Robert B. Willumstad School of Business • Adelphi University, NY • Bold New Thinking
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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to share with you our latest issue of the Adelphi Business Review. It showcases four research studies by our faculty, published in scholarly journals. You will find that their findings are timely, relevant and of value to managers, entrepreneurs and policy makers. The topics range widely: from finding a way to pay for climate change policies, to fostering an ecosystem to expand electricity supply in rural India, to understanding the growing phenomenon of "alternative giving" and a new technique to speed up efficiency in a factory.
Enjoy and learn!
Regards,
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Paying for Climate Change Solutions: One Option |
Climate change has been identified in many quarters as the existential crisis facing all of mankind. It has been estimated that the world needs to spend between $1.6 trillion and $3.8 trillion every year to honor the commitments of the Paris climate agreement. Robert Goldberg, clinical associate professor of finance, and Mariano Torras, PhD, professor of economics and department chair, have proposed that a fund be set up by the government to pay for the costs associated with carrying out the changes needed to halt global warming. They used scenario analysis to test for the required level of financial support under different economic and environmental conditions. In money terms, the range of possible outcomes is substantial, in addition to the challenge of making prudent policy choices. Creating a "climate fund" would circumvent today's divisive political debate on this subject by setting aside monies for use in the future when conditions for addressing this issue are more amenable. The authors hope that their findings and conclusion would be useful to both academic scholars and policy makers. Dr. Torras believes practitioners would use their research "to lend support to arguments favoring doing "something" about climate change". You can read the full paper here in the Journal of Managerial Issues.
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Alternative Giving: Motivations to Participate |
Annually, worldwide, 1.3 million tons of garbage go into landfills. Reducing such waste is one reason behind the growth of “alternative giving,” where people share and exchange products instead of throwing them away. Fan Liu, PhD, assistant professor of marketing, and Zachary Johnson, PhD, associate professor of marketing, studied this growing practice and found that it, enabled by social media and networks, benefits the broader society. They looked at The Freecycle Network, an online portal that enables consumers to exchange products, and concluded that fundamental consumer needs and wants are what motivates people to participate in such relationships. The researchers also found a mismatch between the types of products offered for exchange and those that are wanted. Dr. Liu observed that “non-traditional exchange activities are understudied and can represent a societally beneficial activity…that drive[s] consumers to do good things.” You can learn more about Dr. Liu’s and Dr. Johnson’s research on this subject in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour.
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Connecting to the Power Grid: Creating the Enabling Environment |
Nearly 250 million people in India do not have access to electricity. Creating the infra-structure to connect them to the power grid is a costly and challenging project. Gita Surie, PhD, professor of management, has been studying how an ecosystem for providing renewable energy for the world’s poorest people living in rural areas can be created that will both safeguard the environment and improve social and economic conditions in India. Using case studies, she has created a framework that facilitates collaborations across different types of organizations and supports entrepreneurial behavior. Dr. Surie says, “My insights can help government policy makers and business executives design industrial ecosystems appropriately for sustainability. Likewise, researchers can build on this research and take it to the next step by developing conceptual models for zero-waste industrial ecosystems.” You can read Dr. Surie’s research, published in the Journal of Sustainability Research.
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Accurately Predicting: An Effective Algorithm |
When GM, the auto manufacturer, is planning the next quarter's production of its Sierra Denali pickup, it needs to be able to accurately predict the timely delivery of parts and components—tires and transmissions, seats and steering wheels, engines and electric wires—from its other units and external suppliers. The company does this by using a computer simulation or a model which tries to mimic the real world. A lot of information has to go into building the model—information such as the likelihood of delays in delivery, proportion of parts that may be defective, among many others—so that it can predict accurately. In reality, managers often don't have accurate or complete data to build the model. Eunji Lim, PhD, assistant professor of decision sciences, has addressed this problem by developing an algorithm that takes care of the problem of insufficient data. This is a significant breakthrough that will help supply chain managers in large manufacturing companies to effectively manage their supply chains. Dr. Lim's research appeared in the Journal of Modelling in Management.
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This e-newsletter is prepared by the Office of the Dean of the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business. Visit adelphi.edu/business for more information.
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