bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Research Methods on Findings of First-Mover Advantage
Authors: VanderWerf Pieter A. , Mahon John F. 
Published: November 2008

A long-standing hypothesis is that firms that enter a market early (“first movers”) tend to have higher performance than their followers (“first-mover advantage”). Recently, researchers have begun to argue that the statistical tests that support this relationship are limited in their applicability. That is, it is suggested that because of the methods used, these tests show the relationship only for certain subsets of firms, markets, and types of performance. We performed a meta-analysis to determine whether the findings are in fact sensitive to the methods used. We discovered that tests using market share as their performance measure were sharply and significantly more likely to find a first-mover advantage than tests using other measures (such as profitability or survival). Also significantly more likely to find an advantage were tests that sample from individually selected industries and those that include no measures of the entrants' competitive strength. Conversely, we found little evidence that “survivor bias” (the exclusion of nonsurviving entrants from the sample) affects a test's findings. The data further suggest that tests that use none of the questioned research practices will find a first-mover advantage no more often than can be accounted for by random statistical error alone.
Vehicle Scheduling in Public Transit and Lagrangean Pricing
Authors: Löbel Andreas 
Published: November 2008

This paper investigates the solution of the linear programming (LP) relaxation of the multi-commodity flow formulation of the multiple-depot vehicle scheduling problems arising in public mass transit. We develop a column generation technique that makes it possible to solve the huge linear programs that come up there. The technique, which we call Lagrangean pricing, is based on two different Lagrangean relaxations. We describe in detail the basic ingredients of our approach and give computational results for large-scale test data (with up to 70 million variables) from three German public transportation companies. Because of these results, we propose Lagrangean pricing as one of the basic ingredients of an effective method to solve multiple-depot vehicle scheduling problems to proven optimality.
Combining Expert Judgment by Hierarchical Modeling: An Application to Physician Staffing
Authors: Lipscomb Joseph , Parmigiani Giovanni , Hasselblad Vic 
Published: November 2008

Expert panels are playing an increasingly important role in U.S. health policy decision making. A fundamental issue in these applications is how to synthesize the judgments of individual experts into a group judgment. In this paper we propose an approach to synthesis based on Bayesian hierarchical models, and apply it to the problem of determining physician staffing at medical centers operated by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). Our starting point is the supra-Bayesian approach to synthesis, whose principal motivation in the present context is to generate an estimate of the uncertainty associated with a panel's evaluation of the number of physicians required under specified conditions. Hierarchical models are particularly natural in this context since variability in the experts' judgments results in part from heterogeneity in their baseline experiences at different VA medical centers. We derive alternative hierarchical Bayes synthesis distributions for the number of physicians required to handle the (service-mix specific) daily workload in internal medicine at a given VA medical center (VAMC). The analysis appears to be the first to provide a statistical treatment of expert judgment processes for evaluating the appropriate use of resources in health care. Also, while hierarchical models are well established, their application to the synthesis of expert judgment is novel.
Approval Voting, Borda Winners, and Condorcet Winners: Evidence from Seven Elections
Authors: Regenwetter Michel , Grofman Bernard 
Published: November 2008

We analyze 10 three-candidate elections (and mock elections) conducted under approval voting (AV) using a method developed by Falmagne and Regenwetter (1996) that allows us to construct a distribution of rank orders from subset choice data. The elections were held by the Institute of Management Science, the Mathematical Association of America, several professional organizations in Britain, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Seven of the 10 elections satisfy the conditions under which the Falmagne-Regenwetter method is suitable. For these elections we recreate possible underlying preferences of the electorate. On the basis of these distributions of preferences we find strong evidence that AV would have selected Condorcet winners when they exist and would have always selected the Borda winner. Thus, we find that AV is not just simple to use, but also gives rise to outcomes that well reflect voter preferences. Our results also have an important implication for the general study of social choice processes. They suggest that transitive majority orderings may be expected in real-world settings more often then the formal social choice literature suggests. In six out of seven data sets we find social welfare orders; only one data set generates cycles anywhere in the solution space.
Staffing and Allocation of Workers in an Administrative Office
Authors: Lewis Gordon H. , Srinivasan Ashok , Subrahmanian Eswaran 
Published: November 2008

The world of work is increasingly characterized by processing of records, forms, or cases. This processing is usually organized as a set of interdependent tasks within an administrative office. A major issue facing such administrative offices is how they should be organized to maximize productivity when short-term reassignment of workers is difficult, costly, or severely restricted. The present work grew out of a study conducted at a County Assistance Office in Western Pennsylvania and addresses three important productivity questions in organizational productivity: (1) How should a given number of workers be allocated across related tasks, (2) will the arrangement that seems best for productivity increase or decrease equity within the office, and (3) what is the optimal size of an office? To answer question 1, we model the administrative office as a closed queueing network. Thus modeled, the problem has an optimal allocation of workers, and we propose an efficient method for finding it. In response to question 2, we show (1) that for offices of a fixed size, the allocation of workers that maximizes throughput also maximizes equity, and (2) that across offices of different sizes, throughput per worker is not monotonicly related to equity. Changes in the size of the office that improve productivity may have lower equity; conversely, changes in the size of the office that improve equity may have lower productivity. Finally, in response to question 3, we show that the previous results can be used to determine the optimal office size in terms of throughput. This result has relevance for situations in which there are multiple offices of the same type. To the extent that worker satisfaction is related to equity, these results imply that managers may have to choose between worker satisfaction and output in setting the size of the office, but for offices of a fixed size, the allocation that maximizes output will also maximize worker satisfaction.
Optimal Batch Provisioning to Customers Subject to a Delay-Limit
Authors: Berg Menachem , van der Duyn Schouten Frank , Jansen Jorg 
Published: November 2008

This work deals with batch provisioning and order aggregation. Two examples are: (i) a manufacturer that has to deliver items to customers in a remote destination, and (ii) a company that provides repair and replacement service to its clients. In both cases the remoteness of customers suggests order aggregation—a batch delivery in the first example, and a batch-visits journey in the other; the alternative is to provide individual services to customers. A key element is a contractual obligation of the company to provide service within an agreed delay-limit, and in that view the main decision problem is to determine the moments at which a batch service should be executed. That decision would depend on: (random) demand-arrival patterns, the costs associated with the two service modes (batch and individual), as well as the model used to describe operating conditions. This paper proposes and investigates several service-provision policies, with a simple enough structure to make them appealing for real-life implementation. Optimal service-provision procedures are obtained for these policies, minimizing the long-run expected cost per unit of time. The optimal costs of the proposed policies are compared and their relative performance is evaluated with respect to the global minimal cost (of the optimal policy) on one hand, and basic policies that employ either only batch or only individual services on the other hand. Finally, a range of model generalizations of interest is presented and the relationship of the problem here to broader issues is discussed.
An Exact Algorithm for the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem Based on a New Mathematical Formulation
Authors: Mingozzi Aristide , Maniezzo Vittorio , Ricciardelli Salvatore , Bianco Lucio 
Published: November 2008

In this paper we consider the Project Scheduling Problem with resource constraints, where the objective is to minimize the project makespan. We present a new 0-1 linear programming formulation of the problem that requires an exponential number of variables, corresponding to all feasible subsets of activities that can be simultaneously executed without violating resource or precedence constraints. Different relaxations of the above formulation are used to derive new lower bounds, which dominate the value of the longest path on the precedence graph and are tighter than the bound proposed by Stinson et al. (1978). A tree search algorithm, based on the above formulation, that uses new lower bounds and dominance criteria is also presented. Computational results indicate that the exact algorithm can solve hard instances that cannot be solved by the best algorithms reported in the literature.
JIT Manufacturing: A Survey of Implementations in Small and Large U.S. Manufacturers
Authors: White Richard E. , Pearson John N. , Wilson Jeffrey R. 
Published: November 2008

Since the early 1980s, the diffusion of Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing from Japanese manufacturers to U.S. manufacturers has progressed at an accelerated rate. At this stage of the diffusion process, JIT implementations are more common and more advanced in large U.S. manufacturers than in small; consequently, U.S. businessmen’s understanding of issues associated with JIT implementations in large manufacturers is more developed than that of small manufacturers. When small manufacturers represent about 96 percent of all U.S. manufacturers, investigation of JIT implementations in small, as well as large, manufacturers is warranted. This survey study investigates JIT implementation differences between small and large U.S. manufacturers. Ten management practices that constitute the JIT concept are used to examine implementation of JIT manufacturing systems. Odds ratio were constructed to determine if an association exists between implemented versus not implemented and manufacturer size for each JIT practice. Ten changes in performance attributed to JIT implementation are also assessed and examined in the study. Logistic regression models are used to examine the relationships between implementation status of each of the JIT practices and of each of the changes in performance in small and large manufacturers. The results of the study show that the frequencies of the 10 JIT management practices implemented differ between the two groups of manufacturer size, and an association exists between the JIT practices implemented and manufacturer size. Moreover, the changes in performance attributed to JIT implementation vary, depending on implementation status of specific JIT management practices and manufacturer size.
Bundling Information Goods: Pricing, Profits, and Efficiency
Authors: Bakos Yannis , Brynjolfsson Erik 
Published: November 2008

We study the strategy of bundling a large number of information goods, such as those increasingly available on the Internet, and selling them for a fixed price. We analyze the optimal bundling strategies for a multiproduct monopolist, and we find that bundling very large numbers of unrelated information goods can be surprisingly profitable. The reason is that the law of large numbers makes it much easier to predict consumers' valuations for a bundle of goods than their valuations for the individual goods when sold separately. As a result, this “predictive value of bundling” makes it possible to achieve greater sales, greater economic efficiency, and greater profits per good from a bundle of information goods than can be attained when the same goods are sold separately. Our main results do not extend to most physical goods, as the marginal costs of production for goods not used by the buyer typically negate any benefits from the predictive value of large-scale bundling.While determining optimal bundling strategies for more than two goods is a notoriously difficult problem, we use statistical techniques to provide strong asymptotic results and bounds on profits for bundles of any arbitrary size. We show how our model can be used to analyze the bundling of complements and substitutes, bundling in the presence of budget constraints, and bundling of goods with various types of correlations and how each of these conditions can lead to limits on optimal bundle size. In particular we find that when different market segments of consumers differ systematically in their valuations for goods, simple bundling will no longer be optimal. However, by offering a menu of different bundles aimed at each market segment, bundling makes traditional price discrimination strategies more powerful by reducing the role of unpredictable idiosyncratic components of valuations. The predictions of our analysis appear to be consistent with empirical observations of the markets for Internet and online content, cable television programming, and copyrighted music.
Tools for Inventing Organizations: Toward a Handbook of Organizational Processes
Authors: Malone Thomas W. , Crowston Kevin , Lee Jintae , Pentland Brian , Dellarocas Chrysanthos , Wyner George , Quimby John , Osborn Charles S. , Bernstein Abraham , Herman George , Klein Mark , O'Donnell Elissa 
Published: November 2008

This paper describes a novel theoretical and empirical approach to tasks such as business process redesign and knowledge management. The project involves collecting examples of how different organizations perform similar processes, and organizing these examples in an on-line “process handbook.” The handbook is intended to help people: (1) redesign existing organizational processes, (2) invent new organizational processes (especially ones that take advantage of information technology), and (3) share ideas about organizational practices. A key element of the work is an approach to analyzing processes at various levels of abstraction, thus capturing both the details of specific processes as well as the “deep structure” of their similarities. This approach uses ideas from computer science about inheritance and from coordination theory about managing dependencies. A primary advantage of the approach is that it allows people to explicitly represent the similarities (and differences) among related processes and to easily find or generate sensible alternatives for how a given process could be performed. In addition to describing this new approach, the work reported here demonstrates the basic technical feasibility of these ideas and gives one example of their use in a field study.
Capacity Allocation Using Past Sales: When to Turn-and-Earn
Authors: Cachon Gérard P. , Lariviere Martin A. 
Published: November 2008

Consider a supplier selling to multiple retailers. Demand varies across periods, but the supplier's capacity and wholesale price are fixed. If demand is high, the retailers' needs exceed capacity, and the supplier must implement an allocation mechanism to dole out production. We examine how the choice of mechanism impacts retailer actions and supply chain performance. In particular, we analyze turn-and-earn allocation, a method commonly used in the automobile industry. This scheme bases current allocations on past sales and thus enables retailers to influence their future allocations; they compete for scarce capacity even if they do not compete for customers. We show that turn-and-earn induces the retailers to increase their sales when demand is low and the supplier's capacity is otherwise underutilized. Supplier profits thus increase. The impact on the supply chain depends on how restrictive capacity is. With mildly tight capacity, the retailers' higher sales rate does not significantly lower their profits but does reduce the cost of idle capacity. Supply chain performance improves. With extremely tight capacity, the retailers' intense competition dissipates more profits than the supplier gains, and supply chain performance suffers. Consequently, turn-and-earn does not generally coordinate the system. It is best characterized as a means for the supplier to increase her profits at the expense of the retailers and potentially even the supply chain. Furthermore, these results hold even if the retailers can hold inventory in anticipation of scarce capacity.
Computer Simulation of Peak Hour Operations in a Bus Terminal
Authors: Jennings Norman H. , Dickins Justin H. 
Published: November 2008

Every working day between 5 and 6 P.M., 20,000 New Jersey bound commuters enter the Port of New York Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. Over 400 buses arrive in the terminal, load these commuters and depart during this one peak hour. This terminal is located in the heart of the city where land availability is critical. Thus, “limited access” multiple berth platforms are utilized. The commuter operation in the terminal is characterized by the following conditions: 1. Two random inputs cause two converging inter-related waiting lines to be formed—one of buses and one of passengers. Bus waiting lines are critical because of limited bus storage areas. 2. “Limited access” berthing which prevents buses from passing in platform lanes necessitates a commuter traffic simulation method to govern the problem's internal logic. 3. Parameters for bus arrival distribution functions can be controlled to some degree by scheduling policy. The method provides for evaluation of a variety of such policies. 4. Three parties with three independent interests—The Port Authority, the bus owners and operators, and the commuters—must be simultaneously satisfied. Because of these conditions; optimum design constitutes a challenging research problem. A Port Authority Operations Research team studied the problem using traffic simulation and Monte Carlo methods on an IBM 650 Computer.
Information Flow and Worker Productivity
Authors: Goldman Alan S. 
Published: November 2008

In this paper we are concerned with the design of an organization in the internal decision-making area. Our problem is to develop an effective system of communication and control. Effectiveness (the “pay-off”) will be measured in terms of the effect of the system and organization on the productivity of labor. We shall be concerned with what information should be where and at what time for proper internal decision making. In accordance with general principles of communication which recent research has spelled out, we will demonstrate a system which appears to concentrate on providing a high probability of (1) aiding members of the group in making right decisions; (2) providing a basis for rational behavior; (3) leaving room for individual group members to make their own decisions.
A Note on Professor Manne's “Dominance” Theorem
Authors: Levitan R. E. 
Published: November 2008

Professor Manne's paper recently appearing in this Journal (Manne, A. S. 1958. Programming of economic lot sizes. Management Sci. 4 (2, January).) is an ingenious application of linear programming technique to what may have hitherto been regarded as an intractable non linear situation. The excellences of the paper are, however, marred by a gap in the proof of the “Dominance” theorem. It is the aim of this communication to point out that, although the constructive proof offered by Manne is vulnerable to counter-example, an alternative, fairly simple, proof can be given. The theorem being true, the important results of the paper are not weakend.
Increasing the Capacity of a Network: The Parametric Budget Problem
Authors: Fulkerson D. R. 
Published: November 2008

The problem considered in this paper is that of allocating a budget of resources among the links of a network for the purpose of increasing its flow capacity relative to given sources and sinks. On the assumption that the cost of increasing each link capacity is linear, a labeling algorithm is described that permits rapid calculation of optimal allocations for all budgets.
Some Problems of Digital Systems Simulation
Authors: Conway R. W. , Johnson B. M. , Maxwell W. L. 
Published: November 2008

Our objective is to discuss the technique of digital system simulation. This procedure has already achieved a considerable stature in industrial and research organizations and promises to attain even greater importance in the future. Yet, with few exceptions (5)1, the published literature in the area consists of introductory expositions (10) or of descriptions of the solution of a particular problem (7) where the technique itself is correctly relegated to secondary position. The only publication devoted entirely to the topic (12) is a compendium of papers of the latter type with little attempt to summarize or generalize. Simulations are, of course, as varied as the systems which they represent but they do have certain common characteristics and problems. An identification of these problems would at least allow the investigator to anticipate them and plan accordingly. This paper consists of three sections. The first is an attempt to describe characteristics common to many system simulations; the second is a discussion of some problems involved in the construction of a digital simulator; and the third concerns problems that arise in the use of such a simulator.
On the Shortest Route Through a Network
Authors: Dantzig George B. 
Published: November 2008

The chief feature of the method is that it fans out from the origin working out the shortest path to one new node from the origin and never having to backtrack. No more than n(n − 1)/2 comparisons are needed to find the shortest route from a given origin to all other nodes and possibly less between two fixed nodes. Except for details and bias of various authors towards a particular brand of proof, this problem has been solved the same way by many authors. This paper refines these proposals to give what is believed to be the shortest procedure for finding the shortest route when it is little effort to arrange distances in increasing order by nodes or to skip consideration of arcs into nodes whose shortest route to the origin has been determined earlier in the computation. In practice the number of comparisons is much less than indicated bounds because all arcs leading to nodes previously evaluated are deleted from further consideration. A further efficiency can be achieved in the event of ties by including least distances from origin to many nodes simultaneously during the fanning out process. However, these are shown as separate steps to illustrate the underlying principle.