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This paper recommends new criteria for selecting seaports of embarkation during military deployments. Most importantly, this research compares the current port selection criterion, which is to select the seaport with the shortest inland transport time from the deploying installation, to the proposed port selection criteria, which are to select the seaport based on the shortest combined inland and oceanic transit time to the destination theater.

The authors construct an original integer program to select seaports that minimize the expected delivery timeline for a set of notional, but realistic, deployment requirements. The integer program is solved considering the current as well as the proposed port selection criteria. The solutions are then compared using paired-samples t-tests to assess the statistical significance of the port selection criteria.

This work suggests that the current port selection criterion results in a 10–13% slower delivery of deploying forces as compared to the proposed port selection criteria.

This work assumes deterministic inland transit times, oceanic transit times, and seaport processing rates. Operational fluctuations in transit times and processing rates are not expected to change the findings from this research.

This research provides evidence that the current port selection criterion for selecting seaports for military units deploying from the Continental United States is suboptimal. More importantly, logistics planners could use these recommended port selection criteria to reduce the expected delivery timelines during military deployments.

Several military doctrinal references suggest that planners select seaports based on habitual installation-to-port pairings, especially for early deployers. This work recommends a change to the military's current port selection process based on empirical analyses that show improvements to deployment timelines.

This paper aims to introduce a new mixed integer programming formulation and associated heuristic algorithm to solve the Military Nodal Capacity Problem, which is a type of supply chain network design problem that involves determining the amount of capacity expansion required at theater nodes to ensure the on-time delivery of military cargo.

Supply chain network design, mixed integer programs, heuristics and regression are used in this paper.

This work helps analysts at the United States Transportation Command identify what levels of throughput capacities, such as daily processing rates of trucks and railcars, are needed at theater distribution nodes to meet warfighter cargo delivery requirements.

This research assumes all problem data are deterministic, and so it does not capture the variations in cargo requirements, transit times or asset payloads.

This work gives military analysts and decision makers prescriptive details about nodal capacities needed to meet demands. Prior to this work, insights for this type of problem were generated using multiple time-consuming simulations often involving trial-and-error to explore the trade space.

This work merges research of supply chain network design with military theater distribution problems to prescribe the optimal, or near-optimal, throughput capacities at theater nodes. The capacity levels must meet delivery requirements while adhering to constraints on the proportion of cargo transported by mode and the expected payloads for assets.

This paper aims to contribute to understandings of the dynamics of marketplace exclusion and explore the benefits of a performative approach to knowledge production.

Interactive documentary theatre is used to explore the pressing issue of marketplace exclusion in a deprived UK city. The authors present a series of three vignettes taken from the performance to explore the embodied and dialogical nature of performative knowledge production.

The performative mode of knowledge production has a series of advantages over the more traditional research approaches used in marketing. It is arguably more authentic, embodied and collaborative. However, this mode of research also has its challenges particularly in the interpretation and presentation of the data.

The paper highlights the implications of performative knowledge production for critical consumer learning. It also explores how the hitherto neglected concept of marketplace exclusion might bring together insights into the mechanics and outcomes of exclusion.

While theatrical and performative metaphors have been widely used to theorise interactions in the marketplace, as yet the possibility of using theatre as a form of inquiry within marketing has been largely neglected. Documentary theatre is revealing of the ways in which marketplace cultures can perpetuate social inequality. Involving local communities in the co-production of knowledge in this way gives them a voice in the policy arena not hitherto fully addressed in the marketing field. Similarly, marketplace exclusion as a concept has been sidelined in favour of marketplace discrimination and consumer vulnerability – the authors think it has the potential to bring these fields together in exploring the range of dynamics involved.

This study aims to examine ship loading strategies during large-scale military deployments. Ships are usually loaded to a stowage goal of about 65% of the ship's capacity. The authors identify how much cargo to load onto ships for each sailing and propose lower stowage goals that could improve the delivery of forces during the deployment.

The authors construct several mixed integer programs to identify optimal ship loading strategies that minimize delivery timelines for notional, but realistic, problem variables. The authors study the relative importance of these variables using experimental designs, regressions, correlations and chi-square tests of the empirical results.

The research specifies the conditions during which ships should be light loaded, i.e. loaded to less than 65% of total capacity. Empirical results show cargo delivered up to 16% faster with a light-loaded strategy compared to fully loaded ships.

This work assumes deterministic sailing times and ship loading times. Also, all timing aspects of the problem are estimated to the nearest natural number of days.

This research provides important new insights about optimal ship loading strategies, which were not previously quantified. More importantly, logistics planners could use these insights to reduce sealift delivery timelines during military deployments.

Most ship routing and scheduling problems minimize costs as the primary goal. This research identifies the situations in which ships transporting military forces should be light loaded, thereby trading efficiency for effectiveness, to enable faster overall delivery of unit equipment to theater seaports.

This paper introduces a new heuristic algorithm that aims to solve the military route vulnerability problem, which involves assessing the vulnerability of military cargo flowing over roads and railways subject to enemy interdiction.

Graph theory, a heuristic and a binary integer program are used in this paper.

This work allows transportation analysts at the United States Transportation Command to identify a relatively small number of roads or railways that, if interdicted by an enemy, could disrupt the flow of military cargo within any theater of operation.

This research does not capture aspects of time, such as the reality that cargo requirements and enemy threats may fluctuate each day of the contingency.

This work provides military logistics planners and decision-makers with a vulnerability assessment of theater distribution routes, including insights into which specific roads and railways may require protection to ensure the successful delivery of cargo from ports of debarkation to final destinations.

This work merges network connectivity and flow characteristics with enemy threat assessments to identify militarily-useful roads and railways most vulnerable to enemy interdictions. A geographic combatant command recently used this specific research approach to support their request for rapid rail repair capability.

This paper aims to inform the discussion on why and how non-profit organizations can experience a hybridization process to address the criticism that would assume hybridity as an intrinsic characteristic of all organizations. Specifically, by referring to the academies of intellectuals as the non-profit setting in which investigating the emergence of hybridity takes place, this paper aims at exploring, first, to what extent this emergence could be induced by institutional conditions, and, second, which structural innovations could sustain the academies’ “motion” towards hybridity.

This paper relies on the institutional logics perspective and adopts the case study method applied to a historical context. The case under analysis is the Academy of “the Immobili”, which, in spite of its name, experienced a hybridization process in 1720 because of the decision to involve an impresario in the management of its theatre.

The findings highlight the significant role played by institutional conditions in inducing the emergence of hybridity, even in presence of internal resistance to any “motion” from the non-profit setting. Moreover, the analysis of the innovations associated with this emergence detects the intertwined action of the different decision makers involved in the hybridization process, in spite of their formal separation. These findings strengthen the conceptualization of hybridity within non-profit organizations.

Besides referring to a historical period that is still little explored in terms of hybridity within organizations, the paper focuses on an original context, i.e. academies, representing an ancient typology of cultural organizations. Therefore, the paper also provides the first insights into the hybridization process of cultural organizations from a historical perspective.

Katipuneros RPG: Bisperas ng Himagsikan (Katipuneros RPG: The Eve of the Revolution) is an immersive and gamified theater that engages its “audiences” in the initiation rites of a secret revolutionary movement in the Philippines in 1896. This descriptive qualitative research evaluates such experiential approach to learning history by investigating the experiences and insights of a group of students from the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), who participated in Katipuneros RPG.

Textual data obtained from the participants' reflection papers and focus group discussion transcripts were analyzed using open and axial coding.

Three key themes summarized the participants' learning experiences as they went through the play, as follows: (1) Katipuneros RPG as an immersive, interactive and intrinsically motivating medium for learning history; (2) the knowledge, values and skills that served as facilitating factors for their learning and (3) the insights the participants gained about history and life in general.

The research argues that in Katipuneros RPG, learners take on a more active role in studying history as the “teacher” vanishes in lieu of a learning system the allows students to think critically, reflect and collaborate. The approach integrates elements of development theater, immersive play and gamified learning, as well as the principles of constructivist, play-based and multi-sensorial learning.

As an innovative learning tool, it is a viable medium to teach history in the current socio-political context of the Philippines.

The study hopes to contribute to literature on pedagogical approaches for teaching and learning history through immersive environments.