An analytic hierarchy process for ranking operating costs of low cost and full service airlines

This paper develops an application of the analytic hierarchy process to rank the operating cost components of full service and low cost airlines. It takes into account the financial balance sheets and answers to a questionnaire submitted to the managers of selected airlines. The results suggest that the analytic hierarchy process can be appropriately used to obtain the ranking of the costs taking into account different views: financial, management and operative. Rental, office equipment and other supplies costs show the highest importance in the cost ranking, both for full services and low cost airlines. The robustness of the results is tested by Monte Carlo analysis.     

A Special Gen(d)re of Statistics: Roots,Development and Methodological Prospects of Gender Statistics

The very expression Gender Statistics calls for a double interpretation. It accounts for the popular mix‐up of statistical methodology with its typical products such as indexes, tables and graphs. At the same time it implies a broader and forward‐looking perspective, which is inspired by the increasing demand of gender sensitive statistical information coming from society, official agencies, economy. Gender statistics stands as a proper independent field of statistics with its own objectives and a variety of applications in social, human and life science. Concurrently an emerging necessity of appropriate equipment of methods and dissemination tools is noticeable. The paper tracks the roots and the historical development of gender statistics, reviews critically the existing indexes and practice and outlines methodological needs and research prospects.     

An Application of MACRAME to Support Communication and Decisions in a Multi-Unit Project

Researchers from the Politecnico di Torino working in different fields and a start-up company from the internal incubator decided to join together in a collective project to produce an innovative light aircraft that would utilize hydrogen as fuel. Several decisions have had to be made, above all in relation to the hydrogen fuel cells that have to be used (dimensions, number, supplier,...) and to the electric propulsion engine that has to be combined with the cells as there was no engine on the market with the adequate characteristics. The consequences of these decisions (and of others, in relation to the electronic devices and the automatic control systems), in terms of times, costs and risks, have had to be analysed in the project context, where units with different expertise and language were involved. The paper proposes a methodological approach to identify and face uncertainties and complexities pertaining to this multi-unit project through a shared vision of the problems and a structured and evolving problem formulation that has been developed to support communication, coordination and decision-making. It explains how some tools have been integrated in this application and used to elaborate and represent alternative decisions, to collectively evaluate and choose and to create a communication space for the project.     

Four ‘domains’ of career success: how managers in Nigeria evaluate career outcomes

Using an exploratory qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with 38 junior and middle managers, and informed by institutional theory, this article explores how Nigerian managers conceptualise career success. Results indicate that in contrast to some Western-based research, managers prioritise ‘objective’ (e.g. achieving financial stability) over ‘subjective’ (e.g. achieving work–life balance) career outcomes. Results also indicate that the well-applied dichotomy between objective and subjective measures is insufficient to capture the complexities and nuances observed in the Nigeria context. We thus propose four ‘domains’ of career success to include personal and relational dimensions in addition to the subjective/objective criteria. This we argue is a more comprehensive, integrative and contextually sensitive ‘frame’ for the analysis of career outcomes. Our findings suggest that scholars and multinational companies interested in expanding their operations to emerging economies need to incorporate these factors into their conceptualisations and management practices.     

An Integrated System to Acquire Knowledge and Support Decisions in Complex Innovation Design Processes

A system that integrates tools from different disciplines, ranging from cognitive and social psychology to multicriteria analysis and mathematical programming, is introduced to cope with the complexities and uncertainties that generate criticality in the organization innovation processes. An intelligent combined use of tools can facilitate the integration of unstructured or semistructured information resources and support individuals or groups of stakeholders in a complex environment, in order to structure a problem situation, to agree on a “problem focus” and to make commitments on a set of possible actions. The purpose of this article is to examine the potentiality of this system, above all in terms of knowledge acquisition, fusion, and use in various organizational contexts, and to describe an application in relation to an industrial project, in order to support the conceptual phase of the design process.     

Case Study: The Engineering Economics of RFID in Specialized Manufacturing

Calibrated tools are essential to producing highly specialized, defect-free parts. These tools are used in many processes in specialty manufacturing operations. Personnel could use the improper tool if the calibrated tool has been lost or stolen. This results in reduced business productivity and increased cost due to poor quality. This study demonstrates the cost effectiveness of using a radio frequency identification (RFID) system to track calibrated tools throughout a production facility. The costs of RFID tool tracking are described and return on investments of plausible scenarios are determined. Also, sensitivity analysis is performed utilizing spider plot and tornado diagrams.