Trading service quality for safety: a cautionary tale from the French ‘Robien law’ on elevator safety

To deal with elevator accidents the French ‘Robien law’ mandated safety upgrades for ‘old’ elevators. Available statistics suggest that the law reduced fatal accidents but also coincides with an unprecedented deterioration in service quality, multiplying breakdowns and downtime. We exploit a unique data set of more than 3500 elevators over 10 years to investigate the law’s impact. Using a difference-in-difference setting, our results indicate that the law led to a considerable increase in the number of failures and downtime. We also find evidence that the situation was exacerbated by the fact that the higher failure rates were not met by a sufficient increase in maintenance staff.     

Using systems thinking to understand the evolving role of technology in the design process

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Many teaching in higher education whose fields rely heavily on processes using technology can be overwhelmed by the pace of developments,...     

Material and nonmaterial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a low-income country

How have COVID-19-related restrictions affected consumption levels and life satisfaction in low-income countries? We conducted phone surveys with 577 households in Liberia to compare consumption patterns across three points in time: November 2019 (pre-COVID-19), May 2020 (short term), and September 2020 (medium term). This article analyzes the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the related restrictions on food and nonfood consumption, which we categorize as “material” welfare and life satisfaction, which we categorize as “nonmaterial” welfare. We find differences between food and nonfood consumption patterns under pandemic conditions. In particular, consumption by households dependent on food and labor markets was negatively affected by the pandemic. In terms of life satisfaction, we find that most respondents perceived their lives to have worsened due to the pandemic.     

The building blocks of a supply chain management theory: Using factor market rivalry for supply chain theorizing

As the supply chain discipline matures, opportunities emerge to develop or define theories that are specific to supply chain phenomenon. The current research specifies characteristics that we offer which comprise the building blocks of supply chain theory. These characteristics include the flows of material through a supply chain network, the temporal management of these material flows, the dyadic and triadic interactions of firms within the supply chain network, and the outward focus on supply chain management (SCM), in other words a supply chain orientation, of firms in a supply chain. Further, recognizing that supply chain theories must contain the previously identified characteristics, we offer Factor Market Rivalry (FMR) as a theory of SCM. FMR refers to intense battles for resource positions that are needed to manufacture, provide, or deliver firm products or services. We argue that FMR only occurs within supply chain phenomena. The piece concludes with a future research agenda based upon the practical implications of further developing FMR as a theory of SCM.