traffic patterns. It can derive dynamic as well as fixed timing plans and address preexisting traffic conditions and time-dependent demand patterns. This study produced results to show the benefit of dynamic timing plans and demonstrated that some of the existing practice on signal coordination could be further improved.
Deliveries in an Inventory/Routing Problem Using Stochastic Dynamic Programming
Authors: Berman Oded , Larson Richard C.
Published: December 2003

An industrial gases tanker vehicle visits n customers on a tour, with a possible (n + 1)st customer added at the end. The amount of needed product at each customer is a known random process, typically a Wiener process. The objective is to adjust dynamically the amount of product provided on scene to each customer so as to minimize total expected costs, comprising costs of earliness, lateness, product shortfall, and returning to the depot nonempty. Earliness costs are computed by invocation of an annualized incremental cost argument. Amounts of product delivered to each customer are not known until the driver is on scene at the customer location, at which point the customer is either restocked to capacity or left with some residual empty capacity, the policy determined by stochastic dynamic programming. The methodology has applications beyond industrial gases.
Simultaneous Vehicle and Crew Scheduling in Urban Mass Transit Systems
Authors: Haase Knut , Desaulniers Guy , Desrosiers Jacques
Published: December 2003

This paper presents an exact approach for solving the simultaneous vehicle and crew scheduling problem in urban mass transit systems. We consider the single depot case with a homogeneous fleet of vehicles. This approach relies on a set partitioning formulation for the driver scheduling problem that incorporates side constraints for the bus itineraries. The proposed solution approach consists of a column generation process (only for the crew schedules) integrated into a branch-and-bound scheme. The side constraints on buses guarantee that an optimal vehicle assignment can be derived afterwards in polynomial time. A computational study shows that this approach out-performs the previous methods found in the literature for a set of randomly generated instances. A heuristic version of the solution approach is also proposed and tested on larger instances.
A Bilevel Model for Toll Optimization on a Multicommodity Transportation Network
Authors: Brotcorne Luce , Labbé Martine , Marcotte Patrice , Savard Gilles
Published: December 2003

We consider the problem of determining a set of optimal tolls on the arcs of a multicommodity transportation network. The problem is formulated as a bilevel mathematical program where the upper level consists in a firm that raises revenues from tolls set on arcs of the network, while the lower level is represented by a group of users travelling on shortest paths with respect to a generalized travel cost.
Airline Crew Scheduling with Regularity
Authors: Klabjan Diego , Johnson Ellis L. , Nemhauser George L. , Gelman Eric , Ramaswamy Srini
Published: December 2003

The airline crew scheduling problem is the problem of assigning crew itineraries to flights. The problem is hard due to a large number of itineraries and the complicated cost function of an itinerary. The classic approach, which uses a set partitioning formulation, only captures the objective function of minimizing cost. We add a second goal of maximizing the repetition or regularity of itineraries over a weekly horizon and we develop models that capture regularity. We present a new algorithm that solves the crew scheduling problem over a weekly horizon. Solutions are reported that improve on existing solutions used by an airline.
A Mathematical Model and Descent Algorithm for Bilevel Traffic Management
Authors: Patriksson Michael , Rockafellar R. Tyrrell
Published: December 2003

We provide a new mathematical model for strategic traffic management, formulated and analyzed as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). The model includes two types of control (upper-level) variables, which may be used to describe such traffic management actions as traffic signal setting, network design, and congestion pricing. The lower-level problem of the MPEC describes a traffic equilibrium model in the sense of Wardrop, in which the control variables enter as parameters in the travel costs. We consider a (small) variety of model settings, including fixed or elastic demands, the possible presence of side constraints in the traffic equilibrium system, and representations of traffic flows and management actions in both link-route and link-node space.

For this model, we also propose and analyze a descent algorithm. The algorithm utilizes a new reformulation of the MPEC into a constrained, locally Lipschitz minimization problem in the product space of controls and traffic flows. The reformulation is based on the Minty (1967) parameterization of the graph of the normal cone operator for the traffic flow polyhedron. Two immediate advantages of making use of this reformulation are that the resulting descent algorithm can be operated and established to be convergent without requiring that the travel cost mapping is monotone, and without having to ever solve the lower-level equilibrium problem. We provide example realizations of the algorithm, establish their convergence, and interpret their workings in terms of the traffic network.
Minimum Time and Minimum Cost-Path Problems in Street Networks with Periodic Traffic Lights
Authors: Ahuja Ravindra K. , Orlin James B. , Pallottino Stefano , Grazia Scutellà Maria
Published: December 2003

This paper investigates minimum time and minimum cost path problems in street networks regulated by periodic traffic lights. We show that the minimum time path problem is polynomially solvable. On the other hand, minimum cost path problems are generally NP-hard. Special, realistic cases which are polynomially solvable are discussed.
Outsourcing Logistics: Designing Transportation Contracts Between a Manufacturer and a Transporter
Authors: Alp Osman , Erkip Nesim K. , Güllü Refik
Published: December 2003

In our environment, a manufacturer procures material from a supplier and the supplier brings it in bulk to a warehouse. This material is then consigned to the plant area, where it is utilized as an input of the production process. This consignment process is outsourced by the manufacturer and a transportation company is selected via a bidding mechanism. Primarily, we consider the problem of designing parameters of a given contract for the transportation activity. We define three subproblems within the contract design problem that interact with each other to a certain extent. These subproblems are the vehicle dispatching problem, inventory control problem, and contract value problem. We define these problems, exploit their interactions, and propose solution methods. Moreover, we present an approach to design such transportation contracts, which is based on solving these subproblems in an order for an adequate number of contract parameter combinations and selecting the one that minimizes expected total costs for the manufacturer.
Sensitivity Analysis of Aggregated Variational Inequality Problems, with Application to Traffic Equilibria
Authors: Patriksson Michael , Rockafellar R. Tyrrell
Published: December 2003

Some instances of variational inequality models over polyhedral sets can be stated in a disaggregated or aggregated formulation related by an affine variable transformation. For such problems, we establish that sensitivity analysis results under parameterizations rely neither on the strict monotonicity properties of the problem in terms of the disaggregated variables, nor on any particular choice of their values at the solution. We show how to utilize the affine transformation to devise computational tools for calculating sensitivity results and apply them to the sensitivity analysis of elastic demand traffic equilibrium problems. The results reached show that sensitivity results do not rely on the choice of any particular route or commodity flow solution. Further, the sensitivity analysis, including the calculation of the gradient of the equilibrium link flow if it exists, can be performed by means of solving linearized traffic equilibrium problems.