Business Commons^™

Value Focused Thinking For Community-Based Organizations: Objectives And Acceptance In Local Development, Jeffrey Keisler, David Turcotte, Rachel Drew, Michael Johnson

Jeffrey Keisler

A multi-site case study applies value-focused thinking methods in a community engaged research framework within three organizations. All three organizations are community development corporations (CDCs), a type of community based organization (CBO) who direct assets and efforts toward housing stock and neighborhood improvement. Objectives hierarchies were developed for the three sites. A set of common aspects of these structures suggest ways to operationalize the generic mission of CDCs. Other aspects which vary across sites can be related to specific characteristics of the organizations and the communities in which they operate. The process of applying value-focused thinking is also compared across …

Electronic Supplement For: Value Focused Thinking For Community-Based Organizations: Objectives And Acceptance In Local Development, Jeffrey Keisler

Jeffrey Keisler

This is an electronic supplement containing additional information describing the case studies analyzed in the article published in EURO Journal of Decision Processes

An Exploratory Study Of The State Of United States Women In Leadership, D. N. Smith, D. Roebuck, M. Maendler

Deborah N. Smith

The overarching goals of this study were to explore the views of women in leadership and their opinions as to who and what strategies have most helped them develop as leaders. To explore these topics, the authors admistered a survey and used NVivo 9 and axial and selective coding to analyze the results. Two themes emerged from the data; 1) United States women leaders value action over vision, and 2) they seek to be leaders in all areas of their lives, not just at work. Encouragingly, other women and workplaces are noted as contriubuting to the women’s leadership development. The …

An Innovative Leadership Effectiveness Measure: Applied Analytic Indicators Of High-Consequence Industry Performance, Brent D. Bowen, Erin E. Bowen, Dean E. Headley, Hatice Küçükönal, Clay Wildt

Erin Bowen

Leadership effectiveness in high-consequence industries has more than a bottom-line fiscal impact; it is linked to critical issues of human safety. Performance, productivity and overall quality of service have to be managed with focus on improvement in systemic safety while simultaneously maintaining a viable and profitable organization. This premise is specifically foremost in the leadership of airline organizations. The Airline Quality Rating has become a recognized and lauded indicator of airline performance in the United States. A valid case is presented herein to confirm that the Airline Quality Rating’s applied analytic methodology effectively provides a tool for assessing organizational leadership. …

Physician Clinical Alignment And Integration: A Community Academic Hospital Approach, Debbie Salas-Lopez Md, Mph, Sandra Jarva-Weiss Jd, Brian A. Nestor Do, Mba, Thomas V. Whalen Md

Debbie Salas-Lopez MD, MPH, FACP

An overwhelming need for change in the U.S. healthcare delivery system, coupled with the need to improve clinical and financial outcomes, has prompted hospitals to direct renewed efforts toward achieving high quality and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, with the dawn of accountable care organizations and increasing focus on patient expectations, hospitals have begun to seek physician partners through clinical alignment. Contrary to the unsuccessful alignment strategies of the 1990s, today's efforts are more mutually beneficial, driven by the need to achieve better care coordination, increased access to infrastructure, improved quality, and lower costs. In this article, we describe a large, academic, tertiary …

Exploiting Knowledge About Future Demands For Real-Time Vehicle Dispatching, Soumia Ichoua, Michel Gendreau, Jean Yves Potvin

Soumia Ichoua

An important, but seldom investigated issue in the field of dynamic vehicle routing and dispatching is how to exploit information about future events to improve decision making. In this paper, we address this issue in a real-time setting with a strategy based on probabilistic knowledge about future request arrivals to better manage the fleet of vehicles. More precisely, the new strategy introduces dummy customers (representing forecasted requests) in vehicle routes to provide a good coverage of the territory. This strategy is assessed through computational experiments performed in a simulated environment.

Depicting Estimates Using The Intercept In Meta-Regression Models: The Moving Constant Technique, Blair T. Johnson Dr., Tania B. Huedo-Medina Dr.

Blair T. Johnson

In any scientific discipline, the ability to portray research patterns graphically often aids greatly in interpreting a phenomenon. In part to depict phenomena, the statistics and capabilities of meta-analytic models have grown increasingly sophisticated. Accordingly, this article details how to move the constant in weighted meta-analysis regression models (viz. “meta-regression”) to illuminate the patterns in such models across a range of complexities. Although it is commonly ignored in practice, the constant (or intercept) in such models can be indispensible when it is not relegated to its usual static role. The moving constant technique makes possible estimates and confidence intervals at …

On Uncertainty, Ambiguity, And Complexity In Project Management, Michael T. Pich, Christoph H. Loch, Arnoud De Meyer

Arnoud DE MEYER

This article develops a model of a project as a payoff function that depends on the state of the world and the choice of a sequence of actions. A causal mapping, which may be incompletely known by the project team, represents the impact of possible actions on the states of the world. An underlying probability space represents available information about the state of the world. Interactions among actions and states of the world determine the complexity of the payoff function. Activities are endogenous, in that they are the result of a policy that maximizes the expected project payoff.

A key …

Front Line Hospitality Leaders: Knowledge, Knowledge Acquisition, And Ability To Effectively Lead, Gregory Scott Krawiec

Gregory Scott Krawiec

The successful practice of leadership involves a considerable amount of time, effort, and knowledge. The hospitality industry is service intensive and requires leadership effectiveness. Understanding the front line leader's knowledge and its source, ability to apply the knowledge, and time allotted in the work environment to utilize this knowledge is of great importance to future hospitality leadership research. Although leaders exhibited negligible knowledge about leadership and indicated very little familiarity with leadership theory and concepts, all communicated standard thoughts about leadership traits and characteristics. However, hospitality leaders do not model the behaviors and skills they list as being characteristic of …

Cross-Cultural Study Of Channel Relationship Factors - Antecedents Of Satisfaction In A Retail Setting: A Commentary Essay, Sudhir H. Kale

Sudhir H. Kale

Channel relationships within and across diverse markets have been investigated for quite some time. Yet findings from these studies over the last forty years or so have been far from conclusive. Channel researchers Runyan, Sternquist, and Chung (forthcoming) investigate interrelationships between the behavioural constructs of role performance, dependence, conflict, satisfaction, and influence strategy in the U.S. and Japanese context. Reading this paper leads credence to the adage, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.' Indeed, a review of representative comparative channels research literature from the 1980s and post-2000 brings to surface striking similarities in terms of shaky …

The Impacts Of Personality Traits And Goal Commitment On Employees' Job Satisfaction, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

The present research investigates the effects of personality traits, such as self-efficacy and locus of control, on job satisfaction. It also examines the mediating impact of goal commitment on relationships between personality and job satisfaction. The results indicate that both self-efficacy and locus of control are positively associated with goal commitment. In addition, locus of control is found positively related to job satisfaction. However, self-efficacy does not have the same positive relationship with job satisfaction. The study further confirms the mediating effect of goal commitment on relationships between personality traits and job satisfaction.

The Effects Of Leadership Style On Employee’S Perception Of Justice: The Role Of Employee’S Participation, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

The present research examines the effect of leadership style (classical, transactional, transformational, and dynamic) and employee’s participation on employee’s perception of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice). It is proposed that different leadership styles are expected to display different effects on employee’s participation and perceptions of justice. Moreover, employee’s participation in decision making process is predicated to positively influence his/her perception of justice.

Quantitative Analysis Of Impacts Of Employee Engagement On Continuance And Normative Commitment, Daniel A. Cernas Ortiz, Hong Qin, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

A positive relationship between employee engagement and affective commitment is already documented in the literature. However, we do not adequately know how engagement is associated with continuance and normative commitment. Using survey methodology we find that while engagement has a non–significant positive association with continuance commitment; it has a positive association with normative commitment. No negative association was found between engagement and continuance commitment. These results advance prior findings about the effect of employee engagement on different types of commitment and provide understandings in setting effective performance standards in the organization.

Factors Influence On Success Mass Customization, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

This paper summarizes the common elements of mass customization (MC). It argues that MC should be viewed as a manufacturing management system that synergizes and integrates all the elements. Then, three factors, customer, technology, and organizational factors are identified. The moderating effects between implemented MC and improved performance are discussed.

Retail Internationalization: Jc Penney’S Global Expansion, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

In apparel industry, as domestic markets become overstored and/or mature, retailers consider international market involvement as a strategy for growth. Retailers have been successful in expansions to some countries, but not in others. This paper analyzes and evaluates JC Penney’s positioning and retailing strategies in domestic market, international expansion strategies, and factors such as culture influences on its international expansion strategies. This study presents a prototype for other retailers to follow when looking inside and outside national borders for expansion opportunities.

The Effect Of Employee Engagement On Continuance And Normative Commitment To The Organization, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

A positive relationship between employee engagement and affective commitment is already documented in the literature. However, we do not adequately know how engagement is associated with continuance and normative commitment. Using survey methodology we find that while engagement has a non-significant positive association with continuance commitment, it has a positive association with normative commitment. No negative association was found between engagement and continuance commitment. This study’s results support recent critiques to Allen and Meyer’s three-dimensional model of organizational commitment.

The Effects Of Leadership Style And Employee’S Participation On Perceived Justice, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

The present study proposes and tests a model that examines the relationship between leadership style, employee’s participation, and justice perceptions. Results indicate that transactional, transformational, and dynamic leadership have positive impact on distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Moreover, the effect of leadership style on organizational justice was indirect through employee’s participation. There are also some interesting differences across different types of leadership style and justice.

A Study Of Effective Leadership In The Chinese Context, Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau

The study of leadership is one of the most often researched management topics. However, most research and theory contributions are to a great extent limited to accounting for leadership practice in the West. This study is designed to develop an effective leadership model that works in the Chinese context. Paternalistic leadership, a dominant leadership style in an Eastern business environment, is compared with transformational leadership, a dominant leadership style in a Western business environment. In addition, the cultural differences between China and the West relating to leader-follower relationships suggest different leadership behaviors may be more effective in one of these …

Value Of Information Analysis: The State Of Application. Environment Systems & Decisions, Jeffrey Keisler, Eric Chu, Zachary Collier, Nina Sinatra, Igor Linkov

Jeffrey Keisler

The value of information (VoI) is a decision analytic method for quantifying the potential benefit of additional information in the face of uncertainty. This paper reviews the prevalence of VoI applications reported in the peer-reviewed literature from the years 1990–2011. We categorize papers’ applications across the types of uncertainties considered, modeling choices, and contexts of social importance (such as health care and environmental science). We obtain and analyze statistics on the range of applications and identify trends and patterns in them, and conclude with an interpretation of what these mean for researchers and practitioners as they pursue new efforts. Key …

An Innovative Leadership Effectiveness Measure: Applied Analytic Indicators Of High-Consequence Industry Performance, Brent D. Bowen, Erin E. Bowen, Dean E. Headley, Hatice Küçükönal, Clay Wildt

Brent Bowen

Leadership effectiveness in high-consequence industries has more than a bottom-line fiscal impact; it is linked to critical issues of human safety. Performance, productivity and overall quality of service have to be managed with focus on improvement in systemic safety while simultaneously maintaining a viable and profitable organization. This premise is specifically foremost in the leadership of airline organizations. The Airline Quality Rating has become a recognized and lauded indicator of airline performance in the United States. A valid case is presented herein to confirm that the Airline Quality Rating’s applied analytic methodology effectively provides a tool for assessing organizational leadership. …

Value Of Information: Facilitating Targeted Information Acquisition In Decision Processes, Jeffrey Keisler

Jeffrey Keisler

No abstract provided.

An Experimental Investigation Of Outsourcing Through Competition, Ehsan Elahi, Roger Blake

Ehsan Elahi

Our research uses laboratory experiments to examine the theoretical results of competition between suppliers in an outsourcing setup. We consider a supply chain in which a single buyer needs to outsource the manufacturing of a product among N potential suppliers. The buyer allocates demand to suppliers not on the basis of price, but rather on service. We analyze the levels of service suppliers will decide to provide when competing on three different criteria specified by the buyer. For the first, suppliers compete by providing the buyer a specific service level (fill-rate), and for the second by maintaining a specific quantity …