Journal of the Operational Research Society

Zhang, Zhe; Gong, Xue; Song, Xiaoling; Yin, Yong; Lev, Benjamin; Zhou, Xiaoyang

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2182723pmid: N/A

We, the Editors and Publisher of Journal of the Operational Research Society, have retracted the following article: Zhang, Z., Gong, X., Song, X., Yin, Y., Lev, B., & Zhou, X. (2023). A nonanticipatory policy for stochastic seru scheduling problems. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/01605682.2023.2182723. Since publication, significant concerns have been raised about the fact that this article appears to have substantial overlap with the following articles, which were not cited or referenced. Skutella, M., Sviridenko, M., & Uetz, M. (2016). Unrelated Machine Scheduling with Stochastic Processing Times, Mathematics of Operations Research, 41(3), 851–864. https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2015.0757. Uetz, M. (2003). When greediness fails: examples from stochastic scheduling, Operations Research Letters, 31(6), 413–419. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6377(03)00047-6 Subsequent to investigation, and communication with the authors, we have also been informed by the first corresponding author that the co-authors were not consulted on the decision to submit to the Journal of the Operational Research Society, nor on the submission of the revised manuscript. The first corresponding author also highlighted inaccuracies in the methodology, specifically the omission of the Worker element extension and the improper application of the model’s extension from discrete to continuous time, both of which were important to the claimed contribution of the article. The authors have agreed with the decision to retract the article. We have been informed in our decision-making by our Editorial Policies and the COPE guidelines. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.

Du, Shaofu; Peng, Xuefeng; Nie, Tengfei; Zhu, Yangguang

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2269212pmid: N/A

Abstract The online expert service (OES) market is thriving by providing convenient professional services such as telemedicine consultation, legal advice, and financial planning. However, the practical phenomena, namely information asymmetry and the existence of naive consumers in the OES industry, motivate us to investigate how consumers’ two-dimensional heterogeneity and the expert’s agency pricing strategy with effort costs affect the OES platform’s information disclosure decision and corresponding market outcomes. By building a game-theoretic model, we consider the monopolistic OES platform in which the expert provides service to a mass of consumers, who can be either sophisticated or naive. The platform, as the designer of the disclosure framework, is thus an additional player in the seller-consumer game. Our results show that, when the marginal cost is intermediate, the platform strategically manipulates consumers’ valuation beliefs with partial disclosure to increase profitability without significant loss of market coverage. Furthermore, when naive consumers exist, the platform counter-intuitively discloses more information compared to that of all sophisticated consumers. Moreover, interestingly, when the marginal cost is low-to-intermediate, more naive consumers bring about more disclosure and thus obtain more demand for high-end sophisticated consumers, making both the expert and platform better off.

Li, Luyao; Zhao, Xiaobo; Xie, Dong; Xiao, Xue

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2269984pmid: N/A

Abstract Decision-makers may follow either the direct-response method or strategy method. While the two elicitation methods are theoretically equivalent, it is uncertain whether they lead to the same outcomes in practice. To explore this issue, we conduct an experiment based on a reward-punishment game under both methods, in which functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to provide neural evidence for uncovering the underlying behavioural mechanisms. The results show that both the reward and punishment rates are significantly higher under the strategy method compared to the direct-response method. We develop behavioural models to explain these differences and identify the ownership effect, strategic thinking, and counterfactual thinking as potential drivers. Comparison of neural activity between the two treatments demonstrates that during reward/no-reward decisions, the direct-response treatment accrues stronger activation in the bilateral anterior insula, indicating that decision-makers overweigh reward cost due to ownership effect, which consequently leads to reduced willingness to impose rewards. Conversely, during punishment/no-punishment decisions, the strategy treatment causes stronger activations in the bilateral anterior insula and inferior parietal lobule, implying that decision-makers perceive strong unfairness due to counterfactual thinking, which further results in more punishment decisions. Moreover, our findings reveal that strategic thinking influences decision-making during long-term interactions.

Chen, Lei; Wang, Suhui

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2272855pmid: N/A

Abstract The determination of reasonable improvement direction is the key difficulty of directional distance functions in data envelopment analysis target setting method, but there is no consensus direction determination method at present. This paper introduces the concept of minimizing the distance between decision-making units (DMUs) and production frontier for constructing a new endogenous mechanism of improvement direction, and the corresponding target setting method is constructed to setting target for DMUs, which is used to minimize the total projection distance between DMUs and their targets. In addition, the free direction and unit invariant of improvement direction are discussed for meeting the diverse needs of decision makers.

Chang, Kuo-Hao; Lin, Chi-Ping

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2272860pmid: N/A

Abstract We explore the Redundancy Allocation Problem (RAP) under the objective of minimizing the cost of a production system of general topology in which system reliability is treated as a chance constraint. A novel simulation optimization-based solution method grounded in the concepts of the trust region and response surface methodology is proposed to efficiently solve the generalized RAP (GRAP) under random system survival times. The generalizability of the RAP model and efficiency of the solution method allows for our approach to be utilized in a wide variety of real-world applications. We demonstrate in a series of numerical experiments based on production systems of varying complexity that the finite convergence of the proposed method is much more efficient than the commonly-used genetic algorithm. It is shown that on a simple bridge network, only the proposed algorithm can find the true optimal solution to the GRAP under an allotted computational budget. On a complex network which includes series, parallel, and logical relationships, the proposed algorithm is also shown to find solutions to the GRAP which have substantially lower total system cost than those found by GA under a wide variety of scenarios.

Fukuyama, Hirofumi; Matousek, Roman; Tzeremes, Nickolaos G.

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2273460pmid: N/A

Abstract The aim of this to study is to examine how non-performing loans on the balance sheets of Japanese banks affect their performance by adopting a material balance principle. The paper outlines how the material balance conditions can be applied when modelling banks’ production process in the presence of non-performing loans. The paper utilizes the generalized weak G-disposability principle which accounts for the heterogeneity among banks’ input quality. We test how an input-oriented model (non-performing loans are treated as an input), the weak disposability assumption and the adopted material balance approach, affect banks’ performance levels. We apply our test on a sample of Japanese banks over the period 2013 to 2019. Our findings indicate that the input-oriented model and the material balance estimator even if they present similar distributions, they account differently the effect of non-performing loans’ fluctuations over the examined period. In addition, the results under the weak disposability assumption are found to be different compared to the material balance measures and less sensitive to banks’ non-performing loans variation levels. We also provide evidence that the generalized weak G-disposability assumption captures better banks’ performance fluctuations that has been caused by the restructuring of the Japanese banking industry.

Li, Congdong; Chen, Xingyu; Yu, Yinyu

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2274445pmid: N/A

Abstract Brand collaboration requirement (BCR) evaluation is a key premise for core manufacturing enterprises to lead the collaborative brand construction of a large-scale manufacturing industry value chain (LSMIVC). Because brand collaboration (BC) in LSMIVC requires interaction with other businesses, BCRs are interactional and decision-makers come from multiple groups. However, existing requirement evaluation approaches rarely consider the interactional nature of requirements and the multiple groups nature of decision makers, producing unstable, easy-to-fail, and inaccurate results. Therefore, this study presents a multi-group decision-making approach based on a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytic network process (DEMATEL-ANP). This approach integrates the assessment information of BCRs from group decision-makers and prevents unstable and easily invalid assessment results owing to an incomplete decision-maker team. Additionally, DEMATEL-ANP was used to rank the interaction BCRs, which improved the accuracy and effectiveness of the requirement evaluation. Finally, the developed approach and model were tested against the air-conditioning industry value chain. The case study shows that the proposed method can determine requirement ranking. Comparative tests show that the proposed approach is effective and superior, and is more consistent with real-world BC situations. Therefore, the proposed approach provides a direction and theoretical basis for core manufacturing enterprises to implement BC.

Huang, Yanting; Wang, Zongjun

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2274950pmid: N/A

Abstract This paper investigates the interaction between a retailer’s information sharing behaviour and a manufacturer’s encroachment strategies in a closed-loop supply chain in which the manufacturer licenses a third party to remanufacture. We apply the Stackelberg game to obtain the optimal pricing and production decisions and show that, information sharing always brings a profit increase to the manufacturer while a profit loss to the retailer. The retailer may be willing to share information in presence of manufacturer encroachment. We also show that, no matter whether the manufacturer remanufactures by himself or licenses the third party to remanufacture, the encroachment case is always profitable to the manufacturer due to the dual revenues from both the producing and marketing activities. In addition, whether the encroachment case is beneficial for the retailer is contingent on the encroachment cost. Specifically, when the encroachment cost is high enough, the encroachment case dominates the no-encroachment case because the manufacturer prefers to sell more products through the traditional retail channel rather than the direct selling channel. These results provide a new insight into information sharing and manufacturer-encroachment in a closed-loop supply chain.

Chen, Yu-Hung; Kung, Ling-Chieh; Hu, Chieh-Hsiang; Huang, Chien-Yu

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2274953pmid: N/A

Abstract This study investigates the pricing strategies of a mobile payment platform connecting merchants and customers who may bypass the platform and trade in cash. Our analytical model incorporates cross-side network externalities at both sides of the platform. We find that the optimal pricing strategy involves cross-subsidization, including subsidizing customers to register for the service while charging the merchants per transaction. Moreover, the technology option adopted by the platform influences this optimal pricing format. In particular, the platform should subsidize customers more if the payment technology imposes larger transaction costs on customers and charge merchants more if banks demand a higher payment processing fee. Our major findings remain qualitatively valid when per-transaction subsidy is available and the marginal benefit of cross-side network externalities diminishes. Finally, the presence of a platform improves social welfare if the per-transaction subsidy sufficiently stimulates consumption on the platform.

Zhang, Danlu; Li, Feng; Wei, Lin

doi: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2277251pmid: N/A

Abstract Along with the popularity of Olympic Games, evaluating and ranking participating nations has become one of the hottest issues in recent years. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is extensively used for participating nations’ performance evaluation, while the prior literature mainly addresses the maximum efficiency by ignoring the weights diversity, which might lead to unreasonable and biased results. By considering the fixed-sum medals constraint, this paper proposes an integrated approach of stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) and DEA for evaluating the participating nations. The proposed approach addresses the weights diversity and multiple equilibrium efficient frontiers by investigating the overall feasible space, and two strategies are considered to guarantee the fairness concern for calculating the efficiencies. Besides, the proposed approach provides both rank acceptability and holistic acceptability index to obtain the complete ranking from the best to the worst and to get the relative ranking relationship in the overall feasible space. The proposed approach can provide more reasonable performance measurements since it explores different rank positions and improves the whole satisfaction of all participating nations. Finally, the proposed approach is applied to empirically analyze the participating nations in the Winter Olympic Games from 2010 to 2022 and some valuable analytical results are provided.