Supply chain collaboration

In the past, research in operations management focused on single-firm analysis. Its goal was to provide managers in practice with suitable tools to improve the performance of their firm by calculating optimal inventory quantities, among others. Nowadays, business decisions are dominated by the globalization of markets and increased competition among firms. Further, more and more products reach the customer through supply chains that are composed of independent firms. Following these trends, research in operations management has shifted its focus from single-firm analysis to multi-firm analysis, in particular to improving the efficiency and performance of supply chains under decentralized control. The main characteristics of such chains are that the firms in the chain are independent actors who try to optimize their individual objectives, and that the decisions taken by a firm do also affect the performance of the other parties in the supply chain. These interactions among firms’ decisions ask for alignment and coordination of actions. Therefore, game theory, the study of situations of cooperation or conflict among heterogenous actors, is very well suited to deal with these interactions. This has been recognized by researchers in the field, since there are an ever increasing number of papers that applies tools, methods and models from game theory to supply chain problems

Joint ordering in multiple news-vendor problems : a game-theoretical approach

We study a situation with n retailers, each of them facing a news-vendor problem, i.e., selling to customers over a finite period of time (product with a short life cycle, such as fashion). Groups of retailers might improve their expected joint profit by cooperating. We analyze these situations by defining a cooperative game, called a general news-vendor game, for such a situation with n retailers. We concentrate on whether it makes sense to cooperate by studying properties of general news-vendor games. Besides some results on convexity we prove that general newsvendor games have non-empty cores, which answers an open question of Hartman et al. (2000)

Analysis of resource pooling games via a new extension of the Erlang loss function

We study a situation where several independent service providers collaborate by pooling their resources into a joint service system. These service providers may represent such diverse organizations as hospitals that pool intensive care beds and ambulances, airline companies that share spare parts, or car rental agencies that pool rental cars. We model the service systems as Erlang loss systems that face a fixed cost rate per server and penalty costs for lost customers. We examine the allocation of costs of the pooled system amongst the participants by formulating a cooperative cost game in which each coalition optimizes the number of servers. We identify a cost allocation that is in the core of this game, giving no subset of players an incentive to split off and form a separate pooling group. Moreover, we axiomatically characterize this allocation rule and show that it can be reached through a population monotonic allocation scheme. To obtain these results, we introduce a new extension of the classic Erlang loss function to non-integral numbers of servers and establish several of its structural properties

Practicing Safe Sects

In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?; Readership: All interested in the promotion of peaceful and healthy societies, and anyone concerned with the role of religion in fostering superstition and segregation

Masculine Honour Leads to Greater Reputational Concerns about Gender Conformity

To date, masculine honour beliefs have been studied in the context of insults, threats and moral transgressions, and almost exclusively linked to aggressive emotions (e.g., anger) and behaviour (e.g., fights, confrontations). Here, it is proposed that masculine honour beliefs can also be associated with subtle, withdrawal-related behaviours, such as reluctance to engaging in feminine tasks and befriend feminine men. Furthermore, based on the theory suggesting that manifest indicators of a culture of masculine honour are expressions of individuals' overactive 'reputation maintenance psychology', I tested whether these subtle behaviours are underpinned by reputation maintenance concerns. Using self-report measures and different cultural samples (UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia), the studies reported here as a whole provided evidence for the proposed associations and the reputation maintenance account. Studies 1a-b and 2a-b established an association between masculine honour ideals and men's self-presentations using masculine traits, as well as disfavourable judgments of effeminate men. Studies 3a-b and 4 focused on examining a voluntary relationship decision (choosing to associate oneself with a target as friends) to make reputational issues more salient and demonstrated that men who endorse higher levels of masculine honour beliefs were more reluctant to being friends with effeminate men. Study 4 further showed that this was due to high honour-endorsing men's concerns that being associated with an effeminate man who is perceived as lacking coalitional value would damage their own reputation among male friends. Focusing on the issue of men's disinterest in domestic roles such as child care, Studies 5a-b and 6 demonstrated a relationship between masculine honour beliefs and men's negative feelings (shame, frustration) about being a primary caregiver to their own children and revealed that this is due to high honour-endorsing men's concerns of losing reputation among their male friends, but not due to their wives' reduced appreciation of them. Taken together, these findings extend our understanding of individuals socialized with masculine honour norms, and also offer more nuanced explanations of men's anti-effeminacy bias and disinterest in communal roles

Practicing Safe Sects

In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?; Readership: All interested in the promotion of peaceful and healthy societies, and anyone concerned with the role of religion in fostering superstition and segregation

Master of Science

thesisDecentralized leadership has become a key facet in the development of a learning culture within organizations and industries that sustain successful operations amid high levels of risk. Lessons from the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate the demand for fluidity to adapt and adjust to complex environments. This in turn has required a deviation from the military's rigid centralized leadership structure, established over the last couple of centuries, allowing personnel on the ground and within enemy lines the authority to make mission-imperative decisions. The mining industry as a whole is faced with similar demands, requiring companies to become fluid and establish a learning culture, for success in an era defined by increased production, increased environmental responsibility, and lower levels of acceptable risk. This thesis investigates the intervention effectiveness of a variant of distributive leadership in an underground mining section. Using leadership traits established in a competency model for small unit leaders in the military, section miners underwent leadership training and coaching and were then charged with taking over decision making processes traditionally performed by the section foreman and fire boss. A conclusion of the intervention was difficult to render based on the hypothesis, but valuable insights were attained on the application of leadership in underground section mining, and for research design improvements in a replication of this study or similar studies

Exploring Process Dissociation as a Tool for Investigating Discrimination in Hiring Situations

Process dissociation is introduced as a way to overcome methodological limitations currently hindering sexism research. Researchers have identified two main types of sexism in hiring contexts. Meta-analyses confirm that men are traditionally advantaged over women (Tosi & Einbender, 1985), and that both genders encounter discrimination when applying to a job typically associated with the other gender (Davison & Burke, 2000). One problem is that these two biases are often confounded. As a result, researchers have hitherto been limited to showing that the two biases exist, but are largely unable to quantify them. A possible solution might be process dissociation. It provides a way of measuring processes without the need to isolate them (Jacoby, 1991). The purpose of the dissertation was to explore process dissociation within the context of hiring decisions. The current dissertation consisted of three parts. A pretest developed materials for use in the main studies. Study 1 then explored how process dissociation estimates compare to existing tools commonly used to study sexism. The pro-male bias was found to relate to old-fashioned sexism. The gender-job fit bias related to benevolent sexism. Measures of bias appeared uncontaminated by internal and external motivation to respond without sexism. Biases did not relate as expected to other measures of sexism, including hostile, modern, and neo-sexism, and two Implicit Association Tests. Finding differential relationships with some expected correlates supports the validity of process dissociation parameters and helps elucidate how the parameters fit within existing sexism constructs. Study 2 further investigated validity through independent manipulation. Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of four word-sorting tasks containing primes intended to selectively influence one of the two types of bias. These manipulations had the desired effect for only some participants. Though both biases were selectively affected, a full double dissociation was not achieved. Consequently, Study 2 results provide only partial support for the proposed causal mechanisms and independence of process dissociation parameters. Overall, results illustrate that process dissociation may be a helpful tool for use in research on sexism in hiring decisions. Limitations of process dissociation and potential next steps are discussed