We show how a simple normal approximation to Erlang's delay formula can be used to analyze capacity and staffing problems in service systems that can be modeled as M/M/s queues.
The fact that people frequently cooperate in the single-trial Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) game indicates that their decision making in conflicts is not always guided by game-theoretic analyses of expected outcomes. Whereas most theorists have accounted for cooperation in terms of an ethically rooted concern for matching another's “good faith” cooperation (Hofstadter, 1985), others have argued that cooperation reflects several distinct social norms or heuristics (Elster, 1989).
This study investigates factors influencing causal attributions in managerial decision making. Three categories of factors are identified: (i) prior beliefs (ii) background frequencies, and (iii) covariation cues. The impact of factors in each of the above categories on causal attribution are studied in a marketing decision making context. Subjects demonstrated a bias toward assigning causality to variables that occurred infrequently or were controllable. Also, subjects were particularly influenced by the joint-occurrences of cause and effect variables.
This note gives a simple proof that in a (r, q) system the average outstanding backorders andthe average stockouts per unit time are jointly convex in the two control variables q and r.
The paper develops a simple model of corporate ownership structure in which costs and benefits of ownership concentration are analyzed. The model compares the liquidity benefits obtained through dispersed corporate ownership with the benefits from efficient management control achieved by sonic degree of ownership concentration. The paper reexamines the free-rider problem in corporate control in the presence of liquidity trading, derives predictions for the trade and pricing of blocks, and provides criteria for the optimal choice of ownership structure.
Since technological change influences the rate at which human capital obsolesces and also increases the uncertainty associated with human capital investments, training may increase or decrease at higher rates of technological change. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find that production workers in manufacturing industries with higher rates of technological change are more likely to receive formal company training.
In this article, we argue that the time has come to begin to integrate the Coasian view of the firm--which is concerned with the interactions between ownermanagers--and the Bede and Means perspective--which emphasizes the separation of ownership and control in most corporations.
In this paper we address periodic base-stock policies for stochastic economic lot scheduling problems. These represent manufacturing settings in which multiple items compete for the availability of a common capacity source, in the presence of setup times and/or costs, incurred when switching between items, and in the presence of uncertainty regarding demand patterns, production, and setup times. Under periodic base-stock policies, items are produced according to a given periodic item-sequence.
We consider a distribution system consisting of a single warehouse and many geographically dispersed retailers. Each retailer faces demands for a single item which arise a deterministic, retailer specific rate. The retailers' stock is replenished by a fleet of vehicles of limited capacity, departing and returning to the warehouse and combining deliveries into efficient routes. The cost of any given route consists of a fixed component and a component which is proportional with the total distance driven. Inventory costs are proportional with the stock levels.