A Sustainability Disclosure Index Using Corporate Sustainability Reports

Background: There are already many indices such as Bloomberg’s environmental-and-social governance (ESG) ratings and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DSJI), which use proprietary methods to rate companies using private and publicly available information processed with proprietary methods. This paper seeks to develop a formative index for researchers and practitioners using only publicly available sustainability reports with a transparent procedure. Methods: Thirty-two indicators, obtained in an earlier study from the literature, GRI, and other sources, were adopted. The sustainability report of each of 331 companies was then scored on a discrete 0–3 scale for each indicator as regards disclosure. The index for the company then is simply a summation of the indicator scores. Tests were conducted to see if the index can be (a) used for companies with different revenues and from different sectors and (b) tested for explaining DJSI or ESG ratings. Results: The index can be used for companies with a wide range of revenues and from different sectors. Despite its simplicity, the disclosure index significantly explains the DJSI and ESG. Conclusions: A disclosure index for companies has been developed here using only their publicly available sustainability reports, unlike existing indices like the DJSI that use public and private information and proprietary methods. Researchers and financial institutions can use this index or develop their own indices by refining the methodology presented here

An EOQ model for MRO customers under stochastic price to quantify bullwhip effect for the manufacturer

Motivated by a particular multinational cutting-tools manufacturer, we extend the traditional economic order quantity (EOQ) model for maintenance-repair-and-overhaul (MRO) customers under stochastic purchase price and use it to show how price variance leads to bullwhip effect for the MRO manufacturer despite constant consumption by the customer. Our extension of the EOQ model is based on two assumptions that are reasonable for MRO customers: (a) customer consumption rate of the product is constant; and (b) the customer places each order when the inventory level drops to a pre-specified level (say, zero). We determine the customer's optimal ordering quantity in closed form expressions, which enables us to examine the impact of sales price variance on the variance in the orders the customer places on the manufacturer, thus creating a pricing-induced bullwhip effect. We then extend our analysis to multiple products and multiple customer segments and discuss ways for the manufacturer to mitigate the variance in the customer's orders

Natural disasters, the economy and population vulnerability as a vicious cycle with exogenous hazards

One way to understand the growing impact of disasters is as the output of a positive feedback, or reinforcing, loop. This paper hypothesizes that population vulnerability of a country transforms exogenous hazards to disaster impact for that country, which negatively impacts its economy as measured by per capita income and its growth. This impact in turn increases the vulnerability of the country’s population thus creating a reinforcing loop. Therefore, like the output of any positive feedback loop, disaster impact would grow exponentially. Having analysed data over 50 years (1963-2012) and 179 countries, we find the results to be consistent with this conceptual model. We also find that disaster impact worldwide has indeed grown exponentially over this period even after normalizing for the growing global population and global income. These findings indicate the existence of a feedback loop that requires strategic rethinking about disaster management and development jointly to break this vicious cycle

Guiding the next generation of doctoral students in operations management

This paper presents ways for senior researchers to help future doctoral students in Operations Management (OM) to overcome multiple challenges in: (a) conducting relevant research while demonstrating greater rigor, and (b) exploring multi-disciplinary research projects while mastering a single research method. Recognizing that knowledge is generally created in four broad stages ((I) awareness, (II) framing, (III) modeling and (IV) validation), we first argue that different research approaches (analytical, behavioral, case study, or empirical) serve different roles in each of these stages: (1) case study approach for awareness, (2) empirical methods for framing, (3) analytical modeling for modeling and analysis, and (4) behavioral for validation in the real world. Then we discuss ways to enable doctoral students to overcome the aforementioned challenges

The OR/MS ecosystem: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

We believe that research, teaching, and practice are becoming increasingly disengaged from one another in the OR/MS ecosystem. This ecosystem comprises researchers, educators, and practitioners in its core along with end users, universities, and funding agencies. Continuing disengagement will result in OR/MS occupying only niche areas and disappearing as a distinct field even though its tools would live on. To understand the reasons for this disengagement better and to engender discussion among academics and practitioners on how to counter it, we present the ecosystem's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Incorporated in this paper are insights from a cluster of sessions at the 2006 INFORMS meeting in Pittsburgh (“Where Do We Want to Go in OR/MS?”) and from the literature

Supply Chains Built for Speed and Customization

As emerging technologies like 3-D printing begin to bring personalized manufacturing to scale, a new supply chain model is following suit

An Analysis of Partially-Guaranteed-Price Contracts between Farmers and Agri-Food Companies

Global agri-food companies such as Barilla and SABMiller are purchasing agricultural products directly from farmers using different types of contracts to ensure stable supply. We examine one such contract with partially-guaranteed prices (PGP). Under a PGP contract, around sowing time, the buying firm agrees to purchase the crop when harvested by the farmer, offering a guaranteed unit price for any fraction of the produce and offering the commodity market price prevailing at the time of delivery for the remainder. The farmer then chooses the fraction. By analyzing a Stackelberg game, we show (1) how the PGP contract creates mutual benefits when the firm’s purchase quantity is taken as being exogenous. We also analyze how the PGP contract is robust in creating value for both the firm and the farmer (2) when the firm’s purchase quantity is endogenously determined; (3) when the firm provides advisory services to the farmer; and (4) when the firm offers a price premium as an incentive for farmers to exert efforts to comply with ‘sustainable’ agricultural practices

POMS initiatives for promoting practice-driven research and research-influenced practice

The Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) and Production and Operations Management (POM) have developed new initiatives with these objectives: (1) to disseminate managerial insights of articles published in POM to practitioners, MBA students, and participants in executive development programs; (2) to solicit descriptions of current and emerging problems from practitioners and share them with academics; and (3) to recognize academic research based on direct work with practitioners

Primary prevention of sudden cardiac death in adults with transposition of the great arteries: A review of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placement

Transposition of the great arteries encompasses a set of structural congenital cardiac lesions that has in common ventriculoarterial discordance. Primarily because of advances in medical and surgical care, an increasing number of children born with this anomaly are surviving into adulthood. Depending upon the subtype of lesion or the particular corrective surgery that the patient might have undergone, this group of adult congenital heart disease patients constitutes a relatively new population with unique medical sequelae. Among the more common and difficult to manage are cardiac arrhythmias and other sequelae that can lead to sudden cardiac death. To date, the question of whether implantable cardioverter-defibrillators should be placed in this cohort as a preventive measure to abort sudden death has largely gone unanswered. Therefore, we review the available literature surrounding this issue