This paper evaluates the efficacy of LP-based working subsets for generalised set-covering formulations of personnel scheduling problems and presents a nearest-neighbour augmentation procedure for improving performance. Three experimental studies were completed in the evaluation process. In the first study, the LP-based working subset was sufficient to yield an optimal shift scheduling solution for 85% of the 24,300 test problems and the nearest-neighbour augmentation improved the percentage of optimal solutions to over 98%. The second study focused on more complex cyclic shift scheduling environments that permitted shift length, meal break and relief break flexibility. The adequacy of LP-based working subsets was supported by the provision of optimal shift scheduling solutions for 185 of 189 (98%) of the test problems. The third study examined a challenging tour scheduling environment for which globally-optimal benchmarks are not available. The superiority of the augmented LP-based working subset procedure was nevertheless evident, as it yielded better results than the (non-augmented) LP-based working subset for 92% of the test problems despite being constrained to only 40% of the allowed computation time for the non-augmented subsets. [Received 24 April 2017; Revised 25 August 2017; Revised 17 September 2017; Accepted 6 December 2017]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand the main effects of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm and the interaction effect of these two factors on contract adjustment decisions in buyer-supplier relationships. Design/methodology/approach – Two scenario-based experiments with college students and business professionals were conducted. Three regression models were run to test three hypotheses proposed in the paper. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of this study are the use of single-agent decision scenarios and the specific focus on one aspect of agent personality – i.e. conscientiousness and its collective influence on contract adjustment decisions. In a broader picture, the results of this study support the cross-level analytical approach to investigating marketing channel relationships, in which individual-level and organizational-level factors interact and determine decision outcomes in business exchanges. Practical implications – Recruiting and promoting managers who exhibit high levels of conscientiousness, coupled with proactively cultivating the norm of reciprocity with suppliers, are critical to a firm's thrust in attaining and sustaining marketing channel management practices with the emphasis on reciprocity-based exchange relationships. Originality/value – While the extant literature focuses largely on interfirm governance and contract enforcement, this study examines what actually influences decision-making agents' contract adjustment decisions. This study expands the marketing literature by investigating the impacts of agent conscientiousness and reciprocity norm on contract adjustment decisions.

Stakeholder management has become increasingly important to business viability in today's competitive landscape where organizations operate as open systems interacting with various stakeholders. Rooted in its normative approach, stakeholder theory (e.g., Freeman, 1984; Evan and Freeman, 1988) prescribes that a business firm is responsible for the well-being of its such as customers, suppliers, employees, investors, and communities who are identified by their interests in the business; thus, the firm ought to be managed in the interests of its stakeholders (Freeman, 1994:417). Freeman (1984) also proposed a stakeholder approach to strategic management, paving ways for the instrumental perspective of stakeholder theory, the research focus of which is on the performance-enhancing mechanism of stakeholder management and competitive advantage that firms can derive from managing stakeholder relationships. Stakeholder-based competitive advantage is based on the fundamental logic of the resource-based view (RBV), postulating that effectively managing relationships with primary stakeholders, such as customers, employees, suppliers and communities, can result in valuable, socially complex resources that are difficult to imitate and can enhance firms' value creation and their ability to outperform competitors (Galbreath, 2006; Hillman and Keim, 2001). Normative and instrumental approaches differ substantially in their approaches to stakeholder theory and firm performance. The normative approach focuses on philosophical and normative inquiries in which empirical pursuits are not emphasized. In contrast, the instrumental approach focuses on theoretical and empirical endeavors in investigating stakeholder management (Donaldson, 2003). Nonetheless, both approaches yield a common prescriptive thrust that managers should manage their business in the interest of primary such as employees, customers, and suppliers who can affect or are affected by the firm. This prescriptive suggestion leads to some pragmatic questions including: (1) whether practicing managers or decision-making agents in business firms would universally embrace such stakeholder prescription; (2) if the stakeholder prescription is not universal in nature, under which conditions the decisionmaking agents would be more likely to embrace the prescription; and (3) whether stakeholder prescription would influence managerial decisions pertaining to external (e.g., suppliers and customers) and internal (e.g., employees) in a similar manner. These questions are addressed through experiments. Specifically, this study empirically investigates the universality of the stakeholder prescription in two aspects. First, it examines whether the stakeholder prescription, in the absence of the norm of reciprocity between the firm and the stakeholders, can exert its influence on stakeholder-related decisions. The norm of reciprocity has been regarded as a stabilizing force of social systems (Gouldner, 1960) and is arguably a foundation of stakeholder relationships (Tangpong and Pesek, 2007). Thus, investigating the decision-governing effect of stakeholder prescription in isolation of, and in combination with, the reciprocity norm is warranted. Second, given that can be conceptualized as external and internal constituents whose dynamic relationships with firms may differ (e.g., Galbreath, 2006; Post et al., 2002), this study investigates whether the stakeholder prescription has an impact on managerial decision-making in both external and internal stakeholder-related decision circumstances. The unit of analysis in this study is the individual decision-maker rather than the organization as the literature suggests that stakeholder theory presents the manager as the central figure of a stakeholder approach, and thus the understanding of managerial decision-making is crucial to the fundamentals of stakeholder management (Reynolds et al. …

Service operations that utilize cross-trained employees face complex workforce staffing decisions that have important implications for both cost and productivity. These decisions are further complicated when cross-trained employees have different productivity levels in multiple work activity categories. A method for policy analysis in such environments can be beneficial in determining low-cost staffing plans with appropriate cross-training configurations.In this paper, we present an integer linear programming model for evaluating cross-training configurations at the policy level. The objective of the model is to minimize workforce staffing costs subject to the satisfaction of minimum labor requirements across a planning horizon of a single work shift. The model was used to evaluate eight cross-training structures (consisting of 36 unique cross-training configurations) across 512 labor requirement patterns. These structures, as well as the labor requirement patterns, were established based on data collected from maintenance operations at a large paper mill in the United States. The results indicate that asymmetric cross-training structures that permit chaining of employee skill classes across work activity categories are particularly useful.

Cross‐utilization of the labour force is widely recognized as a method for improving productivity in service organizations. This paper investigates the effect of cross‐utilization on workforce staff size, at the aggregate level, for a two‐skilled labour force. Workers are assumed to have 100 per cent productivity in their primary skill, and cross‐training policies ranging from zero to 100 per cent productivity in the secondary skill were investigated across a variety of labour demand conditions. The results suggest that small degrees of cross‐utilization can provide significant workforce savings and that there tend to be diminishing returns beyond 50 per cent productivity in the secondary skill.

General set-covering formulations (GSCFs) of labor tour scheduling problems have recently received substantial attention in the research literature. The most successful heuristic approaches to these problems have used the linear programming (LP) solution to the GSCF as a starting point and subsequently applied heuristic augmentation and improvement procedures to obtain feasible integer solutions. Integer programming (IP) methods eliminate the need for augmentation and improvement procedures, but have generally been considered intractable for large GSCFs. In this paper we present a sequential mixed-integer programming (SMIP) heuristic for discontinuous (< 24 hours/day) tour-scheduling problems which takes advantage of the structure of the GSCF. The new heuristic substantially outperformed two prominent LP-based methods across 432 full-time workforce test problems, yielding optimal solutions for 429 of the problems. For a set of 36 test problems associated with a mixed-workforce scheduling environment that allowed both full-time and part-time employees with varying levels of cost and productivity, the SMIP heuristic yielded solution costs that were significantly better than previously published costs obtained with competitive methods.

Abstract. This study investigates the Kahn et al. (1964) measure of job‐related stressors, and the Everly et al. (1989) measure of stress (i.e., cognitive‐affective) arousal to ascertain whether the scales are measuring two distinct constructs. Data gathered from a sample of 1,618 members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants are analyzed to measure the psychometric properties of both instruments. Results from internal consistency, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and item analyses indicate that both scales are reliable measures and the two scales are measuring different constructs, This study also examines the mediating effect of stress arousal on the relationship between sources of job stress, and resultant coping behaviors and psychological stress symptoms by means of structural modeling analyses. The results indicate that stress arousal is indeed a significant mediator in the stressor‐to‐illness process.Résumé. Les auteurs analysent l'instrument de mesure utilisé par Kahn et al. (1964) pour évaluer les facteurs de stress liés au travail ainsi que la mesure de la manifestation (cognitive‐affective) du stress proposée par Everly et al. (1989) pour confirmer si les échelles utilisées circonscrivent deux concepts distincts. Ils analysent les données colligées à partir d'un échantillon de 1 618 membres de l'American Institute of Certified Public Accountants afin d'évaluer les propriétés psychométriques des deux instruments de mesure. Les résultats tirés des analyses des facteurs de cohérence interne, des facteurs exploratoires et des facteurs de corroboration, ainsi que les analyses des éléments indiquent que les deux échelles de mesure sont fiables et qu'elles circonscrivent des concepts différents. Les auteurs examinent également l'effet de médiation de la manifestation du stress sur la relation entre les sources de stress au travail et les comportements d'adaptation qui en résultent et les symptômes de stress psychologique, au moyen d'analyses de modélisation des structures. Les résultats de l'étude indiquent que la manifestation du stress est, de fait, un médiateur d'importance dans le processus qui conduit du facteur de stress à la maladie.

This study examines managerial job stress and coping mechanisms in the hotel industry. Over 400 middle- and upper-level managers representing 23 different hotels were administered questionnaires. Findings suggest that perceptions of job Stressors lead to self-reported psychological, physiological, and behavioral strains. Personal or individual coping mechanisms did not appear to alleviate job strain. Due to managers' perceptions of the costs related to worker stress, several organizational strategies for stress reduction and prevention are offered.

This study surveyed 200 chief operating officers from hotel and restaurant corporations nationwide. The respondents were asked to indicate how much effort they exert in keeping abreast of outside research, and how useful the research is generated from universities. They were also asked to rate their relative degree of interest in specific research topic areas. The results indicate that most of the companies do exert at least moderate effort in keeping abreast of outside research. The non-parametric Sign Test was used to analyze their interest in specific research topic areas, and the results reported illustrate a statistically significant level of interest in many areas.

The effort-performance relationship implies that students who put forth greater effort should outperform those who put forth less effort. This research uses data from a series of senior level Operations Management courses and finds existence of a causal relationship where performance prior to the course, as measured by GPA, relates positively to the probability of a student undertaking an optional extra credit homework assignment in the course, which is our measure of effort. We further found that GPA is more significant predictor of effort than any endogenous element contained within the course itself. Additionally we found that female students are also likely to put forth a larger effort than male students are, as implied by their willingness to do the extra credit homework assignment. Finally, while we are aware of the saying that practice makes perfect, we found that perfect (a pre-existing high GPA) makes practice (greater effort).