Surveys suggest that supply chain risk is a growing issue for executives and that supplier reliability is of particular concern. A common mitigation strategy is for the buying firm to expend effort improving the reliability of its supply base. We explore a model in which a firm can source from...

Firm-level sales forecasts for retailers can be improved if we incorporate cost of goods sold, inventory, and gross margin (defined by us as the ratio of sales to cost of goods sold) as three endogenous variables. We construct a simultaneous equations model, estimated using public financial and...

Measuring demand uncertainty is a key activity in supply chain planning, but it is difficult when demand history is unavailable, such as for new products. One method that can be applied in such cases uses dispersion among forecasting experts as a measure of demand uncertainty. This paper...

Attracting shoppers to stores and converting the incoming traffic into sales profitably are vital for the financial health of retailers. In this paper, we use proprietary data pertaining to an apparel retailer to study the relationship between store traffic, labor, and sales performance. We...

In this paper, we examine the relationship between inventory levels and one-year-ahead earnings of retailers using publicly available financial data. We use benchmarking metrics obtained from operations management literature to demonstrate an inverted-U relationship between abnormal inventory...

In this paper, we consider how the structures of tasks and teams interact to affect team performance. We study the effects of diversity in experience on a team's ability to respond to task changes by separately examining <i>interpersonal</i> team diversity (i.e., differences in experience across the...

Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: <i>specialization</i> to capture the benefits of repetition and <i>variety</i> (i.e., working...

The ongoing fragmentation of work has resulted in a narrowing of tasks into smaller pieces that can be sent outside the organization and, in many instances, around the world. This trend is shifting the boundaries of organizations and leading to increased outsourcing. Though the consolidation of...