Abstract We develop a two‐part study that first performs a methods‐only replication of Brooks, Shaheen, and Dobrzykowski's study of trauma in humanitarian operations and then extends the model to investigate secondary trauma. Using data from 442 volunteer humanitarian workers collected through a scenario‐based vignette experiment, we replicate the original experimental design with a new, substantively important population. Additionally, the methods‐only replication reconsiders the relationship between trauma exposure and volunteer behaviors. Yet, the replication results reaffirm several key relationships observed among professional relief workers, including the negative effects of trauma exposure on cooperative disposition and internal integration and the moderating role of supervisor support. However, we find that trauma significantly reduces organizational commitment among volunteers; a relationship not observed in the original professional sample, highlighting important contextual differences in how trauma affects workers with less formal organizational attachment. In the second part of the study, we extend the model by introducing secondary trauma, a critical factor for a new volunteer sample. Our results show that secondary trauma operates differently from primary trauma and provides additional explanatory power in understanding behavioral responses in volunteer humanitarian settings. Together, these findings strengthen the robustness of prior theory while expanding it to account for volunteer contexts and indirect trauma exposure. The study contributes to replication research in operations and humanitarian management by demonstrating how trauma mechanisms generalize and where they diverge across organizational roles, offering implications for the management and support of volunteer workforces in disaster response.
Abstract Fairness breeds long‐term partnerships in supply chains, yet stakeholders may differ in their perceptions of fair profit allocation. This study examines how fairness preferences, categorized as generosity and spite, affect ordering decisions and profit allocation between one supplier and two competing retailers. Supported by our exploratory survey confirming that firms actively monitor their relative profit shares in routine operations, our analytical results reveal that the impacts of fairness on supply chains differ in different power structures. Under supplier‐led scenarios, supplier spite harms all parties, whereas supplier generosity benefits both retailers and the overall supply chain. Importantly, while supplier generosity can lead to win–win outcomes if matched by retailer generosity, lose–lose situations are more common, especially when suppliers act spitefully. Therefore, influential suppliers should spearhead efforts to cultivate a productive environment, due to their central role in supply chains. In retailer‐led settings, however, retailer fairness preferences do not influence equilibrium outcomes, as retailers can directly control outcomes via procurement decisions. While supplier generosity still benefits the overall supply chain, it precludes the potential for win–win outcomes, leading to situations where only the supplier suffers. That is, suppliers in retailer‐led contexts should secure their positions rather than feel pressured to always display generosity. Lastly, we examine asymmetric retailer behavior and perception biases regarding fair profit shares. Moderate generosity by one retailer can ease competition and benefit supply chains, while perception biases may trigger shifts for others. These findings explain how fairness preferences and downstream competition reshape supply chain partnerships and outcomes.
Abstract Prior research highlights tolerance for failure (TFF) at individual or team level, yet how firm‐level TFF shapes exploratory versus exploitative innovation remains underdeveloped. We conceptualize TFF as a stable organizational cultural norm and operationalize it via a firm's governance responses to executive underperformance, specifically, the absence of CEO dismissal or pay cuts following poor financial results. Drawing on organizational control theory, we argue that TFF influences innovation trajectories through intertwined control dynamics and resource allocation. We further examine the moderating roles of two external control forces: qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) and government subsidies. Using a novel firm‐level TFF measure, we find that TFF promotes exploratory innovation while constraining exploitative innovation. Government subsidies mitigate TFF's detrimental effect on exploitation but do not moderate the TFF‐exploration relationship. For firms with heavy QFII holdings, QFIIs attenuate TFF's positive effect on exploration and weaken TFF's negative effect on exploitation. This study advances innovation literature by integrating a refined TFF construct with organizational control theory, clarifying the contingent impacts of failure tolerance on innovation and offering actionable insights for balancing risk‐taking and accountability in R&D management.
Abstract Digital twins are essential for any firm on its digital transformation journey. This article introduces the concept of digital twins to the readers of the Decision Sciences journal and provides a review of their benefits, foundational elements, and enabling technologies. We examine the literature on digital twin applications, including their use in manufacturing and supply chain management. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges involved in implementing digital twins and identifies future research opportunities. We expect this article to inspire the Decision Sciences community to engage with and contribute to the growing body of research on digital twins and their applications.
Abstract The world generates substantial waste that could serve as feedstock, but often inefficiencies in waste exchange arise, caused by a lack of coordination among companies. When trading waste reuse, negotiators must manage the trade‐offs between supply chain, personal, and environmental outcomes. Unlike studies focusing on monetary incentives (e.g., taxation, subsidies), we aim to identify how nudge techniques impact negotiation agreements in waste supply chains. We specifically study the effect of various (negative environmental and cost‐adding economic) frames and (collective‐level and individual‐level) social norms on agreement rates. We analyze supply chain coordination in a set of stylized bargaining experiments characterized by moderately conflicting environmental and economic interests. We design different treatments in two studies, varying the environmental and economic frames in Study 1, and the presence of social norms (derived from Study 1's decisions) in Study 2. We find that framing environmental externalities using a damage frame results in higher agreement rates compared to a help frame. However, a low individual‐level norm indicating low acceptance of unfair offers tends to reduce agreement rates. We reveal that framing and social norms affect collaboration by triggering both proposers and receivers' loss aversion in both economic and environmental dimensions. Additionally, we have discovered the effective boundary conditions for the effectiveness of the nudge effects, as well as the impact of decision‐makers' internal motivations (environmental concern, social value orientation) on the coordination decisions. Our findings can guide policy makers to improve inter‐firm collaboration in the presence of negative environmental externalities by using frames to nudge supply chain partners.
