Defining roles for logistics during routine and radical technological innovation

Technological innovation has become increasingly important to new product development in American industry because of the potential competitive advantage it offers. In this study extensive observation and interviewing over more than two years in one prominent Frtune 500 industrial manufacturer provides strong evidence that logistics can and does play important—and sometimes surprising—roles in the development and launch of new technological products. This article describes logistics activities during the development and launch of technological innovations, identifies key roles played by logistics, relates lessons learned and proposes directions for future research.     

Optimal requirement allocation among quantity-discount quoting suppliers

We consider a problem motivated by a central purchasing organization for a major office products distributor. This purchasing organization must source a quantity of a particular resale item from a set of capacitated suppliers. In our case each supplier offers an incremental quantity discount purchase price structure. The purchaser’s objective is to obtain a quantity of a required item at minimum cost. The resulting problem is one of allocating order quantities among an approved supply base and involves minimizing the sum of separable piecewise linear concave cost functions. We develop a branch and bound algorithm that arrives at an optimal solution by generating linear knapsack subproblems with feasible solutions to the original problem. This research was partially supported by a 2007 Summer Research Grant awarded to Asoo J. Vakharia.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MULTIOBJECTIVE DECISION-MAKING FOR THE SCOTTISH INSHORE FISHERY

The Scottish inshore fishery is used to illustrate the application of a multiobjective analytical model to decision-making for fisheries management. Although the quantitative analysis is necessarily fishery-specific, much of the discussion is of more general applicability. A hybrid modelling approach is used to analyse fisheries management objectives for this fishery: regression-based models of the fishing process are used to provide input into linear and goal programming models, the linear programme also providing input into the goal programme. Optimisation of the goal programming model results in an ‘optimal’ pattern of resource allocation for the Scottish inshore fishery.     

Stop holding yourself back

After working with hundreds of leaders in a wide variety of organizations and in countries all over the globe, the authors found one very clear pattern: When it comes to meeting their leadership potential, many people unintentionally get in their own way. Five barriers in particular tend to keep promising managers from becoming exceptional leaders: People overemphasize personal goals, protect their public image, turn their competitors into two-dimensional enemies, go it alone instead of soliciting support and advice, and wait for permission to lead. Troy, a customer service manager, endangered his job and his company's reputation by focusing on protecting his position, not helping his team; when a trusted friend advised him to change his behavior, the results were striking. Anita's insistence on sticking to the tough personal she'd created for herself caused her to ignore the more intuitive part of the leadership equation, with disastrous results--until she let go of the need to appear invulnerable and reached out to another manager. Jon, a personal trainer who had virtually no experience with either youth development programs or urban life, opened a highly successful gym for inner-city kids at risk; he refused to be daunted by his lack of expertise and decided to simply "go for it." As these and other examples from the authors' research demonstrate, being a leader means making an active decision to lead. Only then will the workforce--and society--benefit from the enormous amount of talent currently sitting on the bench.     

Unraveling the Academic Productivity of Economists: The Opportunity Costs of Teaching and Service

This study investigates the relationships among research productivity, teaching, and service on the basis of individual-specific information involving approximately 715 academic economists. Responding to an online survey, these economists provided information regarding their teaching and service commitments as well as personal and institutional information. The publication record of each respondent was then obtained from EconLit. Together, these data constitute a rich field for the systematic study of research productivity. Results of a Tobit analysis reveal much about the nature of research productivity, underscoring, for instance, the importance of gender, coauthorship, presentations at conferences, and peers who publish. Among the more important findings from this analysis is that both teaching and service commitments have a significantly negative impact on the research productivity of academic economists. These relations hold across types of academic employer, though to varying degrees. Taken together, the results provide interesting insights into the roles of academic scholars, teachers, and colleagues.     

Robust asset prices with bubbles

We generally establish equilibrium asset prices than can include price bubbles yet (a) be robust to truncations of the economy and (b) exclude trade in non-consumables, like money, stock certificates, or land deeds.     

Making the Big Leagues: Factors Contributing to Publication in Elite Economics Journals

Publication in the best journals of ones discipline is for many the equivalent of making the big leagues in sports or performing at Carnegie Hall in the arts. Using individual-specific data collected from 704 economists, this study provides a multivariate analysis of the factors which contribute to publication in top economics journals. By examining only publications in elite journals, the analysis avoids pitfalls associated with weighting the quality of a wide array of journals while maintaining an emphasis on the determinants of excellence in scholarship. Empirical results indicate that many factors impact elite journal publication, including the quality of graduate education, collaboration with colleagues, presenting at professional conferences, teaching commitments, and service work.