1,721,033 research outputs found
The relevance of goal programming for financial portfolio management: a bibliometric and systematic literature review
No full textGoal programming models have been highly relevant for portfolio management and selection due to their ability to handle multiple conflicting objectives simultaneously. These models possess simple and effective and features that support the decision-making process by incorporating different types of risk. Using a bibliometric approach, we collected 155 articles published from 1973 to 2022 from journals indexed in the Scopus database. Multiple software platforms (RStudio, VOSviewer, and Excel) were employed to analyze the data and depict the most active scientific actors in terms of countries, institutions, sources, and authors. Our review revealed three different stages and an upward trajectory in the publication trend starting from 2003 and found the predominant application of some Goal Programming models, such as the stochastic, fuzzy, and polynomial models. Moreover, we discovered that Spain, the USA, and China were the top three contributors to the literature, indicating a global interest in this area. The global relevance of goal programming is confirmed by the top 20 authors and their collaboration networks. We observed the dialogue between different disciplines, namely Decision Science and Management/Finance. Our study contributes to the body of knowledge in the intersection between goal programming and financial portfolios by (1) identifying the most influential articles and authors on this topic and (2) mapping and visualizing the trends in this field of research through network and cluster analysis
Artificial intelligence driven demand forecasting: an application to the electricity market
No full textDemand forecasting with maximum accuracy is critical to business management in various fields, from finance to marketing. In today's world, many firms have access to a lot of data that they can use to implement sophisticated models. This was not possible in the past, but it has become a reality with the advent of large-scale data analysis. However, this also requires a distributed thinking approach due to the resource-intensive nature of Deep Learning models. Forecasting power demand is of utmost importance in the energy industry, and various methods and approaches have been employed by electrical companies for predicting electricity demand. This paper proposes a novel multicriteria approach for distributed learning in energy forecasting. We use a Quadratic Goal Programming approach to construct a robust decision rule ensemble that optimizes a pre-defined loss function. Our approach is independent of the loss function's differentiability and is also model agnostic. This formulation offers interpretability for the decision-maker and demonstrates less proclivity of regression against the mean that affects autoregressive models. Our findings contribute to the field of energy forecasting and highlight the potential of our approach for enhancing decision-making in the energy industry
Managing Innovation: The Networked Form of University in the XXI Century
Full text linkIn the last decades, universities have deeply changed their role and mission in order to become entrepreneurial institutions able to compete in a global setting.
Contemporary processes of globalization, digitization, and networking, have induced new forms of organization, production, and distribution of knowledge. The
presence of research-oriented universities can assist geographically proximate firms directly through the provision of educated workers and indirectly by way of myriad externalities. Starting from different approaches, namely the Triple Helix Model and its extensions and the systems theory, the authors shed light on the new networked form of universities. Nowadays, competitiveness relies on a vast and complex entity constituted by many players. The university can develop through an externally-driven growth in which networks of (local and international) relationships enable to gain advantages and reputation.
This becomes particularly evident in the area of media and communications: the news industry and its ecosystem are being disrupted due to dramatic social and technological changes. Universities active in media and journalism education can play a central role not only when it comes to knowledge transfer, bringing together experts from academia and the industry. At the same time, universities try also to create a sustainable future for journalism by offering funding schemes and by incubating new media initiatives for instance in areas such as entrepreneurial journalism. Thus, pursuing the third mission, universities take more and more the role of an industry, transferring both knowledge and technology to infuse existing (media)
firms with new life and helping to generate new start-ups
Multiple criteria decision‐making in healthcare and pharmaceutical supply chain management: A state‐of‐the‐art review and implications for future research
No full textDecisions in supply chain management (SCM) are subject to numerous conflicting criteria and multiple objectives. For such decisions, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods are definitely appropriate. The implementation of the healthcare supply chain (HSC) is more complex to manage than any other supply chains, as it involves human life, causing conflicts of interest and hindering the final decision. Previous researchers suggested different SC models for healthcare products such as drugs, vaccines, and other medical equipment. This article provides an overview of published articles in the application of MCDM methods in HSCM at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. We studied and categorized 139 articles published in 2006–2021, providing academic researchers, practitioners, and governments with insights into the application of different MCDM methods. The review allows us to establish guidelines for the selection of appropriate methods for HSC management and provide support to the management of issues in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector
Access to credit for SMEs after the 2008 financial crisis: the Northern Italian perspective
No full textSmall‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in their economies as key generators of employment and income and as drivers of innovation and growth. The 2008 economic and financial crisis has had a negative impact on bank lending, and likely on SMEs' life. Through a sample of 166 Italian firms, this chapter tries to gain a better understanding of the access to credit by SMEs and to identify the main difficulties faced by SMEs when trying to raise their credit. It details a national perspective by studying Italian firms. The chapter measures the difficulties faced by Italian SMEs in obtaining financing, considering two periods, before (during the crisis) and after 2013. Instead of using arbitrary measures produced by classical methods, it uses the Rasch model that is able to convert raw scores into a linear and reproducible measurement
Multi-criteria decision analysis with goal programming in engineering, management and social sciences: a state-of-the art review
Full text linkGoal programming (GP) is an important class of multi-criteria decision models widely used to analyze and solve applied problems involving conflicting objectives. Originally introduced in the 1950s by Charnes et al. (Manag Sci 2: 138-151, 1955) the popularity and applications of GP has increased immensely due to the mathematical simplicity and modeling elegance. Over the recent decades algorithmic developments and computational improvements have greatly contributed to the diverse applications and several variants of GP models. In this paper we present a state of the art literature review on GP applications in three selected (prominent and popular) areas, namely engineering, management and social sciences
Towards the twin transition in the agri-food sector? Framing the current debate on sustainability and digitalisation
Full text linkA significant weight on the environment is created by the agricultural processes starting from the exploitation of
the soil and production to the physical distribution of goods, the retailers’ operations and consumption. Agriculture
and particularly agri-food is imperative to contribute to solving such global challenges as climate change
and food security through cleaner and greener supply chains, where the implementation of smart technologies is
one of the major ways to create an impact. The pairing between the potential of digital technologies and sustainability
inputs, called twin transition, is currently one of the EU policy’s priorities. This research focuses on
linking digitalisation and sustainability in the agri-food sector through applications of various digital technologies
and the associated contributions to sustainability through the three – environmental, economic, and social -
dimensions. To analyse the current debate on sustainability and digitalisation, we have utilised a systematic
literature review and qualitative analysis of (policy) documents. The discussion presents a conceptual framework,
which follows the process of the integration of a digital technology from its reasoning to the associated
sustainability outcomes. The research identifies uneven representation of digital technologies and the structural
imbalance of applications towards farming as the agri-food supply chain node and farmers as the major actors’
group. The scale of these applications frame the associated contributions to the sustainability dimensions. The
analysis of the sustainability outcomes brought by digitalisation through classification of their aspects can advise
not only a choice of technology but also managerial and policy directions leading to the transformation. One of
the ways to manage twin transition and support competitiveness on both firm and sector levels is development of
a strategy, which can be supported by policy making
Supporting pervasive digitization in Italian SMEs through an open innovation process
Full text linkIn the last two decades, the emergence of a diverse set of novel and powerful digital technologies, platforms, and infrastructures has transformed both innovation and entrepreneurship in significant ways with broad organizational and policy implications (Nambisan, 2017; Nambisan et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2010). Indeed, the phrase digital transformation has come into wide use in contemporary business media to signify the transformational or disruptive implications of digital technologies for businesses (eg Boutetiere et al., 2018), and more broadly, to indicate how existing companies may need to radically transform themselves to succeed in the emerging digital world (eg, McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2017; Rogers, 2016; Venkatraman, 2017).
Technological development is often recognized as a prerequisite for deploying innovation efficiently because it enhances inter-organizational collaboration, which better provides access to external resources and new markets, as well as a source of new knowledge, especially when referring to SMEs (Narula, 2004; Nooteboom, 1994)
Sustainability and intertemporal equity: a multicriteria approach
Full text linkIn (macro) economics literature, the need to consider sustainability and intertemporal equity issues leads to propose different criteria (discounted utilitarianism, green golden rule, Chichilnisky criterion) in order to define social welfare. We compare and assess the outcomes associated to such alternative criteria in a simple macroeconomic model with natural resources and environmental concern (Chichilnisky et al. in Econ Lett 49: 174-179, 1995), by relying on a multicriteria approach. We show that among these three criteria, the green golden rule (discounted utilitarianism) yields the highest (lowest) welfare level, while the Chichilnisky criterion leads to an intermediate welfare level which turns out to be increasing in the weight attached to the asymptotic utility. These results suggest that completely neglecting finite-time utilities and focusing only on the asymptotic utility is not only more sensible from a sustainability point of view but also from a social welfare maximization standpoint
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