Exploiting embedded supply-chain real options creates powerful opportunities for competitive manufacturing in high-cost environments. Rather than seeking competitiveness through standardization as is common to lean production, real-options reasoning explores opportunities to use supply-chain...

The concept of heijunka--controlling the variability of the job arrival sequence to permit higher capacity utilization--plays an integral role in lean production theory. In situations where the customer defines the delivery sequence, however, scheduling production to maximize utilization becomes...

This paper investigates actual Venture Capital (VC) decision making as it occurs over time in its natural decision environment. Our qualitative analysis is based on a comprehensive, longitudinal data set comprising 11 years of archival data from a European-based VC firm. During this time, the...