Journal of Operations Management最新文献

Does the speed of adopting environmental practices impact financial benefits? The strategy literature discusses the contingencies under which firms can gain an early-mover advantage or a late-mover advantage. This research examines the effect of adoption speed on two types of environmental practices: environmental innovation practices (EIP) and environmental management practices (EMP). The results show that early adoption of EIP increases competitive advantage when firms face intense competition. In comparison, we show that early adoption of EMP increases competitive advantage when firms face extremely low competition or have moderate to high levels of slack resources. The study contributes to the literature by revealing the nuances, contingencies, and boundary conditions of when it pays to be green. Prior research shows mixed results when studying firms' decisions to implement environmental practices, which implies that it may not pay to be green. This study shows that firms can get an early mover advantage from environmental practices, but it depends on the type of environmental practices, the firm's internal slack resources, and the firm's external competitive environment.

The use of preference or discriminatory auctions, where one class of bidders is offered favored treatment over another class, has received mixed attention in the literature. Research has shown there is often an economic benefit of such policies in procurement auctions thanks to lower costs for buyers as incentives are offered to disadvantaged sellers. In this paper, we study one type of preferential procurement auction: the subsidy. Using a set of controlled experiments, we compare actual bidder behavior to what is predicted in equilibrium and find consistent (but overly aggressive) patterns overall. By testing a common bid strategy assumption, we also identify a behavioral framing bias that may trap sellers in these suboptimal strategies. Finally, we compare subsidies to another common discriminatory mechanism—the price preference—and find evidence that buyers interested in increasing the welfare of disadvantaged sellers should use subsidies instead of price preference auctions, thanks to a surprising difference in outcomes between preference types. Due to the wide use of bid preference auctions to support both policy and social aims, our findings have both financial and societal implications.

This study examines how inventory slack at first- and second-tier suppliers influences buyer performance following an upstream disruption event. We analyze secondary data from buyer, first-tier, and second-tier triads impacted at their upper end by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. By matching buyers in affected triads with similar, largely unaffected firms, we assess post-event performance in relation to triad inventory slack. Results show: (a) inventory slack at the first and second tiers supports buyer performance after the disruption; (b) first-tier inventory slack has a greater impact; (c) buyers with less inventory slack can extract more value from their chains' inventories compared to those with more slack; and (d) first-tier suppliers occupy a pivotal role in bridging the second-tier inventories to the buyer. When competition for the first-tier intensifies, the benefits of having first- and second-tier inventory slack diminish for the buyer. A central contribution of this study is to highlight the importance of resources controlled by chain members with indirect links to the buyer and the bridging role of first-tier suppliers. These insights suggest that for effective risk management, both direct and indirect supply chain resources and their interactions need consideration. Practically, these findings should guide supplier selection, risk management, and investments in supply chain visibility.

We investigate how organizations embedded in a supply system collectively respond to risks and seize opportunities arising from crisis events under shifting forms of uncertainty. Using the United Kingdom (UK) medicine supply system as the research context, we explore how decision-makers navigated the effects of an event with knowable implications (UK's European Union exit, 2016–2020) followed by an event with unknowable implications (COVID-19 global pandemic, 2020–2021). We adopt a longitudinal case research design that incorporates causal loop diagramming, to understand the system's responses. We find that learning evolves as crisis events unfold, changing from surface (know-what) to deep (know-why and -how) and at the highest level, it is transcendent. Transcendent learning entails understanding system effects into the future (i.e., beyond the past and present) and in relation to other supply systems (i.e., beyond the UK system). Capabilities to absorb, avoid, and accelerate away from shocks are developed sequentially as learning changes. We contribute to prior research by developing a theory of system-level strategic agility and the adaptation processes that underpin it. The latter hinge on dynamic resource (re)allocation and the continuous (re)configuration of processes, protocols, regulations, and structures.

We investigate the impact of Typhoon Lekima, a source of environmental uncertainty, on delivery performance, utilizing data from RiRiShun Logistics. We apply a staggered difference-in-differences model across low-complexity and high-complexity supply chains. The analysis uncovers distinct dynamics throughout the typhoon's forecast, active, and recovery phases. Notably, the active phase experiences less disruption in delivery performance compared to the forecast phase, owing to RiRiShun's wait-and-see policy. This approach leads to order accumulation but subsequently enables more effective resource allocation. In the recovery phase, high-complexity supply chains demonstrate significant improvements, surpassing pre-disaster performance levels. The study further emphasizes the critical role of two response mechanisms in managing high-complexity supply chains. Increasing throughput efficiencies at destination centers and implementing transfer centers prove effective in enhancing delivery performance during both the forecast and active phases. However, the simultaneous application of these response mechanisms during the forecast phase unexpectedly reduces performance.

We focus on two of the many sources of uncertainty in healthcare operations, mix uncertainty – the variation in the complexity of care required by the patient mix, and volume uncertainty – the variation in the volume of care demanded by the patient population. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, we study the impact of mix and volume uncertainties on two important healthcare outcomes, length of stay and number of procedures, along with the mitigation impacts of the operational concepts of related focus and utilization levels. Based on large dataset of 830,853 patient discharges in 26 clinical departments across 731 hospitals in five U.S. Midwest states, our results indicate that mix and volume uncertainties each have a significant impact on patient care. We also find that related focus and department utilization levels have a mitigating effect on uncertainty in healthcare settings. Lastly, we find considerable heterogeneity in the effects of uncertainty across hospital types and departments. We discuss key research and managerial implications of our findings.

As the world becomes increasingly reliant on open-source software (OSS) development platforms, collaborative communication networks are becoming more complex, resulting in non-trivial effects on project performance. This study examines the impact of communication network characteristics on project performance, measured in terms of the number of issues closed within OSS projects. Additionally, this research examines how this project outcome is affected by project managers' active participation in these communication networks. Using a panel dataset of 1599 projects spanning 104 weeks, with a total of 120,243 observations, we find that the density of communication network has an inverted U-shaped relationship with project performance, that is, as the density of the communication network formed by team member interactions increases, project performance initially increases but then starts to decrease. Meanwhile, a project manager's participation in the communication network has no direct positive impact on project performance, but it flattens the inverted U-shaped relationship, that is, it reduces the rate of decrease in project performance after the density of the communication network formed by project team members crosses the inflection point. These results provide valuable insights into the dynamics of communication networks in OSS projects and can help develop strategies for improving project performance.

Brand retailers are increasingly offering product personalization to accommodate the requests of individual customers. While prior research has examined product personalization from a customer's or a manufacturer's perspective, this study focuses on product personalization from a brand retailer's perspective. Under product personalization, brand retailers that outsource production to upstream suppliers face two significant challenges: product returns from downstream customers, and personalization costs charged by upstream suppliers. Employing an analysis of transaction data from an online women's wedding dress firm, this study finds that as product requests increase (i.e., more product features must be modified), personalization costs increase, but the likelihood of product returns decreases. Additionally, as time requests increase (i.e., delivery is more urgent), the likelihood of product returns increases. Furthermore, relationship-specific process control exacerbates (i) the effect of product requests on personalization costs, and (ii) the effect of time requests on the likelihood of product returns. Finally, relationship-specific outcome control and transaction-specific control alleviate the impact of time requests on the likelihood of product returns while exacerbating the effect of product requests on personalization costs. The findings suggest that retailers can realize greater benefits from product personalization by selecting control mechanisms tailored to personalization requests.