bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An Evaluation of Federal Policies Concerning Joint Ventures for Applied Research and Development
Authors: Joglekar Prafulla , Hamburg Morris 
Published: November 2008

Current federal policies toward interfirm cooperation in research and development are designed to maximize society's use of available technology. Models of industry resource allocation behavior demonstrate that these policies are detrimental to the formation of risk sharing consortia for the development of new technology. The reason is that current policies often deprive applied research and development activities of their appropriability. Analytical results suggest that, if appropriability is maintained, an underinvestment in applied research and development can be corrected, in most cases, simply by permitting firms to share the benefits and costs of projects in proportion to firms' investments. A permissive governmental posture may be particularly effective for industries consisting of a large number of firms with some firms relatively larger than others. Industries consisting of small numbers of relatively equal size firms may require government as a participant in consortia for applied research and development (appropriable but risky R&D activities).
Limitations of the Scientific Method in Management Science
Authors: Weinwurm Ernest H. 
Published: November 2008

The scientists who have suggested improvements of the techniques of managerial analysis and decision making through the application of the “scientific method” have called attention to a worthwhile and important goal. Their proposals are bound to initiate a process of self-analysis and re-appraisal of the current methodical foundations of managerial policies. But the challenge in itself—even if made in a very determined manner—is no proof of its correctness and adequacy though this seems to be the opinion of some of the challengers. In order to arrive at a final conclusion it is essential to determine whether the scientific method is as applicable and valuable in the managerial field as it has proven to be in the physical sciences. The basic assumptions and procedures of the scientific method must be examined as a prerequisite for such a determination. No comprehensive analysis of such a broad problem is possible within the scope of this paper. The presentation will have to be restricted to a few characteristic examples to indicate the fundamental trends. Much more work will have to be done as a preliminary for reaching results which may be widely accepted. The principal purpose is to encourage such work.
Approximations of Dynamic, Multilocation Production and Inventory Problems
Authors: Federgruen Awi , Zipkin Paul 
Published: November 2008

Consider a central depot (or plant) which supplies several locations experiencing random demands. Orders are placed (or production is initiated) periodically by the depot. The order arrives after a fixed lead time, and is then allocated among the several locations. (The depot itself does not hold inventory.) The allocations are finally received at the demand points after another lag. Unfilled demand at each location is backordered. Linear costs are incurred at each location for holding inventory and for backorders. Also, costs are assessed for orders placed by the depot. The object is to minimize the expected total cost of the system over a finite number of time periods. This system gives rise to a dynamic program with a state space of very large dimension. We show that this model can be systematically approximated by a single-location inventory problem. All the qualitative and quantitative results for such problems can then be applied.
Organization Strategy and Structural Differences for Radical Versus Incremental Innovation
Authors: Ettlie John E. , Bridges William P. , O'Keefe Robert D. 
Published: November 2008

The purpose of this study was to test a model of the organizational innovation process that suggests that the strategy-structure causal sequence is differentiated by radical versus incremental innovation. That is, unique strategy and structure will be required for radical innovation, especially process adoption, while more traditional strategy and structure arrangements tend to support new product introduction and incremental process adoption. This differentiated theory is strongly supported by data from the food processing industry. Specifically, radical process and packaging adoption are significantly promoted by an aggressive technology policy and the concentration of technical specialists. Incremental process adoption and new product introduction tends to be promoted in large, complex, decentralized organizations that have market dominated growth strategies. Findings also suggest that more traditional structural arrangements might be used for radical change initiation if the general tendencies that occur in these dimensions as a result of increasing size can be delayed, briefly modified, or if the organization can be partitioned structurally for radical vs. incremental innovation. In particular, centralization of decision making appears to be necessary for radical process adoption along with the movement away from complexity toward more organizational generalists. This suggests that a greater support of top managers in the innovation process is necessary to initiate and sustain radical departures from the past for that organization.
The Nature and Design of Post-Industrial Organizations
Authors: Huber George P. 
Published: November 2008

This paper describes the nature and design of post-industrial organizations. It begins with an assessment of the popular literature on post-industrial society, and finds that this literature is an inappropriate basis for inferring the nature of post-industrial organizations. Partly as a consequence of this finding, the paper turns to systems theory as a basis for determining both the nature of post-industrial society and the nature of the increased demands that this environment would impose on post-industrial organizations. The middle three sections of the paper describe design features that post-industrial organizations will employ to deal with these demands. In particular they examine designs for making more effective three processes that will exhibit increased importance in post-industrial organizations: (1) decision-making, (2) innovation, and (3) information acquisition and distribution. In addition to its conclusions concerning the design features that post-industrial organizations will possess, the paper sets forth three general conclusions. One of these is that, even though the aggregate of the demands on post-industrial organizations will be qualitatively greater than that experienced by previous organizations, there are design features that organizations can adopt that will enable them to cope with even worst-case loadings of these demands. A second conclusion is that the nature of the post-industrial environment will cause decision-making, innovation, and information acquisition and distribution to take on added importance in post-industrial organizations, and that one result of this will be that organizations will attempt to ensure routine effectiveness of these processes through increased formalization. In some cases this formalization will have as its purpose ensuring the existence of informal (or at least unstructured) activities, such as experimentation by “self-designing” organizations or acquisition of “soft” information by top managers. The third conclusion set forth is that during the current transition period between the industrial and post-industrial societies we can expect many organizations to fail, or to flee to less than wholly desirable niches, because they are ignorant of the post-industrial technologies, structures, and processes that would enable them to successfully engage the post-industrial environment and to become viable post-industrial organizations. It appears that an important task of organizational and management scientists during this period will be to aid in the development, transfer, and implementation of post-industrial design features and in this way help reduce the possibility of unnecessary failure or flight.
On Competition to Join a Simple Queueing System Before the Facility Opens
Authors: Bell Colin E. 
Published: November 2008

A single server provides FIFO services commencing at time 0. Each member of a population of N potential customers must decide whether or not to arrive at the facility. Customers choosing to arrive must do so no later than time 0. This paper studies the benefit to customers: the value of service received minus the cost of waiting time. This model is studied under a variety of assumptions and the impact of customer behavior on average benefit (value of service minus cost of waiting) is examined. Self-interested customers compete with each other (by arriving sufficiently early) to the extent that much of the potential benefit is dissipated through high waiting costs before time 0. A common finding is that no customer can attain a benefit which improves on that which would result from arriving exactly at time 0 and being last in line. The impact of charging entrance tolls is investigated.
A Branch and Bound Approach for Machine Load Balancing in Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Authors: Berrada Mohammed , Stecke Kathryn E. 
Published: November 2008

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is an integrated system of computer numerically controlled machine tools connected with automated material handling. A set of production planning problems for FMSs has been defined (Stecke [Stecke, Kathryn E. 1983. Formulation and solution of nonlinear integer production planning problems for flexible manufacturing systems. Management Sci. 29 (3, March) 273–288.]), and this paper considers one called the loading problem. This problem involves assigning to the machine tools, operations and associated cutting tools required for part types that have been selected to be produced simultaneously. The part types will be machined during the upcoming production period (say, of one to three weeks duration on average) and according to a prespecified part mix. This assignment is constrained by the capacity of each machine's tool magazine as well as by the production capacities of both the system, and each machine type. There are several loading objectives that are applicable in a flexible manufacturing situation. This paper considers the most commonly applied one, that of balancing the workload on all machines. This paper first discusses a nonlinear integer mathematical programming formulation of the loading problem. The problem is formulated in all detail. Then an efficient solution procedure is proposed and illustrated with an example. Computational results are provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the suggested special-purpose procedures.
Implications of Salesforce Productivity Heterogeneity and Demotivation: A Navy Recruiter Case Study
Authors: Carroll Vincent P. , Lee Hau L. , Rao Ambar G. 
Published: November 2008

This paper describes a study of Navy recruiter productivity at the individual recruiter level. Timeseries of monthly contract production by each of 345 recruiters who served for six months or more during the period May 1977–December 1978 formed the basis of the study. A wide variation in job tenure was observed in this data with some recruiters beginning their normal three-year tour of duty, and others in their second or third years. Two key empirical findings are reported here: (1) in addition to the expected learning period at the beginning of a recruiter's tour of duty there was a severe and extended demotivational (or “delearning”) period at the end of the tour. Production during these periods was very low. (2) substantial heterogeneity existed in recruiter productivity after controlling for the impact of tenure. Recruiter performance is predictable—good recruiters tend to stay good while poor recruiters continue to perform poorly. A stochastic model for heterogeneous production is developed and an early rotation policy for poorly performing recruiters is proposed. Under this policy a recruiter is observed for N months after the learning period. If total production in N months is less than c, the recruiter is rotated out and is replaced by a new recruiter. It is shown that the optimal selection of N and c can substantially improve recruiter force productivity. Productivity improves even when these parameters deviate somewhat from optimality. U.S. Navy Recruiting command initiatives that resulted from this and related studies are described. They included a change in the measure used for recruiter goal setting and an incentive system which led to rewards for superior recruiters and reassigning poorly performing recruiters to nonrecruiting duty. Finally the paper discusses the implications of the results obtained for industrial salesforces.
The Use of Screening in Policy Analysis
Authors: Walker Warren E. 
Published: November 2008

In most policy analysis studies there are a large number of alternative policies and a large number of impacts to be considered. Time and budget constraints make it impossible to calculate all the impacts for all of the alternatives. As a result, such studies include some process for reducing the number of alternatives to be examined in detail. The process is often implicit and nonscientific (e.g., only the decisionmaker's three favorite alternatives are considered). This paper suggests that policy analysis studies explicitly include a screening step, in which the alternatives to be examined in detail and those to be excluded from further consideration are chosen in a scientific and systematic manner. The output from this step is a relatively small set of policy alternatives that are sufficiently attractive that they deserve a more thorough evaluation. Two general screening strategies are described. They are illustrated by describing the screening step in a study to help determine an overall water management policy for the Netherlands.
Scheduling with Multiple Performance Measures: The One-Machine Case
Authors: Nelson Rosser T. , Sarin Rakesh K. , Daniels Richard L. 
Published: November 2008

Most scheduling research has considered optimizing a single performance measure (criterion). In this paper we consider the problem of scheduling jobs on a single machine when the desirability of a schedule is evaluated using more than one performance measure. The procedures developed here can be used to construct trade-off curves among selected performance measures. The importance of the trade-off curve is that it provides the complete set of possibly optimal solutions for any objective function (cost function) involving only the selected performance measures. With this information, a manager can concentrate on selecting the most preferred schedule from the set. Algorithms are presented for the three two-criteria problems utilizing mean flow time, maximum tardiness, and number of tardy jobs and the three-criteria problem involving all of these criteria. Computational results for the four algorithms are provided. The most striking result is that the number of efficient solutions is very small in comparison to the number of permutation schedules for all three two-criteria problems and only modestly larger for the three-criteria problem. This has the managerial significance that, irrespective of the individual manager's specific trade-offs between the criteria, the number of possibly optimal schedules that need to be considered is relatively small. Several research directions on heuristic approaches, man-machine interactive approaches, computational efficiency, etc. are possible for the type of problem studied. The work reported here has the potential to stimulate research incorporating multiple performance measures in more complex scheduling models.
Inertia, Environments, and Strategic Choice: A Quasi-Experimental Design for Comparative-Longitudinal Research
Authors: Romanelli Elaine , Tushman Michael L. 
Published: November 2008

This paper develops a research design for examining the relative influence of managers and environments on organizational activity over time. We outline three basic models of organization evolution: (1) an inertial model, which emphasizes constraints on evolution imposed by early patterns of exchange; (2) an external control model, which posits change in organizational activities that is guided by changes in environmental conditions over time; and (3) a strategic management model, which emphasizes the role of senior executives in choosing patterns and domains of competitive activity. Using the general logic of experimental design, we outline methods for comparing longitudinal patterns in change and persistence that will distinguish between these alternative perspectives. Specifically, we describe procedures for operationalizing two basic parameters of research design: (1) the organization population cohort, which imposes systematic restrictions on sampling; and (2) a generalized version of the product class life cycle, which helps isolate changes in environmental conditions for comparing organizational activity patterns over time. Data from an ongoing study of firms in the minicomputer product class are presented to illustrate these concepts.
An Introduction to Structured Modeling
Authors: Geoffrion Arthur M. 
Published: November 2008

The discipline of modeling has advanced only slowly compared to disciplines concerned with analyzing and solving models once they are brought into being. Structured Modeling is an attempt to redress this imbalance. Structured Modeling aims to provide a formal mathematical framework and computer-based environment for conceiving, representing, and manipulating a wide variety of models. The framework uses a hierarchically organized, partitioned, and attributed acyclic graph to represent the semantic as well as mathematical structure of a model. The computer-based environment is evolving via experimental prototypes that provide for ad hoc query, immediate expression evaluation, solving simultaneous systems, and optimization. If successful, Structured Modeling will enable model-based work to be done with greater productivity and acceptance by nonspecialists, will exploit important developments in small computers, and will cross-fertilize management science/operations research, artificial intelligence, database management, programming language design, and software engineering. This paper is an introduction and status report on a long term project. The presentation is based largely on examples; rigorous development and details are left to a series of technical reports.
PAM—A Practitioner's Approach to Modeling
Authors: Welch James S. 
Published: November 2008

Many Linear Programming (LP) practitioners formulate and document their models with block schematics of LP matrices. They subscribe to neither the column-wise emphasis of commercial matrix generators nor to the constraint orientation of recently proposed “modelling languages.” PAM is a nonprocedural modeling language in which the practitioner describes an LP matrix with a set of two-dimensional tables: a table representing the block schematic of the matrix and supporting data tables. A computer program processes these tables to produce an LP matrix ready for optimization. This paper describes block-wise model formulation, discusses the relationships of the data to the model, presents an overview of PAM's matrix generation language, and gives some experience with a prototype system.
Optimally Balancing Large Assembly Lines with “Fable”
Authors: Johnson Roger V. 
Published: November 2008

A new algorithm for optimally balancing assembly lines is formulated and tested. Named “FABLE,” it obtains proven optimal solutions for ten 1000 task lines, which each possess the computationally favorable conditions of an average of at least 6 tasks per work station and a small number of between-task precedence requirements, in less than 20 seconds of IBM 3033U CPU time for each problem. FABLE also performs very favorably on a benchmark group of 64 test problems drawn from the literature, which are of up to 111 tasks each. FABLE finds and proves an optimal solution to the 64 problems in a total of 3.16 seconds of IBM 3090 CPU time. FABLE is a ‘laser’ type, depth-first, branch-and-bound algorithm, with logic designed for very fast achievement of feasibility, ensuring a feasible solution to any line of 1000 or even more tasks. It utilizes new and existing dominance rules and bound arguments. A total of 549 problems of various characteristics are solved to determine conditions under which FABLE performs most and least favorably. Performance is sensitive to average number of tasks per work station, number of between-task precedence requirements (measured by ‘order strength’), and the total number of tasks per problem. A heuristic variant of FABLE is also described.
Multipass Seasonal Adjustment Filter
Authors: Sastri Tep 
Published: November 2008

A state-space seasonal time series model and a new seasonal decomposition algorithm, based on the Kalman filter, are introduced. The time series model is statistically equivalent to the multiplicative seasonal model, ARIMA (0, 1, 1)(0, 1, 1)s, of Box and Jenkins. It is shown that the steady-state filter's forecasts of this model are identical to the Box and Jenkins' values. The seasonal adjustment and decomposition algorithm is based on a multipass filtering technique for back forecasting and smoothing in order to correct start-up transients and replace lost filter's estimates during the initialization phase. The in-sample performances of this multipass seasonal adjustment filter (MSAF) are compared with the Census X-11 procedure, using real time series. The empirical results clearly show the superiority of the proposed method for all time series in the study. Additionally, a sample from the Makridakis-Hibon's 111 time series is used for ex-post forecasting evaluation of the proposed method in comparison to the Winters and simple ratio-to-moving-average methods. It is observed that the MSAF forecasts are better than its competitors in most cases, especially when leadtimes are at least one season length.
An Algorithm for Solving the Job-Shop Problem
Authors: Carlier J. , Pinson E. 
Published: November 2008

In this paper, we propose a branch and bound method for solving the job-shop problem. It is based on one-machine scheduling problems and is made more efficient by several propositions which limit the search tree by using immediate selections. It solved for the first time the famous 10 × 10 job-shop problem proposed by Muth and Thompson in 1963.
The Parameter Iteration Method in Dynamic Programming
Authors: Gal Shmuel 
Published: November 2008

Many practical problems involve making optimal decisions for systems with state characterized by many components. These problems lead to dynamic programming problems with a very large number of state variables. Thus, an exact derivation of the optimal policy for such problems is not feasible to solve numerically due to the great amount of computer time and storage involved. This paper presents a practical method, denoted as the Parameter Iteration Method, for obtaining an approximate solution for the above described problem. The computational difficulty caused by the tremendously large dimensionality of the state variable is overcome by means of an iterative method which combines simulation and recursive estimation to compute successive approximations of the value function. The implementation of the Parameter Iteration Method is illustrated for the problem of optimal replacement policy for a multi-item Markovian system.