Search results

This paper seeks to analyze the evolution of shift in the area of operations management (OM) and attempts to anticipate potential developments in the relevant areas of OM.

A hybrid approach is adopted to understand how the field of OM has evolved over time relying on the perspectives of both academics and business practitioners. This evolution of shift in the area of OM is examined based on a thorough literature review and the authors’ industrial experience.

From the days of functional point solutions relying on concepts like reorder point to finite capacity planning, OM research at present deals with a set of important problems facing both private and public sectors at the organizational level. Most prominent of these include e‐business, supply chain management, production planning and scheduling, product development, decision support systems, information‐based strategy, systems development and implementation, risk and environmental management. OM has also embraced several organization‐wide philosophies including lean production, mass customization and agile manufacturing.

With the advent of Internet and burgeoning of the new economy, this paper provides important insights regarding the evolution of OM in the past, recent developments at present and what the future holds for this field. It is envisaged that a focus on the issues central to OM will soon propel both researchers and industry practitioners beyond existing technologies and also provide the catalyst for developing new ones.

This paper provides useful insights to both researchers and practitioners who are interested in the field of OM.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing the use of cost management systems (CMS) for decision‐making, control and performance evaluation.

An empirical survey via questionnaires was conducted on a sample of 100 leading hotels enterprises in Greece.

Results indicate that the extent of the use of CMS for decision‐making, control and performance evaluation is significantly positively associated with the quality of information technology, the chief financial officer (CFO) educational background and significantly negatively associated with CFO age. No association was found between CMS design, age of firm, and CFO tenure in the organization.

Cross‐sectional studies, as this work presented here, can establish associations, but not causality. Furthermore, the goal of the research was to examine the main effects and not the interactions between the various independent variables that affect the scope of CMS.

The results provide the first empirical evidence of the relation between cost system design, quality of information technology and CFOs’ characteristics in the hospitality industry. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the role of the CFO in CMS design.

Despite extensive adoption of Simons’ Levers of Control (LoC) framework, there is still considerable diversity in its operationalization which impedes the coherent development of the literature and compromises its value to researchers. The purpose of this paper is to draw researchers back to the conceptual core of the framework as a basis for stable, consistent definitions of the domain of observables.

We derive the conceptual core of the framework from Simons’ writings. We highlight instability in existing operational definitions of the LoC, weaknesses in the extent to which these definitions reference this conceptual core, and inconsistencies in the restriction of LoC to formal information-based routines.

We draw on the inconsistencies identified to build the case for commensuration or a “common standard” for the framework’s use on two levels: the constructs within the framework (through reference to the conceptual core of the framework) and the framework itself (through explicit inclusion of informal controls).

We illustrate the benefits of commensuration through the potential to guide the scope of the domain of observables in empirical LoC studies, and to study LoC as complementary or competing with other management control theories.

Our approach to resolving tensions arising from inconsistencies in the empirical definitions of LoC differs from others in that we focus on the strategic variables underlying the framework to define the conceptual core. We believe this approach offers greater potential for commensuration at the level of the constructs within the framework and the framework itself.

This paper is based on a study which examined the availability of knowledge management Systems in the Kuwaiti private and public sectors. The paper examines the actual situation, and how it could be improved to achieve organisational and national objectives through more effective training methods and more investment in human resources, geared towards enhancing and achieving effectiveness and efficiency. The study sample was five UK organisations (recognised as best practice organisations in their knowledge management systems) and 77 Kuwaiti organisations (40 government and 37 private ones). Interviews and questionnaires were used. The study reveals that the majority of respondents in both government and private sectors believe that their knowledge management system was very important to the development of their organisations, and that the most important sources of ideas come from employees’ and organisations’ existing knowledge. The most important method used by Kuwaiti organisations to facilitate the sharing of knowledge between employees, was found to include internal journals.

The standard terms of time and space lead to logical contradictions near the borderline of physics. Therefore, we suggest a new term for time and space, which enlarges the understanding but takes the actual knowledge of quantum mechanics into account.

The procedure to define a broader and basic term of time and space is based on the relation between the information stored inside a system, the decision which is to be connected with it and the interaction with other systems.

Fundamental to this new understanding is a definition and an explanation of the terms system, decision and information. Based on these three terms we developed a new understanding of time and space. In which case, it involves a specifying and extension of the present understandings. A meaningful point is that these three terms determine each other as they are open terms. Thus, they must be used in the interactive description before and during their own definition.

Produces a new understanding and viewpoint which is enlarged by taking into account the knowledge of quantum mechanics.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the actual consumer demand for traceable pork by investigating consumer preferences for pork with combined levels of traceability information based on differences in individual consumer preferences, in order to support the government in decision making regarding the gradual construction of safe food markets.

Combinations of four types of traceability information, including farming, slaughter and processing, distribution and sales, and government certification, with price were randomly designed. To identify consumer preferences for these attribute combinations of traceable pork, 215 consumers in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province were investigated using a real choice experiment and the mixed logit model.

Significant heterogeneity was observed in consumer preferences for traceable pork. The information of farming, slaughter and processing, distribution and marketing, and government certification could significantly improve consumer utility. Moreover, consumers had the highest preference for government certification information.

Although numerous studies have been performed on consumer preferences for food safety attributes using a real choice experiment, almost none of them focus on Chinese consumers. Therefore, this study is an attempt to fill this gap. The conclusions of this study can serve as a reference for the Chinese government in developing safe food consumption policies. Although Chinese consumers have cried out for improvement of pork safety, they have different preferences for traceability information; thus, the government must promote traceable food step-by-step, using consumer preferences as a starting point.

This article traces global economic trends and sources of energy from the fossil fuel era of the Industrial Age to the Information and Solar Age. Keynesian economics as well as political, economic and military power, led to the industrialized countries’ petroleum addiction and the demonization of OPEC. The shift from the Old Economy to the New Economy will be accompanied by greater emphasis on energy efficiency and a shift towards renewable resources, “green” energy technologies and environmental protection and restoration. The globalization of economics, finance, markets and trade driven by technology and liberalization of capital flows have led to the dematerialization of OECD economies. This will necessitate recognition of, and investment in, people and social infrastructure with education and health care as key economic sectors and knowledge, intellectual, social and ecological capital as the key factors of production. Due to advances in the internet and e‐commerce and the increasing interchangeability of money with information there will be a continuing flight into pure information‐based electronic trading systems and the growth of a less costly and more efficient pure high‐tech barter system. The issues of unequal terms of trade, poverty and the need for development will continue. If OPEC is able to grasp the significance of the shift to the Solar Age, it has an opportunity to reassert its leadership role in development.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to discuss key challenges associated with the use of either simulation or real-world application of intelligent autonomous vehicles (IAVs) in supply network operations; and second, to provide a theoretical and empirical evidence-based methodological framework that supports the integrated application of conceptualisation, simulation, emulation and physical application of IAVs for the effective design of digital supply networks.

First, this study performs a critical review of the extant literature to identify major benefits and shortcomings related to the use of either simulation modelling or real-word application of physical IAVs. Second, commercial and bespoke software applications, along with a three-dimensional validation and verification emulation tool, are developed to evaluate an IAV’s operations in a conceptual warehouse. Third, a commercial depth-sensor is used as a test bed in a physical setting.

The results demonstrate that conceptual and simulation modelling should be initially used to explore alternative supply chain operations in terms of ideal performance while emulation tools and real-world IAV test beds are eminent in validating preferred digital supply chain design options.

The provided analysis framework was developed using literature evidence along with experimental work and research experience, without consulting any industry experts. In addition, this study was developed based on the application of a single physical device application as a test bed and, thus, the authors should further progress with the testing of a physical IAV in an industrial warehouse.

The study provides bespoke simulation modelling and emulation tools that can be useful for supply chain practitioners in effectively designing network operations.

This work contributes in the operations management field by providing both a multi-stage methodological framework and a practical “toolbox” for the proactive assessment and incorporation of IAVs in supply network operations.

Textual information about restaurants, such as online reviews and food categories, is essential for consumer purchase decisions. However, previous restaurant recommendation studies have failed to use textual information containing essential information for predicting consumer preferences effectively. This study aims to propose a novel restaurant recommendation model to effectively estimate the assessment behaviors of consumers for multiple restaurant attributes.

The authors collected 1,206,587 reviews from 25,369 consumers of 46,613 restaurants from Yelp.com. Using these data, the authors generated a consumer preference vector by combining consumer identity and online consumer reviews. Thereafter, the authors combined the restaurant identity and food categories to generate a restaurant information vector. Finally, the nonlinear interaction between the consumer preference and restaurant information vectors was learned by considering the restaurant attribute vector.

This study found that the proposed recommendation model exhibited excellent performance compared with state-of-the-art models, suggesting that combining various textual information on consumers and restaurants is a fundamental factor in determining consumer preference predictions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to develop a personalized restaurant recommendation model using textual information from real-world online restaurant platforms. This study also presents deep learning mechanisms that outperform the recommendation performance of state-of-the-art models. The results of this study can reduce the cost of exploring consumers and support effective purchasing decisions.

关于餐厅的文本信息, 如在线评论和食品分类, 对于消费者的购买决策产生至关重要。然而, 先前的餐厅推荐研究未能有效利这些文本信息去预测消费者喜好。本研究提出了一种新颖的餐厅推荐模型, 以有效估计消费者对多个餐厅属性的评估行为。

我们从 Yelp.com 收集了来自25,369名消费者对 46,613 家餐厅的 1,206,587 条评论。利用这些数据, 我们通过结合消费者身份和在线消费者评论生成了消费者偏好向量。然后, 我们结合了餐厅身份和食品分类来生成餐厅信息向量。最后, 考虑到餐厅属性向量, 本研究调查了消费者偏好和餐厅信息向量之间的非线性交互关系。

我们发现, 所提出的推荐模型相比于之前最先进的模型表现出更优秀的性能, 这表明结合消费者和餐厅的各种文本信息是预测消费者喜好的基本因素。

据我们所知, 这是第一项利用来自真实在线餐厅平台的文本信息开发个性化餐厅推荐模型的研究。本研究还提出了胜过最先进模型的深度学习机制。本研究的结果可以降低探索消费者行为的成本并支持有效的购买决策。