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The basic assumption in strategic management is that consistently high performing companies are able to adapt effectively to external shocks. While adaptation of allocation of resources and its constraints have been investigated, it is important to also consider the allocation of attention. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the differences in the patterns in the allocation of resources and attention in a comparative case study with focus on Southwest Airlines. This study illustrates that the comparison of the patterns of allocation of resource and attention is very promising for the explanation of consistent superior performance.

This paper analyzes Federal Aviation Administration and American Transport Association data in order to determine actual resource allocation. Moreover, textual analysis of annual reports serves as basis for examining the patterns of allocation of attention.

The results of this paper reveal a striking divergence of allocation of resources and attention (particularly attention to differentiation) for Southwest Airlines – the consistently high performing firm in the US airline industry.

The major limitation of the current study is the fact that it is a single industry study. It would be very interesting to replicate this study in other industries.

This study shows the importance of allocation of attention for firm performance. This is particularly relevant for resource intensive industries such as the airline industry where organizational inertia makes it hard to move resources fast. Yet, attention appears to have a great potential for firm performance and can be changed more easily.

Despite great interest in allocation of resources and attention in strategy research, authors rarely combine these two perspectives. Nadkarni and Barr present a notable exception. Yet, the latter authors focus on one specific aspect of adaptation of strategic actions, i.e. the timeliness of response. The present study takes a more comprehensive view of adaptation, e.g. the respective changes in slopes of adaptation.

How resources for social care are allocated to individual service users has long been a concern. There are debates regarding the priority given to certain needs in Resource Allocation Systems (RASs). The purpose of this paper is to compare the views of adults with a learning disability and Directors of Adult Social Care regarding their priorities for resource allocation with priorities arising from observed resource allocation decisions.

In a consultation workshop, 12 adults with learning disabilities were asked to rank the perceived importance of eight needs-related outcomes. Directors of Adult Social Care completed an online questionnaire concerning the distribution of resources across the same eight outcomes. Actual resource allocation data from 11 local authorities were also modelled against these outcomes. A variable importance metric (the percentage contribution of each outcome to predicting costs) was used to rank the importance of these outcomes in terms of determining actual resource allocation. Findings from these data collections were compared.

There were discrepancies between the views of adults with a learning disability, the perspectives of Directors and actual resource allocation data. Whereas adults with a learning disability perceived psychological well-being as most important, Directors and actual resource allocation data stressed the importance of activities of daily living and carer burden.

This analysis will prove useful in understanding the concerns of adults with a learning disability and whether these are adequately addressed by current RASs.

This paper looks at resource allocation in New York state long-term care facilities. Data from 399 nursing facilities are used to compare resource allocation in 1983 and 1990. Given significant changes within the industry, it was hypothesized that significant changes would have occurred over the seven year period. Results indicate that growth in full time equivalents was 7.6 percent or an average of 13.5 employees. The allocation of resources across job title was, however, constant over the seven year period. Differential growth rates were found by ownership category, but there were only minimal differences with respect to the allocation of resources.

Allocation of individuals' resources among multiple goals is an increasingly prominent theoretical and practical issue. Despite several theoretical perspectives that highlight the potential role of affect in this resource allocation process, empirical work on the topic is quite limited with little focus on the activation dimension of affect. This study aimed to provide further insight into this issue.

The current research explored the role of the activation dimension of affect in a multiple-goal environment. Specifically, 118 individuals participated in a 21-day longitudinal study in which they reported on affect and resource allocation related to two real-life goals.

Multilevel-modeling analyses indicated that activation positively relates to allocation of resources (effort, intended effort, and intended time devoted to a goal). The results also illustrate that task-related negative valence is a significant predictor for two of the three indicators of resource allocation (intended effort was the exception).

This research informs theory and practice at the intersection of emotion and work motivation by investigating a relatively understudied dimension of affect and provides results that help clarify the role of affect during the pursuit of multiple, competing goals.

As corporate sustainability is systemic, it cannot be achieved without effective involvement of suppliers. This study aims to examine the drivers of supplier companies’ resource allocation to a sustainability issue that affects customer companies and society at large.

Supplier companies’ resource allocation for a sustainability issue is explained from variables at the levels of the institutional, supply chain and internal environments of a supplier company. The framework is tested with a moderated regression model on 102 supplier companies in animal-based supply chains, focussing on their resource allocation for farm animal welfare.

The findings show that supply chain factors have the strongest influence on suppliers’ resource allocation, including a strong effect of investment specificity and a U-shaped effect of chain integration. Also, significant effects from institutional variables, namely, the pressure on consumer companies, and an inverted U-shaped effect of sustainability competition are found. The innovativeness, referring to the internal environment of supplier companies, appears as another important factor for the allocation of resources to animal welfare, as a sustainability issue.

The results have implications for consumer market companies to deal with sustainability issues that require involvement of their suppliers, for supplier companies to increase their competitive positions and strengthen their relationships within the supply chain, and for policymakers seeking solutions for sustainability issues in the market domain.

While existing literature focusses mostly on the corporate sustainability of highly visible and large consumer companies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the drivers of supplier companies’ resource allocation for a sustainability issue, namely, animal welfare. It provides insights on what drives supplier companies, usually operating outside the spotlight, to become part of a sustainability transition.

Resource allocation is essential to infrastructure management. The purpose of this study is to develop a methodological framework for resource allocation that takes interdependencies among infrastructure systems into consideration to minimize the overall impact of infrastructure network disruptions due to extreme events.

Taking advantage of agent-based modeling techniques, the proposed methodology estimates the interdependent effects of a given infrastructure failure which are then used to optimize resource allocation such that the network-level resilience is maximized.

The findings of the study show that allocating resources with the proposed methodology, where optimal infrastructure reinforcement interventions are implemented, can improve the resilience of infrastructure networks with respect to both direct and interdependent risks of extreme events. These findings are also verified by the results of two case studies.

As the two case studies have shown, the proposed methodological framework can be applied to the resource allocation process in asset management practices.

The proposed methodology improves the resilience of the infrastructure network, which can alleviate the social and economic impact of extreme events on communities.

Capitalizing on the combination of agent-based modeling and simulation-based optimization techniques, this study fulfills a critical gap in infrastructure asset management by incorporating infrastructure interdependence and resilience concepts into the resource allocation process.

Resource allocation is challenged by dynamic environments where changes are frequent. The purpose of this paper is to identify resource allocation challenges and practices in service units that perform both project and non-project activities in dynamic environments. Its goal is to show that top-down mechanisms of project resource allocation need to be replaced by or supplemented with mechanisms that are more flexible.

A qualitative comparative case study was conducted in two service units of two project-based firms. The main source of data consisted of semi-structured interviews with 17 service managers and staff members.

This study shows that resource allocation is not necessarily a top-down process at all, and the practices are context-dependent. Two more flexible approaches are revealed – hybrid resource allocation and bottom-up resource allocation – as examples of managing resource allocation in service units that engage in projects under uncertain conditions. The results of the analysis highlight prioritisation and adapting to change and delay as the main issues that managers face in allocating resources to different types of projects and service activities in dynamic environments.

The two target companies chosen for the qualitative research design limit the analysis to project-based firms in a business-to-business context. Further, the viewpoint of the service unit is central to the study. Studying project resource allocation in different organisational contexts and uncovering the perspectives of product development and delivery units would offer promising directions for future research.

The study reveals that in dynamic project settings such as service organisations, top-down mechanisms of resource allocation need to be accompanied by other, more flexible approaches to ensure the sufficient resourcing of projects and related services in dynamic environments. Companies need to establish practices for resource allocation changes that are caused by re-prioritising tasks and accommodating changes and delays in their project and service activities.

Compared to a top-down perspective taken in previous research, the study proposes a more flexible approach for resource allocation in constantly changing environments with different project and service activities. Previous studies have focussed on resource competition between projects, placing project managers in the central role for resource allocation. By contrast, this study discusses hybrid and bottom-up resource allocation, both of which involve broader personnel engagement in resource allocation tasks, drawing on the experience of all employees.

Universities are social and economic instruments for investment in man and thereby for the development of human resources at the highest level. This is truer in the case of developing countries where science and technology have not yet extended their beneficial aspects to whole spheres of social life. While preserving culture and heritage, universities are the most powerful institutions for social change and innovation. At the same time, universities and colleges themselves are subject to changes and need to adapt to these.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated model for allocation and leveling of human resources in IT projects.

A single case study was conducted in a large company of IT outsourcing services, which were assessed the management of 14 projects. The survey was conducted through interviews with project managers, and digital files and internal documents of the organization related to these projects.

In the analysis, it was identified that the critical path is not identified in all projects, and even when this happens, resources are not allocated in the first tasks in that path. A committee controls the allocation of resources with the assessment of skills, but there is no control of all resource constraints.

The main limiting factors for this study are: use of data of one company in the IT industry, making it difficult to generalize the model for other sectors companies; it was noted during interviews that the project managers interviewed do not always know in detail all the company’s processes for allocation and resource leveling, due to the large number of processes and different management activities of these professionals.

A model and actions for this implementation was proposed, such as training for the use of the technique of critical path; allocation and leveling done simultaneously; decisions of the management committee based on information of availability, key skills, holidays, days off of human resources; development of a software tool that integrates this information, generating graphical interfaces that are not provided by project management software with the use of an allocation factor.

The characteristics of the proposed model, as well as the use of the allocation factor, can help managers to validate their allocation models and leveling of human resources in an integrated manner.

The study explains that the granularity of analysis of resource allocation increases by decomposition of the duration of each activity in fixed time segments. It is suggested to use the mathematical concept of the allocation factor (F_a).

Seeks to better understand whether a retailer's trust in a manufacturer is a key concept in their motivation to allocate resources to those manufacturers with whom they have a long‐term relationship compared with economical motivations.

A survey research method is used to study all customers from three large manufacturers in The Netherlands. These retailers had to answer questions about their trust in a manufacturer, the manufacturer's investments in the relationship, and their marketing efforts. Questions were also asked about the allocation of their own scarce resources for the manufacturer, specifically their adoption of in‐store marketing campaigns initiated by the manufacturer. Structural equation models and regression analyses were employed.

Trust is not that important, but the manufacturer's investments in the brand are the most important predictors. However, interaction effects were also found: trust interacts with investments in the brand to influence resource allocations. It was also found that personal contact of salespeople of the manufacturer with managers at store as well as their contact with headquarters had an effect on resource allocation. This is conceived to be an indication that people at headquarters take into consideration how people at the floor level evaluate the brands and their effects on customers when making resource allocation decisions. In other words, retailer chains have complex buying centers.

A large set of customers was analyzed from three different manufacturers, but customers could have been investigated from many manufacturers.

Retailers respond to manufacturers mainly with economic motivations (e.g. what is the value of this brand for my own firm?). However, trust at times interacts with these economic motivations. This means that manufacturers should invest both in the relationship with the retailer and in their brands, if they want to motivate the retailer to allocate scarce resources (e.g. time).

This paper identifies important factors that influence retailer behavior that have not been studied within a fast‐moving retail context.