Department of Decision Sciences

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/22

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A consumer perspective of service quality in the airline industry
(2011) Hossain, Muhammad Muazzem; Ouedraogo, Noufou; Rezania, Davar
The airline Service quality has received much attention from both academicians and practitioners. Various studies have used SERVQUAL, AIRQUAL, the Kano Model, etc. for measuring the customer service quality in the airline industry. However, a review of the airline service quality literature shows a lack of research about the use of latent semantic analysis (LSA) in uncovering the underlying factors affecting the quality of service provided by the airline companies. The purpose of this study is to explore the generic service quality characteristics pertaining to the airline industry by mining the comments provided by the passengers of various airline companies across the globe. Passengers are under no pressure to express their concerns, opinions, or suggestions for improvement of service quality. Therefore, we posit that the customers’ comments are reflections of their perception of quality of service that they have already experienced. This study will help the stakeholders better understand the characteristics of service quality in the airline industry. The findings will provide managers in the airline industry with insights for managing and improving the quality of service rendered to their customers. We collected 1,069 customer comments on eleven airline companies and conducted an LSA on them to identify five factors affecting the service quality in the industry. The findings suggest that caring and friendly crews, luggage handling, in-flight meals, in-flight entertainment, and service expectation are the five critical factors of the airline service quality in the eyes of the customers.
A triangulated appraisal of how hybrid activities develop students’ negotiating self-confidence
(2016) Enstroem, Rickard
Higher Education Institutions (HEI) today are facing a multitude of challenges such as capacity constraints, intensified international competition through MOOCs, and a student cohort that is more mobile than ever before. In response to these challenges, many HEIs have implemented either fully online courses or hybrid courses having both synchronous and asynchronous elements. With this study, we make a first attempt at gauging the respective impact of Online (OL) learning assignments and Face-to-Face (F2F) learning assignments on the development of students’ self perceived negotiating confidence, as acquired in an undergraduate business course. By doing this, we also continue the validation of the Self-Confidence Indicator scale, as presented in Benson and Enström (2013).
A walk on the wild side: the impact of music on risk-taking likelihood
(2017) Enstroem, Rickard; Schmaltz, Rodney
From a marketing perspective, there has been substantial interest in on the role of risk perception on consumer behavior. Specific ‘problem music’ like rap and heavy metal has long been associated with delinquent behavior, including violence, drug use, and promiscuous sex. Although individuals’ risk preferences have been investigated across a range of decision-making situations, there has been little empirical work demonstrating the direct role music may have on the likelihood of engaging in risky activities. In the exploratory study reported here, we assessed the impact of listening to different styles of music while assessing risk-taking likelihood through a psychometric scale. Risk-taking likelihood was measured across ethical, financial, health and safety, recreational and social domains. Through the means of a canonical correlation analysis, the multivariate relationship between different music styles and individual risk-taking likelihood across the different domains is discussed. Our results indicate that listening to different types of music does influence risk-taking likelihood, though not in areas of health and safety.
An MGTS 352 introduction to Constraint management using the Theory of constraints
(2015) Orchard, Ryan
The following document presents a methodology for managing constraints (bottlenecks) in systems by way of a set of management principals known as the Theory of Constraints.
Book review: Small states in a global economy: crisis, cooperation and contributions
(2015) Enstroem, Rickard
This book is devoted to a bouquet of topics related to if, when, and how small states can play a role on the global arena and how they economically benefit from—or are impeded by—cooperations and linkages with other nations and international organizations. Although not signalled by the title, the scope of the analysis is limited primarily to Iceland and Latvia, typically by using the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as a comparison group.
Can space syntax help us in understanding the intraurban office rent pattern? Accessibility and rents in downtown Stockholm
(2008) Enstroem, Rickard; Netzell, Olof
The effect of accessibility upon rent is investigated for office properties located in Downtown Stockholm. Starting from the firm’s cost minimization problem, a translog hedonic model is derived. The results suggest the model has good predictive power in explaining the variation in the log of the rent. A negative rent gradient is obtained with a base approximately 90 m from the postulated focal point. It appears as if Space Syntax adds important information to the understanding of the intraurban office rent pattern.
Cash assist or shark loan? In quest of doing well while doing good
(2022) Taleb, Ali; Ghosh, Subhadip
Jim Kamal, 24 years, was a socially-conscious entrepreneur at hart. He just completed his undergrad studies in Accounting and was exploring the opportunity of starting a Payday Loan business. While doing market research, he came across various information that made his decision difficult. On the one hand, the opportunity appeared to have great potential for superior return on investment. On the other hand, the industry clearly suffered from a bad image due to what the press and government representatives qualified as unethical commercial practices. This was in contradiction with Kamal's personal values and professional objective - doing good while doing well.
Causal latent semantic analysis (cLSA): an illustration
(2011) Hossain, Muhammad Muazzem; Prybutok, Victor; Evangelopoulos, Nicholas
Latent semantic analysis (LSA), a mathematical and statistical technique, is used to uncover latent semantic structure within a text corpus. It is a methodology that can extract the contextual-usage meaning of words and obtain approximate estimates of meaning similarities among words and text passages. While LSA has a plethora of applications such as natural language processing and library indexing, it lacks the ability to validate models that possess interrelations and/or causal relationships between constructs. The objective of this study is to develop a modified latent semantic analysis called the causal latent semantic analysis (cLSA) that can be used both to uncover the latent semantic factors and to establish causal relationships among these factors. The cLSA methodology illustrated in this study will provide academicians with a new approach to test causal models based on quantitative analysis of the textual data. The managerial implication of this study is that managers can get an aggregated understanding of their business models because the cLSA methodology provides a validation of them based on anecdotal evidence.
Chapter 1 - Introduction to operations management
(2013) Orchard, Ryan
Outline: What is Operations Management: Operations, Operations Management, This Course. Business Strategy: Performance Dimensions and Competitive Priorities. Operations Strategy: Production/Inventory Strategies, Equipment and Labour, Facility Layout. Strategic Alignment.
Clone resistant mutual authentication for low-cost RFID and contactless credit cards
(2007) Lemieux, Stephane; Tang, Adrian
With Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags being used to secure contactless credit cards, great benefits but also serious security and information privacy issues have arisen. Recently many attempts have been made to resolve these issues. In particular, attempts have been made to provide a means for authentication between tag and reader. However, none have yet have been able to provide resistance to cloning attacks. Furthermore, authentication on lowest range of low-cost RFID tags, also remains a challenge. We propose a clone resistant, mutual authentication scheme that requires only 32 bits of read write memory, 90 bits of read only memory and can be deployed using as few as 300 logic gates. We also propose a stream cipher with the same memory constraints and magnitude of logic gates. These systems may also be scaled to provide a high level of security, using relatively little computational resources, on larger hardware platforms.
Competitive product positioning and pricing under brand loyalty
(2016) Enstroem, Rickard; Ghosh, Subhadip
We analyze the pure strategy equilibrium in prices and the corresponding equilibrium product differentiation in a two-stage linear spatial competition duopoly model with quadratic transportation costs. Both firms have segments of brand loyal and non-brand loyal consumer segments, with the two firms primarily competing on the brand switching segment. A comparative statics analysis is undertaken, looking at the impact of a change in size, presence, and asymmetry of the brand loyal segments.
Constraints to adopting soil fertility management practices in Malawi: a choice experiment approach
(2019) Krah, Kwabena; Michelson, Hope; Perge, Emilie; Jindal, Rohit
Though problems related to low and declining soil fertility continue to impede agricultural production and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder farmers in this region – those cultivating two hectares or less – have shown reluctance to adopt practices at scale that help conserve or enhance soil quality. Employing a discrete choice-based experiment, we find evidence that farmers’ propensity to adopt soil fertility management (SFM) practices increases with improved access to mineral fertilizers, and when farmers receive relevant technical training on soil fertility improving technologies. A unique aspect of our study is our focus on understanding how smallholders’ stated SFM preferences relate to their perceptions of recent local climatic variation. We find that farmers who perceive that rainfall amounts are decreasing are less willing to adopt crop rotations to improve soils. Our findings suggest that policies designed to increase adoption of SFM practices are more likely to succeed when they provide farmers with inputs that farmers perceive as complementary to SFM, including mineral fertilizer, and when they are built around an understanding of farmers’ perceptions of climatic variability.
Consumer acceptance of RFID technology: an exploratory study
(2008) Prybutok, Victor; Hossain, Muhammad Muazzem
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is used in numerous applications and offers a plethora of interesting potential new applications. However, this potential raises issues that require addressing to achieve its widespread acceptance by consumers. This paper investigates the factors that affect consumer acceptance of RFID technology. The purpose of this effort is to develop and test a theoretical model that contextualizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) within the context of RFID technology. The research model proposes that convenience, culture, privacy, regulation, and security are the principal factors influencing the consumers’ acceptance of RFID. However, the results show that convenience, culture, and security are significant predictors. This study is the first in the RFID literature to use the technology acceptance model for explaining consumer acceptance of RFID technology. The findings suggest that (1) higher perceived convenience of RFID technology leads to greater acceptance of this technology, (2) societal beliefs, value systems, norms, and/or behaviors influence the extent of consumer acceptance of RFID technology, and (3) higher perceived importance of and less willingness to sacrifice personal information security lead to lower intention to use RFID technology. Contextualization of TAM to RFID technology makes this study relevant to practitioners because the results can provide insight to organizations using or exploring the use of RFID technology.
Dealing with detection error in site occupancy surveys: what can we do with a single survey?
(2012) Lele, S. R.; Moreno, Monica; Bayne, E.
AIM: Site occupancy probabilities of target species are commonly used in various ecological studies, e.g. to monitor current status and trends in biodiversity. Detection error introduces bias in the estimators of site occupancy. Existing methods for estimating occupancy probability in the presence of detection error use replicate surveys. These methods assume population closure, i.e. the site occupancy status remains constant across surveys, and independence between surveys. We present an approach for estimating site occupancy probability in the presence of detection error that requires only a single survey and does not require assumption of population closure or independence. In place of the closure assumption, this method requires covariates that affect detection and occupancy. METHODS: Penalized maximum-likelihood method was used to estimate the parameters. Estimability of the parameters was checked using data cloning. Parametric boostrapping method was used for computing confidence intervals. IMPORTANT FINDINGS: The single-survey approach facilitates analysis of historical datasets where replicate surveys are unavailable, situations where replicate surveys are expensive to conduct and when the assumptions of closure or independence are not met. This method saves significant amounts of time, energy and money in ecological surveys without sacrificing statistical validity. Further, we show that occupancy and habitat suitability are not synonymous and suggest a method to estimate habitat suitability using single-survey data.
Death to weak PowerPoint: strategies to create effective visual presentations
(2014) Schmaltz, Rodney; Enstroem, Rickard
Strong PowerPoint presentations enhance student engagement and help students retain information (e.g., Susskind, 2005), while weak PowerPoint slides can lead to distraction, boredom, and impeded learning (Savoy et al., 2009). The authors of this paper became interested in improving their PowerPoint slides after observing several presentations that badly misused PowerPoint, and realizing that they made many of the same mistakes.
Deliberate institutional differentiation through graduate attributes: implementing professional skills at MacEwan School of Business
(2017) Benson, Lyle; Enstroem, Rickard
The purpose of this paper is to describe the creation and deliberate positioning of a new Bachelor of Commerce program at MacEwan School of Business, Canada, by formally integrating professional skills in the curriculum. Through institutional narratives and statistical measurements, the authors detail the process from the first broad conversation and the different phases of the institutional deliberations to a measurement of students' development of professional skills and self-confidence through the eyes of student peer coaches.
Developing a university-wide academic integrity E-learning tutorial: a Canadian case
(2019) Benson, Lyle; Rodier, Kristin; Enstroem, Rickard; Bocatto, Evandro
Academic integrity has become a significant point of concern in the post-secondary landscape, and many institutions are now exploring ways on how to implement academic integrity training for students. This paper delineates the development of an Academic Integrity E-Learning (AIE-L) tutorial at MacEwan University, Canada. In its first incarnation, the AIE-L tutorial was intended as an education tool for students who had been found to violate the University’s Academic Integrity Policy. However, in a discourse of the academic integrity process, the University reimagined it from only emphasising the increased understanding and strengthened commitment of students found to have committed academic misconduct to a proactive focus with education for all students. The purpose of the present paper is three-fold: first, describe the development of the AIE-L tutorial as an experiential case study; second, improve the content of the AIE-L tutorial through students’ quantitative and qualitative feedback; third, calibrate the pre and post-test questions for content validity for a forthcoming large-scale measurement of the AIE-L tutorial effectiveness.
Effectiveness of policies for mitigating supply disruptions
(2013) Son, Joong; Orchard, Ryan
Our paper will address the significance of supply chain risk management (SCRM) in a setting where demand is steady but supply is subject to random disruptive events. We focus on the impact that supply disruptions have on supply chain performance by proposing two policies for mitigating this impact - using strategic inventory reserves and ordering in larger lots - and assessing their effectiveness through supply chain model analysis and numerical experiments.
Electronic evidence and technology-assisted review
(2019) Almquist, Brian
We consider the technological developments relevant to procedures characterized as “discovery” in legal proceedings over the last two decades. As storage technology has improved, the idea of a “document” as a piece of discrete discoverable information is becoming increasingly outdated. The courts, while adapting to the new technologies, have also had to reckon with increasing costs of document production, and more expensively, review of information for relevance and privilege or work-product protections. Technology-Assisted Review, using machine learning, is rapidly being employed to handle large document productions. This brings eDiscovery right in line with some of the most interesting current developments in information technology.
Experiences from a data-informed approach to configuring online assignments
(2019) Orchard, Ryan
Learning Management Systems (LMS) allow for a variety of ways in which online multiple-choice assessments (“tests”) can be configured, including the ability to allow for multiple attempts and options for which of and how the attempts will count. These options are usually chosen according to the instinct of the instructor; however, LMS also provide an opportunity to make data-informed decisions based on data captured by the LMS itself. This paper describes an experience with extracting and analyzing LMS data for determining online test option settings that encourage behaviors that promote learning (and/or discourage behaviors that don’t). The data extraction and cleaning process was relatively straight-forward, but not without some challenges, and required beyond-novice spreadsheet skills. It seems to have been worth the effort, though, as the insights gained led directly to a change in online test administration, and current option settings seem more appropriate and are supported by data.

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