Classically, the concept of efficiency measurement is based on the definition of a frontier that envelops the observed production plans. The efficiency score itself is based on the distance of an observed production plan from this frontier. The frontier along with the required technological...

This dissertation provides three essays. In the first essay, a model with two linguistic variables is built to demonstrate the joint effect of multiple linguistic variables in a dynamic modeling context. Triangular membership function is used to represent the linguistic variables and the joint...

Determining the best way for evaluating organizational performance is a complex problem as it involves assessment of indicators in multiple dimensions. In the case of nonprofit social service provision this evaluation needs to consider also the outcomes of the service. This research develops a...

Efficient operation of a dynamic system requires (near) optimal real-time control decisions. Those decisions depend on a set of control parameters that change over time. Very often, the optimal decision can be made only with the knowledge of future values of control parameters. As a consequence,...

Managers in organizations make investment decisions all the time. These decisions have an impact on the bottom-line profits and on the market penetration of the organization. Some decisions have more impact than others do and not all such decisions are evaluated for their impact. The...

A group of 35 loggers located across the southeastern United States provided 192 logger years of productivity and cost information. Information, including logger demographics, business, and operational data, was also collected through an interview process with the participants. Indicators of...

The general practice in performance and production efficiency measurement has been to ignore additional products of most transformation processes that can be classified as âundesirable outputsâ â which are a subset of the output set. Without the inclusion of these factors, the efficiency...

Software firms can use open source development model combined with proprietary development model to increase their profitability. Open source development models can help software firms create products with better technical features at a lower price. Since open source development is a community...