Journal of Management Science and Engineering最新文献

A clear understanding of customer needs is key to the success of new product development and customer-centric product design. Online reviews, particularly initial reviews, are commonly used as effective sources for mining customer requirements. Although customers may post truer and more objective supplementary reviews after a period of product use, such reviews are often overlooked when identifying customer requirements for product design improvement. In this study, we proposed a framework for identifying customer requirements by combining initial and supplementary reviews based on text mining. We categorized the identified customer needs into five product attribute categories using the Kano model. Two case studies were conducted in the laptop and cell phone industries to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Thus, dynamic customer requirements and satisfaction can be accurately mined and captured when considering supplementary reviews. In practice, the appropriate use of supplementary reviews may provide valuable guidance for product design and development strategies.

Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is a typical pollutant that affects human health, climate, and environmental and ecological conditions. China has been experiencing high concentrations of SO₂, particularly in urban areas, since the 1990s. In 2010, a “joint prevention and control” (JPC) policy was issued to address air pollution problems and strengthen the regulation of SO₂ emissions. This study aimed to describe the mitigation effects of this policy on SO₂ emissions in 116 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2017. We applied global and local Moran's I indices to confirm the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation in SO₂ emissions and constructed four spatial models to assess the effect of the JPC policy in reducing SO₂ emissions and its transmission mechanism. We found that the policy decreased SO₂ emissions by 1.89 × 10⁴ tons, SO₂ intensity by 1.70 tons per km², and SO₂ per capita of 158.49 tons per 10,000 people in each city, on average, all of which are significant changes. The empirical results also show that population growth, economic structure, and environmental protection significantly decrease SO₂ emissions. Finally, we recommended policies to encourage regional cooperation under the JPC policy, with the aim of promoting further reductions in SO₂ emissions.

Monetary incentives underlie academic publications, especially in countries where many researchers' incomes are performance-based. Evidence has documented that social ties improve the chances of publication in journals, whereas building and maintaining social ties require resources. We develop a simple model to investigate the consequences of monetary investment on the probability of publication through social ties. The results indicate that monetary incentive can stimulate researchers to make more efforts regarding publication. Through social ties, monetary investment in the process of academic publication distorts researchers' incentive. Monetary investment through social ties improves the probability of publication and then disables the signaling function of publication in terms of researchers’ abilities. Depending on the contribution of different types of researchers to society and the ability of the latter to differentiate the quality of publication in journals, the improvement in publication probability by monetary investment through social ties may improve or reduce the level of social welfare.

This study proposes a novel and more efficient quantum algorithm for portfolio optimization using quantum combinatorial optimization (QCO) techniques. A recent construction developed in 2021 has sparked the field of financial portfolio optimization through the Quantum Walk Optimization Algorithm (QWOA). In this study, we investigated the complexity and efficiency of quantum optimization algorithms with a special interest in QWOA. The objective is to minimize investment risk by having a good combination of assets in the portfolio. We also focused on reducing the number of iterations while attaining a high-quality resolution through contraction of the solution space to ease computations. The concept of QWOA was extended by constructing a newly outperforming scheme known as the “Quantum Mix Optimization Algorithm (QMOA).” QMOA algorithm codes were provided for the implementation and simulation of numerical results. In addition, the efficiency of QMOA, which is better than the existing QCO algorithms, was discussed. For instance, the least QWOA number of computations required to execute the initial state equation was p > 2, whereas this value was p ≥ 2 in the proposed QMOA.

Hazmat transportation in cities faces significant risks that may cause catastrophic losses to humans. From the perspective of the regulator, the main responsibility is to mitigate hazmat transport risk by determining the availability of road networks to hazmat carriers. Based on the time-variant population distribution, the hazmat transport risk was assessed via the total population exposure associated with the resident and variable populations at different times. We propose a risk-minimizing urban hazmat road network design model for multiple types of hazmats, considering time-varying traffic. The model was applied to a realistic case study of hazmat transportation in a densely populated urban area with complex traffic in Shanghai, China.

Comparison effects have been studied extensively in many fields. In particular, existing operations management articles have discussed the impact of comparison effects on enterprises' production and pricing decisions. Research has also shown that consumers' purchasing decisions are primarily determined by three factors: product quality, selling price, and comparison effects. The current study introduces the concepts of social and temporal comparison effects to examine how comparison effects influence a monopolist’s production quality and pricing strategy for substitutable products. Results reveal the following: (1) Setting different prices for even two types of substitutable products with negligible quality differences can divide customers into three groups under the influence of social comparison effects in a single-stage model. (2) The monopolist should avoid using a price discrimination strategy in which products with a short market life cycle have the same quality but different prices. (3) When the market life cycle of products is sufficiently long in the single-product market and the market with two substitutable products, the monopolist’s optimal choice in the second stage is to keep production quality constant and increase the selling price. Consequently, the number of buyers does not decrease because of temporal comparison effects. Therefore, the firm increases its revenue. (4) For the market with two substitutable products with quality differences, one approximate optimal strategy for the enterprise in the second stage is to keep the selling price constant with the assumption that product quality cannot be adjusted after the first period. At this point, the consumption situation in the market is the same as that in the first stage. Therefore, when no external constraints exist, the monopolist firm can obtain more benefits in the second stage than in the first stage by exploiting the temporal comparison effects of consumers in the second stage. (5) When consumer identity information can be confirmed in the market, social comparison effects, similar to temporal comparison effects, could help the enterprise increase its price and profit while maintaining product quality. These social and temporal comparison effects constrain consumers. Thus, the number of people who continue to buy products does not decrease.

Urban development thrives from technology inflows, which refers to the transfer of high-value technology from various cities to local recipients. The asymmetry of technical information—rooted in the tacit knowledge inherent in technology—mandates that technology transfer is heavily dependent on interactions and communication among talented individuals. This study examines the effect of China's high-speed railway (HSR) on technology inflow, with an emphasis on talent interaction in the technology transfer process. The findings suggest that HSR mitigates cross-city commuting costs and facilitates face-to-face interactions between talent, thereby fostering an increase in technology inflows to various cities. “Talent” use HSR to transfer knowledge to cities teeming with such talent resources. Concurrently, areas with robust intellectual property rights protection witness an upsurge in intercity technology transfer via HSR. This study elucidates the macro-mechanism of urban technology flow from the perspective of public transportation offering valuable insights for technology market infrastructure and services.

We consider a general framework of optimal contract design under the heterogeneity and short-termism of agents. Our research shows that the optimal contract must weigh the agent's information rent, incentive cost, and benefit to overcome the contract's adverse selection and moral hazards. Agents with higher moral levels were more likely to choose higher effort and lower manipulation. Simultaneously, the principal offers lower incentives and receives more significant payoff. We also extend our model to investigate the benefits of Bayesian learning. Furthermore, we compare the principal's returns in general and learning models and find that the learning contract can bring more profit to the principal.