Search results for "Operations Research"
showing 10 items of 1297 documents
Challenges in measuring readiness for entrepreneurship
2016
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to establish a readiness for entrepreneurship theoretical framework. The paper marks the first of three stages to build a scale to measure readiness for entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approach– The current paper is conceptual. The research approach consists of formulating proposals and definitions based on an extensive literature review.Findings– The literature review reveals that no such readiness for entrepreneurship measurement tool exists. The literature review also yields definitions and components of key concepts for the theoretical framework.Research limitations/implications– The paper offers a new, holistic perspective of readiness for entr…
The Complexity of Risk and Uncertainty Assessment
2017
Abstract Risk reduction means diminishing uncertainties and strengthening the knowledge. There are many ways in which undesirable surprises can be understood and controlled, but the dominating one is the risk approach, on the basis of risk conceptualization, evaluation and risk management. Across time, many progresses have been accomplished in the field of risk, connected not only to the conceptual part, but also to the empirical procedures. Despite this, the premise of this domain is being represented to a substantial extend by theories and practices. This is why it is indispensable to search for trends in the risk framework, to reveal whether further development should be desired and if u…
Guanxi, performance and innovation in entrepreneurial service projects
2013
PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the role played by two dimensions of entrepreneurs' private social capital in the survival, growth and innovativeness of entrepreneurial service ventures: local size and preferential attachment degree.Design/methodology/approachData were collected by a questionnaire, the unit of investigation being the private entrepreneur in the service sector in the city of Shanghai. The questionnaire allows the authors to identify the social network of the entrepreneurs, estimate the empirical degree distribution for the entire sample, and estimate local size and preferential attachment degree.FindingsThere is empirical evidence that entrepreneurs do not create social ne…
Transmitting the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team in SMEs: the importance of leadership
2007
PurposeTo establish the extent of the influence of variables which, under a particular style of leadership, form the necessary basis for encouraging and developing group, entrepreneurial activities carried out within the context of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) thus explaining the transmission of the entrepreneurial spirit to the work team and, consequently, the existence of collective entrepreneurship in the firm.Design/methodology/approachFrom the results of a questionnaire carried out via personal interviews with over 100 firms, a confirmatory factorial analysis was carried out that provided us with the variables to be studied. The cause/effect relationships and their implicat…
The value of perfect and imperfect information in lake monitoring and management.
2020
Highlights • Knowledge on the value of monitoring can assist decision-making in lake management. • We calculate value of perfect information theoretically. • We estimate value of imperfect information with Monte Carlo type of approach. • Generally, monitoring is profitable to invest in if VOI exceeds the cost. • Additional monitoring is profitable even if the lake is in good condition a priori. Uncertainty in the information obtained through monitoring complicates decision making about aquatic ecosystems management actions. We suggest the value of information (VOI) to assess the profitability of paying for additional monitoring information, when taking into account the costs and benefits of…
Handling the epistemic uncertainty in the selective maintenance problem
2020
Abstract Nowadays, both continuous and discontinuous operating systems require higher and higher reliability levels in order to avoid the occurrence of dangerous or even disastrous consequences. Accordingly, the definition of appropriate maintenance policies and the identification of components to be maintained during the planned system’s downtimes are fundamental to ensure the reliability maximization. Therefore, the present paper proposes a mathematical programming formulation of the selective maintenance problem with the aim to maximize the system’s reliability under an uncertain environment. Specifically, the aleatory model related to the components’ failure process is well known, where…
Two-Player Noncooperative Games over a Freight Transportation Network''
2004
A game between two players acting on the same road transportation network is considered in this paper. The first player aims at minimizing the transportation costs, whereas the second player aims at maximizing her profit (or, in general, her utility) that is proportional to the flow passing through the arcs under her control. We introduce bilevel linear programming formulations for this problem. We derive conditions of existence and properties of the equilibrium points and propose an algorithm finding a local optimal solution. Finally, we present an application of the model to a real system involving trucks travelling through Europe from a Middle Eastern country.
Testing Profitability of Technical Trading Rules
2017
Technical traders typically rely on back-testing which is defined as the process of testing a trading strategy using relevant historical data. Back-testing usually involves “data mining” which denotes the practice of finding a profitable trading strategy by extensive search through a vast number of alternative strategies. This chapter explains that the data-mining procedure tends to find a strategy which performance benefited most from luck. As a result, the performance of the best strategy in a back test is upward biased. This fact motivates that any back-test must be combined with a data-mining correction procedure that adjusts downward the estimated performance. Another straightforward m…
Efficiency and Productivity of Italian Touris Destinations: A Quantitative Estimation Based on Data Envelopment Analysis and the Malmquist Method
2007
This paper aims to provide a statistical analysis of the relative economic performance of Italian tourist areas. It uses two modelling approaches to estimate the competitiveness of these regions, viz. data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist method. Our results show that the competitiveness position of several Italian regions has not improved over the years under consideration.
Analysis of the Relationship Between Context and Solution Plan in Modelling Tasks Involving Estimations
2021
In this chapter we analyse students’ written solution plan of a sequence of modelling tasks involving estimations. Our research objective is to statistically analyse whether there is a relation between the solution plan and the characteristics of the context of the real estimation task. From previous work, we have identified some task variables that are directly related to the context. In this study we have designed a sequence of modelling tasks and we have analysed the productions of N = 224 Spanish pre-service primary school teachers. The results show that there is a relationship between the variables of the task and the solution plan used by the students in each case. From the results of…