For many products such as cars, electronic appliances and furniture, the price that a customer pays is negotiated from the posted price. In such transactions, negotiation plays an important role in determining whether a customer purchases, and if so, at what price. A retailer may adopt...

The first essay considers a service center with two stations in accordance with independent Poisson processes. Service times at either station follow the same general distribution, are independent of each other and are independent of the arrival process. The system is charged station-dependent...

This dissertation examines global groups at work through an intensive study of cross-national student teams and case studies of exemplar companies that work across boundaries. We consider the role of transactive memory systems (TMS) as a way to create effective team processes. A TMS is a...

The work of this dissertation is concerned with the study of the effectiveness ofparadigms of production flexibility to either improve system performance or mitigatesystem risk. A brief introduction to the concept of operational flexibility is provided inChapter I. In Chapter II, we consider a...

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are being increasingly used in the classroom to provide users of computer simulations with a friendly and visual approach to specifying all input parameters and increased configuration flexibility. In this study, the authors first describe a number of software...

In this paper, we consider a multiple-stage tandem production/inventory system producing a single product. Processing time at each stage is assumed to have a general stationary processing time distribution. The cost of holding work-in-process (WIP) inventory is different at each stage....

We consider a make-to-stock production/inventory system consisting of a single deteriorating machine which produces a single item. We formulate the integrated decisions of maintenance and production using a Markov Decision Process. The optimal dynamic policy is shown to have a rather complex...

Decision makers in dynamic environments such as air traffic control, firefighting, and call center operations adapt in real-time using outcome feedback. Understanding this adaptation is important for influencing and improving the decisions made. Recently, stimulus-response (S-R) learning models...

We introduce a diffusion of innovation model based on a network threshold approach. Realistic network and threshold data were gathered regarding the diffusion of new software tools within part of a large organization. Novel model features are a second threshold for innovation rejection and a...

In dynamic decision environments such as direct sales, customer support, and electronically mediated bargaining, decision makers execute sequences of interdependent decisions under time pressure. Past decision support systems have focused on substituting for decision makers' cognitive deficits...