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3899 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2019

Is it too complex? The curious case of supply network complexity and focal firm innovation

Amalesh Sharma, Surya Pathak, Sourav Borah, and Anirban Adhikary

Journal of Operations Management

Firms have increasingly relied on their supply network for improving their innovation performance. Although the relationship between the supply network structure and innovation has been investigated, the link between supply network complexity and a firm's innovation remains unexplored. By employing transaction cost economics and the concept of a recombinatory search, we propose that the complexity dimensions (horizontal, vertical, and spatial complexity) of a supply network impact the innovation performance of a firm and that such relationships are moderated by a strategic emphasis on value creation and the influence of the firm over the supply network. With a large-scale network data of 201 firms across six industries and 20 countries, we take a robust empirical approach that accounts for endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and intrafirm error correlation to test our theory. We find strong support for a nonlinear relationship (with diminishing growth) between both horizontal and vertical complexity with respect to innovation performance. We find that spatial complexity is negatively related to innovation performance. Additionally, we find that a firm's strategic emphasis and its influence indeed moderates the link between the complexity dimensions and innovation performance. Based on our findings, we offer specific managerial guidance for the effective implementation of sourcing practices.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Understanding the structural characteristics of a firm's whole buyer–supplier network and its impact on international business performance

Amalesh Sharma, V. Kumar, Jun Yan, Sourav Bikash Borah, and Anirban Adhikary

Journal of International Business Studies

Building on the network theory and the concept of organizational ambidexterity, we investigate the impact of structural characteristics of a firm’s whole buyer–supplier network: network density, betweenness centralization, and average clustering coefficient on its international business (IB) performance. We also explore the moderating roles of average path length and PageRank centrality. Using a manually-collected dataset and a robust empirical methodology, we find that, while network density is negatively related, betweenness centralization and average clustering coefficient have an inverted U-shape and a U-shaped relationship with IB performance, respectively. We also find significant moderation effects, and, in the process, we show the economic importance of firms’ whole buyer–supplier network to their IB performance. We contribute to the international business and whole buyer–supplier network literature.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Leveraging service recovery strategies to reduce customer churn in an emerging market

Sourav Bikash Borah, Srinivas Prakhya, and Amalesh Sharma

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Building on the properties of emerging markets, we investigate how a firm should align its service recovery strategies with different types of service failure to reduce customer churn in an emerging market. Using resource exchange theory and a multi-method approach, we show that the conventional wisdom related to service recovery needs to be reevaluated in emerging markets. Our results show that process failures lead to a higher likelihood of customer churn compared to outcome failures in emerging markets. Investigating service recovery mechanisms, we find that compensation is more effective in recovering from process failures than in recovering from outcome failures in emerging markets. Similarly, employee behavior has a stronger impact on mitigating the ill effects of process failures than those of outcome failures. The study contributes to the literature on service recovery and resource exchange theory and provides managerial insights for the effective management of customer churn due to service failures in emerging markets.

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Journal Articles | 2019

The goblet and two faces: Understanding transcendence and paradox from the perspective of Advaita Vedanta

Shiva Kakkar (FPM)

Human Resource Management International Digest

Purpose

Paradox theory looks at ambidexterity as a set of paradoxical yet interrelated demands. A form of response to such paradoxes is transcendence. Currently, there is limited understanding of the concept among researchers. Using concepts from the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, this paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transcendence, highlight some of the epistemological challenges it presents and suggest ways in which the concept can be used by practitioners and ambidexterity researchers.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses concepts and theories from advaitic episteme to look at concepts of paradox and transcendence. The method of adhyaropa–apavada is introduced as a way to help individuals get a transcendental perspective of paradoxes. The application of the method is demonstrated using secondary data from published research on ambidexterity management.

Findings

It is postulated that transcendence is an “intuitive experience” born out of reflexive thinking. The dialectic of adhyaropa–apavada (affirmation followed by recension) is suggested as a pedagogical tool that can promote reflexive thinking.

Originality/value

The paper significantly adds to the theoretical understanding of paradoxes and transcendence in ambidexterity literature. The paper also makes a strong pedagogical contribution to literature by suggesting the dialectic of adhyaropa–apavada that can be used by managers to promote reflexive thinking among subordinates when faced with paradoxical situations.

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Journal Articles | 2019

An overlapping community detection algorithm based on rough clustering of links

Samrat Gupta and Pradeep Kumar

Data and Knowledge Engineering

The growth of networks is prevalent in almost every field due to the digital transformation of consumers, business and society at large. The unfolding of community structure in such real-world complex networks is crucial since it aids in gaining strategic insights leading to informed decisions. Moreover, the co-occurrence of disjoint, overlapping and nested community patterns in such networks demands methodologically rigorous community detection algorithms so as to foster cumulative tradition in data and knowledge engineering. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm for overlapping community detection based on granular information of links and concepts of rough set theory. First, neighborhood links around each pair of nodes are utilized to form initial link subsets. Subsequently, constrained linkage upper approximation of the link subsets is computed iteratively until convergence. The upper approximation subsets obtained during each iteration are constrained and merged using the notion of mutual link reciprocity. The experimental results on ten real-world networks and comparative evaluation with state-of-the-art community detection algorithms demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Understanding parental mediation of violent television commercials

Akshaya Vijayalakshmi, Russell Laczniak, and Deanne Brocato

Journal of Consumer Marketing

Purpose

This study aims to uncover in-depth examples of how emergent media affects parents’ views and socialization efforts. The study examines these views and efforts in the context of violent commercials.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected data for this paper using two studies. In Study 1, they collected data from the internet. Comments related to “violent ads” or “violent commercials” were collated and analyzed. For Study 2, they conducted in-depth interviews with mothers on their views on parental mediation and impact of media on their children.

Findings

The internet data helped develop a parental definition of violent ads and identify that parents lie on a continuum regarding their concerns about violent commercials. Further in-depth questioning of parents on the above finding led to the identification of four clusters of parents. “Media managers” attempt to control and restrict their child’s media environment while educating their child about the effects of violent commercials. “Enablers” spend abundant time co-viewing primetime TV while engaging their child in conversations on violence, but not on violent ads. To maintain harmony in the household, “Harmonizers” merely restrict viewing of violent commercials without educating their child about its effects. Finally, “Agent evaluators” are likely to co-view violent commercials, without discussing them with their child.

Research limitations/implications

First, several of the parental segments (media managers, enablers and harmonizers) tend to note some concerns with violence in advertising. Importantly, this concern for violence appears to be limited to gore and use of physical weapon. Second, while parents do not have homogenous views on violent ads, those who are concerned also have differing roots of concern. This influences their mediation efforts. Third, socialization is bi-directional at times.

Practical implications

Many parents do not approve are the use of physical violence, use of weapons and depiction of blood/gore even in ads for movies or videogames. Advertisers might be wise to avoid such content in ads directed to children. Second, if media and marketing managers could plan to sponsor TV shows (vs placing violent ads) that offer ad-free program time, parents might respond positively. Third, as socialization is bi-directional, advertisers could consider using ad scenarios where parents and children engage with the pros and cons of a certain product or content, thus enabling parent-child conversations to make an informed decision.

Social implications

Many parents notice violence in ads; policymakers could consider developing ratings for ads that consider the amount and type of violence while rating an ad. Second, a focus on increasing parental awareness on the harms of constantly exposing children to violent commercials might change the views of some parents who currently believe that a few or no violent commercials are being aired during children’s programs. Finally, parents envisage a greater role for media in their lives, and policymakers will have to suggest ways to effectively integrate media content in one’s lives rather than just suggest bans or restrictions.

Originality/value

The contributions of this paper include viewers’ (vs researchers’) definition of violent commercials, showcasing that parents are likely to manage media using new media options such as Netflix, and some parents are likely to co-create rules with their children.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Robotized and automated warehouse systems: Review and recent developments

Kaveh Azadeh, Debjit Roy, and Rene De Koster

Transportation Science

Robotic handling systems are increasingly applied in distribution centers. They require little space, provide flexibility in managing varying demand requirements, and are able to work 24/7. This makes them particularly fit for e-commerce operations. This paper reviews new categories of automated and robotic handling systems, such as shuttle-based storage and retrieval systems, shuttle-based compact storage systems, and robotic mobile fulfillment systems. For each system, we categorize the literature in three groups: system analysis, design optimization, and operations planning and control. Our focus is to identify the research issue and operations research modeling methodology adopted to analyze the problem. We find that many new robotic systems and applications have hardly been studied in academic literature, despite their increasing use in practice. Because of unique system features (such as autonomous control, flexible layout, networked and dynamic operation), new models and methods are needed to address the design and operational control challenges for such systems, in particular, for the integration of subsystems. Integrated robotic warehouse systems will form the next category of warehouses. All vital warehouse design, planning, and control logic, such as methods to design layout, storage and order-picking system selection, storage slotting, order batching, picker routing, and picker to order assignment, will have to be revisited for new robotized warehouses.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Design, modeling, and analysis of vertical robotic storage and retrieval systems

Debjit Roy, Kaveh Azadeh, and Rene De Koster

Transportation Science

Autonomous vehicle-based storage and retrieval systems are commonly used in many fulfillment centers (e.g., e-commerce warehouses), because they allow a high- and flexible-throughput capacity. In these systems, roaming robots transport loads between a storage location and a workstation. Two main variants exist: horizontal, where the robots only move horizontally and use lifts for vertical transport, and a new variant vertical, where the robots can also travel vertically in the rack. This paper builds a framework to analyze the performance of the vertical system and compare its throughput capacity with the horizontal system. We build closed queueing network models for this that, in turn, are used to optimize the design. The results show that the optimal height-to-width ratio of a vertical system is around one. Because a large number of system robots may lead to blocking and delays, we compare the effects of different robot blocking protocols on the system throughput: robot Recirculation and Wait-on-Spot. The Wait-on-Spot policy produces a higher system throughput when the number of robots in the system is small. However, for a large number of robots in the system, the Recirculation policy dominates the Wait-on-Spot policy. Finally, we compare the operational costs of the vertical and horizontal transport systems. For systems with one load/unload (L/U) point, the vertical system always produces a similar or higher system throughput with a lower operating cost compared with the horizontal system with a discrete lift. It also outperforms the horizontal system with a continuous lift in systems with two L/U points.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Inventory allocation in robotic mobile fulfillment systems

Tim Lamballais Tessensohn, Debjit Roy, and Rene B M De Koster

IISE Transactions

A Robotic Mobile Fulfillment System is a recently developed automated, parts-to-picker material handling system. Robots can move storage shelves, also known as inventory pods, between the storage area and the workstations and can continually reposition them during operations. This article shows how to optimize three key decision variables: (i) the number of pods per SKU; (ii) the ratio of the number of pick stations to replenishment stations; and (iii) the replenishment level per pod. Our results show that throughput performance improves substantially when inventory is spread across multiple pods, when an optimum ratio between the number of pick stations to replenishment stations is achieved and when a pod is replenished before it is completely empty. This article contributes methodologically by introducing a new type of Semi-Open Queueing Network (SOQN): cross-class matching multi-class SOQN, by deriving necessary stability conditions, and by introducing a novel interpretation of the classes.

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Journal Articles | 2019

Integrated storage-order picking systems: Technology, performance models, and design insights

ElenaTappiaa, Debjit Roy, MarcoMelacini, and René De Koster

European Journal of Operational Research

In many warehouses shuttle-based technologies have replaced the traditional AS/R system based storage technologies. The impact these systems have on downstream order picking performance is largely unknown. To study the interactions between upstream storage and downstream picking systems, we develop a novel analytical model for integrated storage and order picking systems. The resulting semi-open queuing model is solved using the matrix-geometric method. Using the queuing network model, we are able to study the effect of storage system technology on order throughput times, and the effect of the picking station input buffer size on order picking performance. Further, we analyze the effect of a constant work-in-process (CONWIP) control for orders on system performance. Our results indicate that using SBS/R instead of AS/R-based storage systems yields investment cost savings (i.e., fewer aisles in the storage area and fewer picking stations), paired with a lower total throughput time at a given order arrival rate. Numerical studies show how the total throughput time, first, benefits and then becomes stable by increasing the input buffer size at the picking stations. Retrieving item tote at the storage system in advance with respect to the picker availability is also advantageous, especially in the SBS/R system.

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IIMA