The Generalized Nucleolus as a Solution of a Cost Allocation Problem

It has recently become clear that ideas and methods from the theory of cooperative games can be used quite successfully to solve cost allocation problems. Among the extensive literature (see Loughlin, 1977) dealing with this subject we shall concentrate on an article based on work carried out at IIASA (Young et al., 1980). The authors of this article used game theory principles of rationality to solve the problem of sharing the cost of a joint municipal water supply system among the group of Swedish municipalities participating in the project. In Section 1 we introduce the notion of the generalized nucleolus. The nucleolus and all its known mcdifications are special cases of our definition. Section 2 describes a method for calculating the nucleolus that can be readily implemented on a computer, and Section 3 puts forward an analytical criterion for testing the results. In Section 4 we describe some applications of the method to linear-fractional excess functions and convex games, and a number of formulas for three-person games are also given. Section 5 contains numerical results for seven modifications of the nucleolus for the six-person game discussed in Young et al. (1980)

NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT: BEST PRACTICE OF THE ITALIAN POSTAL SECTOR

The increasing importance of service sector has caused greater interest of both scientific community and practitioners in examining new service development (NSD) and understanding the necessary conditions of successful service innovation. Significant changes happened in the Postal sector during the last decades forces postal organizations to think in terms of service innovation, quality of service parameters and new service development. Despite of this, the empirical research that has been undertaken concerning the process of developing new services in the Postal sector is rather limited. This paper examines the effective development of new services and some essential factors that should be taken into account in this process by postal enterprises. The present research was based on the case study approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews with managers of Poste Italiane were conducted. Based on the collected data analysis, our hypothesis about 4 main groups of NSD drivers was confirmed

Discrimination Issues in the Process of Personnel Selection

AbstractThe paper discusses the concept of employment discrimination and its types, depending on the causes. The analysis of problems of social (gender and age) and psychological (racial and religious affiliation, disability) discrimination is given. The consequences of discrimination from the perspective of the employee and the employer are considered. The unfavorable situation in Russia in terms of high levels of discrimination is shown. The main objective trend, which will lead inevitably to the reduction of discrimination in the labor market, is revealed

Toxic organizational environment on the Italian and Russian enterprises: an inter-country comparison

The concept of the organizational toxicity, which is considered by authors to be the phenomena of social pollution, is based on the study and synthesis of research results on the destructive aspects of the culture and working environment inside the organization. Toxic elements of the organizational environment have a negative impact on employees and cause a deterioration in their health and well-being that ultimately leads to a decrease in the efficiency of the use of human resources, in particular, and financial losses as a whole. Thus, there is underestimated the social aspect of a negative impact of the organization's economic activities on psychosocial health at work. The given research deals with the issue of the organizational toxicity, ex- pressed in reducing the level of well-being and deterioration of physical and psychosocial health of workers caused by the economic activities of the company. The theoretical study has allowed us to formulate hypoth- eses about the toxic management practices and their negative impact on workers’ psychosocial health. An empirical study conducted by the authors in comparison between Russian and Italian companies has permit- ted to verify the given hypotheses: to examine in detail the nature of the organizational toxicity and to identify toxic elements of the socio-labour relations in the company. An important feature of the current research is studying the toxic elements of working environment from the employers and employees points of view. The comparative studies possess an increasingly important cognitive function in the development of theories of labour and the science of management, as well as their practical applications. Inter-country comparisons allow us to approach the problem from a more common position, to the disclosure mechanisms of action, as well as forms of manifestation of separate regularities in various socio-economic systems