The environment is the source of many discussions in America’s board rooms. Most of the conversations probably center around cost containment, dealing with new regulations or reacting to unexpected problems. Some conversations may even revolve around how to “cash in” on the public’s concern for the environment. All of these discussions are normal, but also are increasingly becoming outdated. Co...

World-class utilization of manufacturing resources is of vital importance to any manufacturing enterprise in the global competition of today. This requirement calls for superior performance of all processes related to the manufacturing of products. One of these processes is the resetting of machinery and equipment between two product runs, which will be the focus area of this text. This paper e...

The study of profits is important not only because of the information it provides about the health of the economy in any given year, but also because profits are a key determinant of growth and employment in the medium-term. Changes in profitability are an important contributor to economic progress via the influence profits have on the investment and savings decisions of companies. This is beca...

This research analyzes the role of prosocialness and trust in the use of water as a limited resource under situations of competition or cooperation. For this purpose, 107 participants played the role of farmers and made decisions about irrigating their fields in the web-based multiplayer game Irrigania. Before the simulation exercise, participants' prosocialness and trust levels were evaluated ...

Investigation of the driven mechanism of the price dynamics in complex financial systems is important and challenging. In this paper, we propose an investment strategy to study how dynamic fluctuations drive the price movements. The strategy is successfully applied to different stock markets in the world, and the result indicates that the driving effect of the dynamic fluctuations is rather rob...

This paper addresses a rationing problem in a two-level, vertically integrated distribution system composed of one manufacturer and several retail points. The motivating case, developed in the vending machine sector and modeled as a newsvendor-like problem, is representative of many real settings where short-term changes in demand can be substantial while capacity modification is not a viable o...

This paper develops a multi-attribute competition model for procurement of short life cycle products. In such an environment, the buyer installs dedicated production capacity at the suppliers before demand is realized. Final production orders are decided after demand materializes. Of course, the buyer is reluctant to bear all the capacity and inventory risk, and thus signs flexible contracts wi...

The effect of land fragmentation on agriculture has worried policymakers for a long time because it is expected to be a negative effect. Land consolidation policies are frequently implemented to soften the degree of land fragmentation. However, to the authors' knowledge, no study in the dairy sector has empirically analyzed the role of land fragmentation on farm productivity and profits. This s...

This paper analyzes the possibility of a monopoly firm selling and renting a packaged software product. It employs a simple model to analyze the firm's pricing strategy. We observe that the introduction of the rental product leads to an increase in profits, an increase in selling and a decrease in rental prices as a function of the rate of change of the rental price with respect to the quantity...

Part I of this Article explains the dual analysis of ethics (ethical base of markets as a process and an end result) as it relates to profits and market efficiency. In particular, the author questions whether individuals are able to judge their own welfare and, if so, do individuals accept that they are the best judge. Part II explains the ethics of profit and its relation to poverty. Specifica...