Supply chain micro-communities in urban areas

An increase in urban freight transport is inevitable as growing urban populations require more goods, more conveniently. A deeper understanding of the geography and trends of urban freight transport must recognise that it is the aggregate result of a complex web of supply chain interactions. To understand the trends, the behaviour of the underlying supply chains must be understood. Using Global Positioning System (GPS) traces of commercial vehicles and network theory concepts, this paper examines the characteristics of supply chain micro-communities in three urban areas in South Africa. The similarity in the structure of these micro-communities across the three, very diverse, areas suggests that the dynamics that drive supply chain interaction are not dependent on local geography. Four prominent archetypes were identified that account for more than half of the micro-communities in each area. Directionality, geographic dispersion and the balance of importance in the micro-communities are studied in the context of these archetypes. This paper presents a first puzzle piece in deducing urban freight transport patterns from supply chain interaction. Furthermore the results are an empirical benchmark that can validate theoretic models of urban supply chain interaction.     

Collaborative delay management towards demand-capacity balancing within User Driven Prioritisation Process

The concept of User Driven Prioritisation Process (UDPP) was introduced to give Airspace Users (AUs) more flexibility under demand-capacity imbalance. This paper presents two UDPP-DCB models, built on the UDPP principle, using the Selective Flight Protection (SFP) approach to minimize the total delay cost. AUs are enabled to adapt their operations in a more cost-efficient way in the presence of capacity constraints in airspace, optimizing their flights to keep the priorities track. Then, ATFM integrates the AUs’ decision to reassign the time slots and the preferred rerouting trajectories. Results suggest that the delay cost for AUs can be largely reduced through applying the UDPP-DCB models proposed in this paper, while allowing rerouting proves effective in reducing the system delay cost.     

The role of affinity and animosity on solidarity with Ukraine and hospitality outcomes

The tourism and hospitality industry has had to make some hard decisions during the year 2022. Many major hotel chains have had to decide whether to stay or pull out of Russia, and which policies to implement toward individual Russian guests at their hotels outside of Russia. This study investigates solidarity as an important factor to understanding the conflict and its ramifications for the hospitality industry. The authors explore whether solidarity with Ukraine is driven by affinity toward Ukraine, or by animosity toward Russia. Further, the study demonstrates that place solidarity impacts two specific outcomes in the hospitality industry. The paper concludes by outlining implications for scholars and practitioners.     

Container drayage problem with flexible orders and its near real-time solution strategies

This article studies a container drayage problem with flexible orders defined by using requiring and releasing attributes as a unified formulation of various order types. A determined-activities-on-vertex (DAOV) graph introduces a temporary vertex set to formulate different truck statuses. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model based on the DAOV graph. Four strategies including a window partition based (WPB) strategy are presented and evaluated extensively to solve the problem. Results indicate that the WPB method could solve the problem effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, this method is robust considering the operating time biases compared to other algorithms.     

Solvability of perturbation solutions in DSGE models

We prove that the undetermined Taylor series coefficients of local approximations to the policy function of arbitrary order in a wide class of discrete time dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are solvable by standard DSGE perturbation methods under regularity and saddle point stability assumptions on first order approximations. Extending the approach to nonstationary models, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for solvability, as well as an example in the neoclassical growth model where solvability fails. Finally, we eliminate the assumption of solvability needed for the local existence theorem of perturbation solutions, complete the proof that the policy function is invariant to first order changes in risk, and attribute the loss of numerical accuracy in progressively higher order terms to the compounding of errors from the first order transition matrix.     

The impact of the French Tobin tax

We analyze the impact of the introduction of the French Tobin tax on the turnover and measures of the liquidity and volatility of the affected stocks with nonparametric tests on individual stocks, difference-in-difference tests and other robustness checks controlling for simultaneous month-of-the-year and size effects. Our findings indicate that the tax produces a significant reduction in turnover and volatility (measured in terms of stock price volatility and the high–low price range) and inconclusive effects on liquidity when the latter is evaluated under the two dimensions of the estimated bid–ask spread and the Amihud (2002) price impact ratio.     

Understanding homophily of service failure within the hotel guest cycle: Applying NLP-aspect-based sentiment analysis to the hospitality industry

Online complaints have become increasingly influential on the purchasing behavior of customers in recent years. In an effort analyze large quantities of textual complaints and detail the various aspects of them, Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis was looked to as an ideal framework to take on the task. This study set out to synthesize specific service failure items and categorize them into the groupings related to the hotel guest cycle and the corresponding operations, then compare the patterns of expression used by Asian and Non-Asian guests as the related their hotel experiences. A total of 390,236 online complaint terms posted about 353 hotels in the UK by hotel guests from 63 nations were manually derived from TripAdvisor for analysis. With consideration given to the homophily theory, we posited that Asian and non-Asian guests would exhibit similarities and differences with respect to the service failures they encountered when presented with various items of service. The results confirmed this as Asian guests were shown to encounter more service failures with respect to the engineering segment of operations (e.g. hotel room equipment issues), while non-Asian guests encountered more service failures on the housekeeping end of operations (e.g. toilets, public areas, cleanliness, and bedding). By organizing the failures according the four stages of the guest cycle, it was observed that approximately 80% of the service failures occurred during the occupancy period. This study contributes to the existing literature on hotel guest satisfaction both with respect to the methodology it uses and the new findings it presents on differences in perceptions of service failures members among different cultures.     

Governing Suburbia through regionalized land-use planning? Experiences from the Greater Frankfurt region

This paper explores the case of peripheral settlement growth in the Greater Frankfurt (Main) region within current debates on global suburbanization. Within Germany’s sophisticated spatial planning regime, Greater Frankfurt’s system of regionalized land-use planning marks an ambitious initiative to contain urban sprawl. Nonetheless, expansive peripheral settlement growth, and socio-spatial polarization remain distinct characteristics of the booming region. Analyzing state regulation vis-à-vis dynamics of capitalist urbanization and private authoritarianism, we decipher the complex governance arrangements producing this, at first sight, contradictory simultaneity. We uncover the rationales of local growth politics of autonomous municipalities and the region’s multiplied institutional fragmentation that undermine planning ambitions to contain suburban growth. We conclude by critically assessing the political economies of suburbanization in Greater Frankfurt and point to prospects for regional reform.