Planning and scheduling transportation operations is considered computationally hard and time demanding. We consider a complex network of interconnected links across a set of locations and a set of vehicle movements on these links to fulfil some traffic demands. In such a set-up, basically two types of computational solutions are sought: one is a decision making, if a link (and/or a vehicle) is to be included in a route and second, is computation of a specific time duration during which a link and a vehicle are allocated to fulfil a traffic demand. Such planning efforts are undertaken at a strategic level. At the operational level, the planned schedules are executed. For any unforeseen reasons, if a planned schedule gets disrupted, while en-route, the entire planning efforts turn futile. The situation turns an emergency, as the available time to restore the original schedule is very small and it also knocks down other transport schedules that follow. Using an available approach to reschedule disrupted transportation services, we developed a learning architecture that is capable of learning and creating a knowledge base from the solved instances of disruption resolution. When a new disruption happens, the learner deduces the applicability of any solved instances in the knowledge base to quickly resolve the disruption. If not, the disruption is resolved completely and the resolution is added to the existing knowledge base. The combined abilities of the agents based architecture include monitoring, identification, deduction, decision making, and resolution execution, by learning, storing solution seeds and facilitating quick resolutions. The architecture and the application were developed using JADE Giovanni et al. (2007) toolkit on Ubuntu OS; we verified the deployability of the system on a Windows machine. The agent architecture and empirical results are presented in this paper. Our proposed architecture is faster than traditional methods and novel as an evidence of agent capabilities in solving real-life complex problems and safety-critical domains. © 2018 IEEE.

This paper examines the determinants and impacts of the adoption of five mutually exclusive practices System of Rice Intensification (SRI) on yields and household incomes using a multinomial endogenous treatment effects model. Farm household survey data is collected from selected districts of three States of India. Results suggest that the decision to adopt SRI is a function of experience in terms of age, farm assets, irrigation facility and information about SRI. The analysis showed that small and marginal farmers are more likely to adopt SRI as compared to large farmers. The National Food Security Mission (NFSM) came out to be significant and positive only in the case of few practices in some States. The welfare outcome results showed that the adoption increased the yield and income of three out of four practices-plant plus water, plant plus soil and plant plus water plus soil management. Briefly, the results show that the adoption of SRI especially full adoption of SRI has greater impact on the yield and income. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

While there is much emphasis on authentic green practices, there is rising concern about the common practice of "greenwashing" or unsubstantiated claims about good environmental policies. Consequently, tourism businesses need to provide tangible evidences to create trust in their green claims. This paper, building on a sequential mixed method approach of data collection, proposes a potential green service encounter (GSE) framework by which hotel management can reassure customers and secure long-term patronage. Moderating role to two key contextual variables, travel purpose and environmental values of travelers, is investigated. Practical implications indicate that hotels should offer guests opportunities for enhanced involvement in GSE that help build consumer trust. The trust building process is dependent on a traveler's environmental values but independent of trip purpose. The GSE framework conceptualization included interviews with 25 green hotel guests and a panel of experts while empirical validation involved a sample of over 500 respondents.

While there is much emphasis on authentic green practices, there is rising concern about the common practice of ''greenwashing'' or unsubstantiated claims about good environmental policies. Consequently, tourism businesses need to provide tangible evidences to create trust in their green claims. This paper, building on a sequential mixed method approach of data collection, proposes a potential green service encounter (GSE) framework by which hotel management can reassure customers and secure long-term patronage. Moderating role to two key contextual variables, travel purpose and environmental values of travelers, is investigated. Practical implications indicate that hotels should offer guests opportunities for enhanced involvement in GSE that help build consumer trust. The trust building process is dependent on a traveler's environmental values but independent of trip purpose. The GSE framework conceptualization included interviews with 25 green hotel guests and a panel of experts while empirical validation involved a sample of over 500 respondents.

We study bidding by anchor investors in a two-stage initial public offering (IPO) process and document a negative, causal relation between allocation to anchor investors and underpricing. We find that anchor investors are likely to invest in hard-to-place offerings characterized by valuation uncertainty. We also document a positive relation between allocation to reputed anchor investors and returns up to lock-up expiration. Our evidence provides support for information revelation and targeting specific investors’ theories of book building. Anchor-backed IPOs earn superior returns mainly due to monitoring. Who bids in an IPO seems to matter just as particular types of bids do. © 2018 Financial Management Association International

Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS2) can provide insights to enhance the environmental sustainability and lower environmental impact. However, its successful realisation for preventing the production of waste, while increasing efficiencies in the uses of energy and human capital remains a highly convoluted problem. This research article aims to address this issue by presenting an innovative uncertainty-based framework that can be used to assist in achieving increased sustainability within the context of IPS2. The developed framework explains the drivers for decision-making and cost to enable sustainability improvements in transforming to industrial services. This is based on academic literature, and multiple case studies of seven industrial companies with over 30 h of semi-structured interviews. The validation of the framework through two case studies demonstrates that uncertainty management can enable resource efficiency and offer sustainable transformation to service provision. © 2018 The Authors

Order release policies such as a card-controlled CONWIP policy aim to improve system responsiveness and minimize system-wide inventory levels. It is not clear if order release policies (without card control) can be equally effective under certain settings of the production system design parameters. In this research, we study the performance of alternate order release (material control policies) such as CONWIP and scheduled start time policy under a variety of design parameter settings such as number of stations, station service time characteristics, availability of raw material, and the location of the bottleneck station using queuing network models. Using an exhaustive numerical study, we observe that throughput times in CONWIP systems are about 2–50% less compared to open control systems; however, for a balanced system, the Deterministic scheduled start time policy performs equally well for a large set of production system designs. We further identify that the number of stations and the location of the bottleneck station affect the choice of the order release policy. Additionally, we also analyze the system for a variety of demand inter-arrival times and check its effect on the expected number of backlogs and system-wide expected waiting times. © 2018

In this paper, we explore a popular flexible work arrangement (FWA), home-based telework, in the Indian IT industry. We show how IT managers used the dominant meanings of telework to portray telework as an employee benefit that outweighed the attendant cost—intensified work. While using their discretion to grant telework, the managers drew on this portrayal to orchestrate a negotiated exchange with their subordinates. Consequently, the employees consented to accomplish the intensified work at home in exchange of telework despite their opposition to the intensified work in the office. Thus, whereas the extant studies consider work intensification as an unanticipated outcome of using FWAs, we show how firms may use FWAs strategically to get office-based intensified work accomplished at home. While the dominant argument is that employees reciprocate the opportunity to telework with intensified work, we show a discursively orchestrated negotiation that favors management. A corrective policy measure is to frame telework as an employee right. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

In this paper, we explore a popular flexible work arrangement (FWA), home-based telework, in the Indian IT industry. We show how IT managers used the dominant meanings of telework to portray telework as an employee benefit that outweighed the attendant cost—intensified work. While using their discretion to grant telework, the managers drew on this portrayal to orchestrate a negotiated exchange with their subordinates. Consequently, the employees consented to accomplish the intensified work at home in exchange of telework despite their opposition to the intensified work in the office. Thus, whereas the extant studies consider work intensification as an unanticipated outcome of using FWAs, we show how firms may use FWAs strategically to get office-based intensified work accomplished at home. While the dominant argument is that employees reciprocate the opportunity to telework with intensified work, we show a discursively orchestrated negotiation that favors management. A corrective policy measure is to frame telework as an employee right. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Big Data Analytics is an important and flexible tool available for data analysis and informed decision making. In this paper, we look at the use of Big Data Analytics in asset liability management and asset allocation in uncertain economic situations using stochastic linear programming (SLP). In particular, this paper is an extension of our earlier work and we contribute to the existing literature by conducting experiments on the stochastic model through DSS. In particular, for this SLP based DSS, we address issues like the optimal number of scenarios required for good results, and the impact of the change in the number of scenarios on the stability of the model. The paper also addresses the impact of the change in the number of scenarios on the policy holders’ as well as shareholders’ reserves. In particular, we show the relevance of employing a larger number of scenarios and also present the experimental design developed to test the relevance of this model. We also show that a stochastic model employing fewer scenarios produced marked improvements in both return side measures as well as risk side measures compared to a mean value model or a partial mean value model. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

Although the behavioral theory of the firm posits that performance shortfalls trigger problemistic search, the actual performance consequences of problemistic search remain an open question. We argue that certain cognitive, affective, and behavioral mechanisms triggered by performance shortfalls make managers more aware, attentive, motivated, and disciplined, resulting in adaptation, learning, and enhanced firm value. Furthermore, differences in the extent to which managers feel pressured to adapt, and have the ability to adapt, can shape managerial awareness, motivation, and capability, and hence firm value. Our empirical analysis, using data for a sample of US manufacturing firms (1994–2013), confirms that problemistic search enhances firm value, and this association is strengthened when firms face greater pressure to adapt or have a greater ability to adapt. © 2019 Elsevier Inc.

Natural disasters like cyclones are a common phenomenon in India, especially in coastal regions. During disaster, victims of a village/ locality normally take shelters in groups in some nearby safe areas (for example, Multi Purpose Cyclone Shelters). Despite of having access to physical infrastructure with basic facilities, disaster victims at cyclone shelters often find it difficult to communicate their exact situational information (like, resource needs and damage information) directly to the local/central authorities. Due to lack of coordination among relief workers and the remote central office, conflicting demands are often generated, causing mismanagement and delay in relief operation. This paper proposes innovative usage of social technology to build resilient community, a mandatory prerequisite to enhance disaster preparedness and coping up mechanisms among collectives inhabited in vulnerable areas. This paper presents an architecture of a Knowledge Informatics Hubs using social technologies at local multipurpose cyclone shelters (MPCS) in coastal areas that will empower the local community members to interact and collaborate with each other, establish communication with various supporting agencies during disaster, establish links with experts and participate in local governance. The aim of creating such a hub would be to create digitally empowered resilient communities who are not only prepared to prevent or minimize the risk of damage to life, property, and the environment due to disaster, but also have the ability to quickly reinstate their normal life and livelihood after a crisis, reopen businesses, and restore other essential services needed for the full economic recovery. © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.

A randomization-based theory of causal inference from strip-plot designs is developed. For any treatment contrast, we propose an unbiased estimator, work out its sampling variance, and obtain a conservative variance estimator which is shown to enjoy a minimaxity property. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

This paper investigates country-of-origin (CO) effects as they relate to celebrity endorsements. Across multiple studies in emerging markets, the authors show that consumers’ evaluations depend on the match between (1) celebrity CO and consumer CO (termed consumer CO fit), and (2) celebrity CO and brand CO (termed brand CO fit). If there is a trade-off between consumer CO fit and brand CO fit, the authors identify contingencies (e.g., ethnocentrism levels) that determine which type of CO fit leads to higher evaluations. Furthermore, the authors develop prescriptions for segmentation in emerging markets and specify when these prescriptions differ from those prescribed by prior international business research. © 2019, Academy of International Business.

In this paper we demonstrate that options contract coordinates single supplier - multiple buyer supply chain network and can eliminate channel conflict stemming from simultaneous price and inventory competition. We show that a pure strategy unique Nash equilibrium exists for buyers’ game and the supplier is able to coordinate the entire supply chain. Our analysis further indicates that options contract provides the supplier with better flexibility in terms of profit allocation compared to buyback contract. We identify a key limitation of this contract: it can coordinate a supply chain only with a limited number of buyers. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

This article studies the competitive dynamics between an incumbent and a late entrant in a market governed by network effects. Classifying markets based on decision criterion used by majority of consumers in a market, an analytical model for the likelihood of incumbent displacement in these markets is developed and corroborated using simulations. Using product quality offered and product price charged by the entrant as managerial levers, the impact of managerial decision-making on the expected market share of the entrant is discussed. Efficacy of seeding and delayed entry by the entrant in an attempt to perfect its product is also examined. © The Author(s) 2019.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the fact that investors in the Asian region are shifting their investments from one country to another, in this case, from India to Dubai, in the real estate and infrastructure industry. While countries compete to get investments, competing “values” at the workplace may also influence in attracting the investments. This paper makes use of competing values framework (CVF) to understand this phenomenon and to provide research evidence about differences in workplace cultures in India and Dubai. It is proposed that differences in workplace cultures, besides other non-cultural factors, may influence this phenomenon of shifting of investments between the two countries. Design/methodology/approach: It is an inductive study to investigate why investors are shifting investments from India to Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure industry. This paper further explores literature to support our claim that workplace cultural differences may be responsible for the shifting investments. Next, this paper identifies the instrument called organizational culture assessment instrument using CVF to collect data and plot the cultural profiles at the two country sites. Findings: The findings suggest that workplace cultures in the two country locations are different and could be a reason for Indians to shift their investments to Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure sector. There are both cultural and non-cultural factors, which are responsible for the shift in global investments. Research limitations/implications: The study has several research implications. It highlights the possibility of a shift in global investments because of cultural and non-cultural differences at the workplace. Specifically, it provides evidence that workplace cultures are different in the two countries and could play a role in the competitiveness of firm and countries. This finding has implications for research in the fields of both strategy and international business.However, this is a preliminary study to explore a recent phenomenon and uses data from only one organization in two countries. Therefore, this paper accepts this as a limitation; however, it creates a potential for further exploration in many directions for future research. Practical implications: Managers in multinational firms have to deal with subsidiaries in different countries with different cultures. While culture is not traditionally considered an important factor, the study highlights that it may have far-reaching influences on financial decisions. Therefore, managers need to understand cultures and create strategies to deal with diverse cultures. Originality/value: It is perhaps the first attempt to investigate the workplace culture across India and Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure industry through empirical evidence. Further, in the context of shifting global investments across the two countries, it highlights the importance of workplace cultures towards economic and financial implications for countries in the Asian subcontinent. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Urbanization is globally rampant; in developing countries such as India, it is driven in a phenomenal pace by an aspiring, young society and ambitious state policies to achieve a competitive space in global economy. “Smart cities” is a new-age term coined specifically to control, monitor, measure, and evaluate our urban growth, in a way to understand how conducive are our cities for running businesses. Global borders are diminishing, and world-wide economies compete on multiple dimensions in a level playing field to participate and prosper in global markets. Cities are centers of economic activities, and the economic growth of a country largely depends on safe and supportive cities. Therefore, the need for smart cities is not difficult to establish. The more difficult questions are, “do we really know what a smart city is?” or “what are the elements that go into making an existing city smart?” Such questions are pertinent and timely. This paper attempts to answer these questions in a descriptive manner based on theoretical and empirical observations. We adopt an integrative approach of design conceptualization, policy building, and framework development, substantiated using an Indian city, namely, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh State as an illustrative case. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The evaluation of the alternatives against multiple criteria is of the utmost importance in a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. It is often the case that the experts have a varying degree of confidence in their evaluations. That is, an evaluation has an associated degree of credibility. To take into account this crucial piece of information in determining the best choice, we present a new data structure. More specifically, we present a confidence-based soft set. We also extend the same to the fuzzy and intuitionistic fuzzy domains. The proposed concepts are elucidated through a number of illustrative examples. We establish their usefulness in a real case-study. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

Since its discovery in 1989, there has been extensive research on endothelin (ET)-1 physiology, as well as pathology. Accordingly, there is considerable research on the discovery of therapeutics based around ET-1, amongst which current treatment options include endothelin receptor antagonists. These target the ET-1 receptors, which are G-protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs). We have effectively developed a soluble form of a GPCR that binds to ligands, by constructing a fusion polypeptide of different endothelin receptor ligand binding domains. Phage experiments identified strong binders to ET-1. We then constructed Fc-fusions of the top binders and further binding assays revealed a K D of 21.2 nM for the Fc-ETtr1 construct and K D of 77.3 nM for the Fc-ETtr2 construct. These constructs are soluble and have the ability to bind and potentially sequester elevated ET-1 levels that are prevalent in different diseases. These results provide a novel approach to targeting GPCR–binding ligands, and thereby to contribute to a very important class of therapeutics. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.