Search results

Time waiting for service is a major concern for consumers, and excessive waiting for a pre‐scheduled appointment is especially annoying. This is an on‐going problem because appointment scheduling is a challenging task, mainly due to the uncertainties associated with service times. Prior studies have focused mainly on a single scheduling period (i.e. either a morning or afternoon); this paper uses a more realistic model that represents an on‐going, multi‐period scheduling environment where clients can be scheduled days or even weeks into the future. Two main objectives will be considered; the best scheduling rule to use in a multi‐period environment, and the best placement of appointment slots that are left open for urgent clients. Both of these have been studied in a single period environment, and results here will be compared to those. It will be shown that in some cases earlier findings from the one‐period environment are robust and perform well in a multi‐period environment, while in other cases the one‐period findings do not apply.

Physician lateness and service interruptions are a significant problem in many health care environments but have received little attention in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to design appointment systems that reduce waiting times of the patient while maintaining utilization of the physician at a high level.

Empirical data from time studies and surveys of medical professionals from multiple outpatient clinics are used to motivate the study. Simulation optimization is used to simultaneously account for uncertainty and to determine (near) optimal scheduling solutions.

As lateness increases, it is shown that, in general, appointment slots should be shorter and pushed later in the session. Conversely, as interruptions rise, appointments in the middle of the session should be longer. These findings are fairly consistent over a variety of environmental conditions, including clinic sizes, service time variance, and costs of physician time compared to patients' time.

This paper demonstrates that the dome/plateau‐dome scheduling patterns that have been found in prior studies work well under many of the new factors modeled here. This is encouraging because it suggests that a generalizable pattern is emerging in the literature for the range of environments studied in these papers and this research provides guidance as to how to adjust the pattern to account for the factors studied here. In addition, it is shown that some environments will perform better with a different pattern, which the authors denote a “descending step” pattern.

This paper differs from most prior studies in that the complexity of environmental variables and stochastic elements of the model are simultaneously accounted for by the simulation optimization algorithm. The (very few) prior papers that have used simulation optimization have not addressed the factors studied here.

Service managers are continually challenged with balancing customer demand and service capacity. Recent studies have raised awareness of various demand and capacity management practices available to services, but little numerical work has been done to identify how these decisions work together and how they relate to one another. For instance, reducing prices may attract customers during a slow period, but the extent of impact this should have on cross‐training staff is not clear. A simulation based on theoretical and empirical insights explores the impact of various decisions on profitability and operations. The decisions modelled include the impact of: automation, customer participation, cross training employees, informing customers about the operation, and others. It is shown that demand and capacity decisions do indeed impact on each other – sometimes in ways that are not initially obvious. Results provide useful thought‐starters for service managers striving to improve their operations.

Self‐serve technologies (SSTs) provide many benefits such as speed, time and place convenience for the customer and reduced labour costs for the firm. The aim of this study is to consider whether these benefits are denoted by changes in the firms' stock price when SSTs are introduced.

Using data from banking, retail (grocery and gas), and airline industries, this event study considers overall effects of SST implementation on stock price, and also considers effects in three sub‐categories: industry, time period, and scope of announcement (i.e. corporate vs. regional).

SST announcements had a positive effect on firm value during the late 1990s. However, for the most part, financial markets do not respond to SST announcements. This is in line with the strategic necessity hypothesis and the resource‐based view of the firm, but may also be partly due to the phased rollouts that are typical of these implementations (which dilute the impact over time).

It proved quite difficult to locate original public announcements of SST investments in publicly traded companies; thus, the sample size is smaller than desired. However, a bootstrapping method was used to crosscheck the findings.

Firms should not promise investors immediate increase in firm value, but rather demonstrate the benefits from a longer term, competitive and customer‐oriented perspective.

This is the first study to consider the effect of implementing SSTs using event study methodology. Most prior SST studies have considered behavioural aspects of the implementation, while most prior event studies that have considered IT implementations have done so in a general sense, not focusing on a specific technology. Using a new dataset collected from two decades of SST implementations, this study focuses on the impact of SSTs from a different perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute significantly to the first wave of empirical investigations related to the impact of green supply chain management practices on environmental and organizational performance from a manufacturer's perspective within a supply chain context.

An environmental collaboration and monitoring performance model is theorized and assessed following a structural equation methodology. Data were collected from 159 manufacturing managers through an on‐line survey.

Environmental collaboration and monitoring practices among supply chain partners are found to lead to improved environmental performance and organizational performance.

As a first wave investigation of the impact of green supply chain management practices on performance, the study is somewhat exploratory.

Practitioners are provided with a framework for assessing the impact of environmental collaboration and monitoring practices among supply chain partners on environmental performance and organizational performance. The study provides evidence that green supply chain practices lead to improved environmental and organizational performance.

The results also have important societal implications. While green supply chain management practices enhance the economic sustainability of the firm, they also positively impact society through improvements to the overall environment.

The results of this investigation support the proposition that implementation of environmental collaboration and monitoring practices by supply chain partners are both environmentally necessary and good business. The paper provides manufacturing managers with a structured approach to improving both environmental and organizational performance through environmental collaboration and monitoring with customers and suppliers.

The aim is to contribute significantly to the first wave of empirical investigations related to the impact of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices on performance. The paper also aims to theorize and empirically assess a comprehensive GSCM practices and performance model. The model incorporates green supply chain practices that link manufacturers with supply chain partners (both suppliers and customers) to support environmental sustainability throughout the supply chain.

Data collected from 159 manufacturing managers were analyzed using a structural equation modeling methodology. Manufacturing managers provide data reflecting the degree to which their organizations work with suppliers and customers to improve environmental sustainability of the supply chain.

Generally, the adoption of GSCM practices by manufacturing organizations leads to improved environmental performance and economic performance, which, in turn, positively impact operational performance. Operational performance enhances organizational performance.

As a first wave empirical investigation of the impact of GSCM practices on performance, the study is by necessity exploratory.

Practitioners are provided with a framework for assessing the synergistic impact of GSCM practices on performance. Internal environmental management and green information systems are identified as necessary precursors to the implementation of green purchasing, cooperation with customers, eco‐design, and investment recovery.

A comprehensive GSCM practices performance model is proposed and empirically assessed. The results of this investigation support the proposition that GSCM practices are both environmentally necessary and good business. A structured two‐wave approach to the implementation of GSCM practices is recommended.

Sustainable supply chain management has become an increasingly important driver of business performance. Understanding the contingent nature of how performance is improved in this context is therefore a critical task for management. The purpose of this paper is to explore the moderating effects of two practices unique to sustainable supply chain – ecocentricity and supply chain traceability – on a firm’s environmental and operating cost performance.

Survey data were collected from 248 UK manufacturing firms and analyzed using moderated hierarchical regression.

The results suggest that green supply chain management (GSCM) practices are associated with improvements in both environmental and cost-based performance. Further, higher levels of ecocentricity and supply chain traceability are associated with stronger relationships between GSCM practices and cost performance. Contrary to expectations, high levels of supply chain traceability were found to negatively moderate the relationship between GSCM practices and environmental performance.

The research design was survey-based and cross-sectional. Future studies would benefit from longitudinal research designs that capture the effects of GSCM practices on performance over an extended period. The survey data is also perceptual; using secondary data to capture environmental performance outcomes, for example, would be another opportunity for future research.

The authors provide additional support to findings that GSCM practices benefit both environmental and cost performance dimensions. In this context, the authors show that investments by firms in working with a broader set of eco-system partners (ecocentricity) and building supply chain traceability and leads to improved environmental sustainability outcomes. The authors encourage managers to carefully consider how they conceptualize and monitor their supply chains.

This paper offers several contributions to the research in this area. First, the authors develop and validate a measurement scale for ecocentricity and supply chain traceability. Second, the authors show how these two variables – unique to sustainable supply chains – can positively influence firm and environmental performance.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the complementary impact of JIT, TQM and green supply chain practices on environmental performance.

Data from a sample of 225 US manufacturing managers are analyzed using a PLS-SEM methodology.

JIT and TQM are directly and positively associated with green supply chain management practices. JIT, TQM and green supply chain practices are complementary in that combined they provide a greater impact on environmental performance than if implemented individually.

The sample is limited to US manufacturing managers, with a low response rate.

Successful implementations of JIT and TQM improvement programs support the implementation of green supply chain management practices leading to improved environmental performance.

The combination of JIT, TQM and green manufacturing practices improves the environment by eliminating all forms of waste and providing customers with eco-friendly products and services.

This study is one of the first to empirically assess the complementary impact of JIT, TQM and green supply chain practices within the context of environmental sustainability.