Modeling hazardous materials risks for different train make-up plans

This paper is concerned with the problem of how to place hazardous material cars in the train assembly process so that the overall derailment risk can be minimized. The approach considers both the probability of railway cars derailing en route by position as well as the risk associated with additional operations in the rail yard using recent US FRA data. The merits of this car placement model are illustrated through a case study of a railway corridor that connects Los Angeles (CA) to Chicago (IL). The case study demonstrates that the proposed risk minimization strategy could be implemented with minimal rail yard operation cost.     

Market perceptions of discretionary accruals by debt renegotiating firms during economic downturn

This study addresses how a stock market prices earnings components around a sudden and severe economic downturn. In particular, the study examines the market valuation of discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating Malaysian firms during the Asian financial crisis. Our analysis shows that negative discretionary accruals for debt renegotiating firms are associated with higher market values of equity and are not related to the firms' future earnings. These findings are consistent with investors placing a positive value on the probability that negative accruals increase the likelihood that concessions can be extracted from lenders during renegotiation. In contrast, discretionary accruals for a control sample of non-debt renegotiating firms are not significantly associated with stock prices but are positively associated with future earnings.     

Churn analysis for an Iranian mobile operator

To survive in the challenging environment of a global market, organizations must recognize and analyze customer attitudes. To be competitive, organizations must recognize and forecast customer preferences and behaviors to maximize customer retention before their rivals do so. This research identifies factors that affect customer churn, the single most valuable of an organization's assets. One year's data from call log files relating to 3150 customers were selected randomly from an Iranian mobile operator call-center database. Binomial Logistic Regression was the method of analysis used in this research. The results of this research indicate that a customer's dissatisfaction, their amount of service usage and certain demographic characteristics have the most influence on their decision to remain or churn. The results also imply that customer status (active or inactive status) mediates the relationship between churn and the cause of churn. The Iranian government's current plan to privatize the telecommunications industry without deregulation leads to a non-square competition environment. Deregulation in favor of delegating more authorities of customer care is necessary in order to develop a square private competition environment in the Iranian mobile telecommunications industry.     

State of the art in business analytics: themes and collaborations

In this study, we illustrate the most recent stage in the scholarly development of the field of Business Analytics. Using around 23,000 research publications collected from the Web of Science, we network-analyzed four types of dataset that include keywords, titles, institutions, and countries. It is noteworthy that we found a thematic cluster focusing on analytical techniques and tools, particular with the rapid dissemination of “big data”-related studies. It is not surprising that universities and institutions in advanced countries in the West still occupy the central position of the collaboration network. However, we can discern a global shift toward certain developing and transitional economies in the world science base.     

World pandemic uncertainty and German stock market: evidence from Markov regime-switching and Fourier based approaches

Quality & Quantity - This study aims to examine the impact of the world pandemic uncertainty index on the German stock market index (DAX index) for the 1996Q1 to 2020Q3 period while controlling...