Kafkaesque Operations Management and the Good Jobs Strategy

Yesterday's Sunday New York Times was waving the flag for operations management and operations research and management science. In the Sunday Review section there was a timely OpEd by Drs. Kevin Volpp and Katherine Milkman, "How to Keep Your Resolutions," which cited their forthcoming article in Management Science, which I tracked down with the very catchy title of: "Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling." This article offered 4 tips from behavioral economics and health on how to keep your New Year's resolutions.

But another article also caught my eye - it was in the magazine section and was entitled in my hardcopy version: "A Ready-to-Assemble Business Plan"  and in the online version (no idea why the title changed) "Thinking Outside the (Big) Box," by Adam Davidson  It began with Davidson describing a trip to Ikea in Brooklyn with his wife (readers of my blog know that I love Sweden and Scandinavia and have held multiple visiting professorships there) that he said might cost him his marriage. This was a while back and was due to what he said was the lack of available sales staff to answer questions.

Well, times have changed, at least for some big box stores and their employees (and I won't in this post, revel in our great experiences of visiting Ikea when our daughter was 2, and we lived in Stockholm -- just last week, and now a teenager, she was missing Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, which we dined on last summer but in Gothenburg). Davidson and his wife did not have this meal in Ikea (perhaps they should have).

Adam Davidson's article focused on the work of Dr. Zeynep Ton, whose book, The Good Jobs Strategy, was just published and in it she argues how treating retail employees much better may make everyone (including their employers) much richer (contrary to conventional thinking).

Dr. Ton had worked in her father's apparel factory in Turkey, sewing on pockets to garments. Nothing like a difficult job to instill the value of education and good  working conditions. (I worked summers as a nurses' aide while in college (Brown University) and had lots of practice emptying bedpans but I loved the interactions with my patients, especially the elderly ones,  as well as the esprit de corps among the nursing staff).

And what do you think of the following provocative sentence by Davidson in his article: "In the last few years, Ton has become a revolutionary force in a field that would seem unlikely to generate many -- the Kafkaesque-titled Operations Management." I read a lot of Kafka (as well as Dostoevsky) as a teenager and now am propitiously a chaired professor of Operations Management. Davidson  goes on to note a study by Professor Marshall Fisher at Wharton (Volpp and Milkman also have appts. there), which noted that, for every dollar of increased wages, one retailer that was studied brought in $10 more in revenue but for more understaffed stores in the study, the boost was as high as $28. Davidson mentions that the software that is typically used considers workers as a "cost" and does not quantify the "profit" potential in terms of customer service, value added,  and quality of experience, if I may. This shows, also, the importance of selecting the right objective function that you are optimizing (or trying to)!

Since I am a researcher, I had to dig deeper and located the article that Fisher wrote that was co-authored and it is: Marshall L. Fisher, Jayanth Krishnan, Serguei Netessine (Working), Retail Store Execution: an Empirical Study, and you can read it online here.  It does have the dollar figures as noted in the Davidson article above.  More information can be found in Fisher and Raman's book, The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance, which includes results for the Fisher et al. study.

Now, and this is Kafkaesque (and not found in the New York Times piece), Dr. Zeynep Ton, who received her undergrad degree at Penn State and her DBA at Harvard Business School, is an Ajunct Associate Professor at the Sloan School at MIT, and she was denied tenure at Harvard Business School where she was a very popular faculty member -- you can read more about what transpired in this article, HBS Loses 'Rock Star' Prof to MIT,  posted on the Poets & Quants website. According to the article:  Despite her sterling reputation in the classroom, Harvard decided not to promote the assistant professor who had been at the business school since 2002. The decision was a surprise to many on campus given her widespread popularity. Indeed. some students could be seen crying in the classroom when she taught the last session of a supply chain elective course.


In September, I wrote a post, Some of the First Years Had Never Had a Female Professor -- Gender Ineqality at Harvard Business School.


Perhaps Harvard will now bring back Dr. Zeynep Ton to its Harvard Business School faculty, given the visibility of her new book! Or MIT will give her tenure!


And, for those who are interested (and still reading), you can listen to Dr. Ton in her TEDx presentation.

How to End a Course + 10,000 Letters of Recommendation

How do you end your course?

Do you write the final equation  on the board, show your last slide, and walk out?

Or do you have a tradition?

Last Monday (hard to believe it was just one week ago), at UMass Amherst,  we had the pleasure of taking part in the TEDx Professor Speaker Showcase, which I blogged about and the Isenberg School posted a nice summary of its 3 faculty who presented at it (out of the 8 presenters).

I am still digesting (not only the Thanksgiving food) but also the advice and wisdom shared last Monday at this great event (thanks to the student organizers, including Stephen, Henry, Cara, Shannon, and so any others).

With the end of the semester upon us and this being the last week of classes on many campuses, I would like to highlight what one of the speakers shared with us last week.

Dr. Brian O'Connor, a biologist, who retired only last Spring after 45 years teaching at UMass Amherst (and he told us that his last class was in the same classroom that he had interviewed in decades before so some things really do not change at UMass), told us about what he did at every last class at every course he ever taught.

Students who graduated and became very successful scientists, medical doctors, and dentists would tell him that maybe they did not remember all the material in his courses but they certainly remembered his last class and the poem that he always read to them.

The poem is Desiderata, written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann,  and I have reprinted it below, thanks to Wikipedia.

It is very appropriate, given this busy holiday season,  and any season, actually.

UMass Magazine had a marvelous article about Dr. O'Connor entitled, "Scientist, Advisor, Mentor, Friend" which highlighted his great influence. In his TEDx talk he admitted writing about 10,000 letters of recommendation for students who were applying to medical school or dental school and he still, although retired, helps his wife (5 days a week) since she works at UMass as an advisor for premed students.

Interestingly, he shared a story with us how, just about 2 weeks ago, his wife fell and broke her wrist, so off to the Emergency Room (ER) at a local hospital in western MA they went. There  they waited for 6 hours before, luckily, a doctor came out and saw Dr. O'Connor and immediately recognized his former professor. Mrs. O'Connor was then treated. I wrote about my own experiences in the ER there a while back.    As he told us, if you are breathing and not having a heart attack get ready to wait.

Another favorite story, as retold in the UMass Magazine article, is:  "A few years ago, W. Brian O’Connor’s father was admitted to a hospital in the family’s native Brattleboro. As he rushed to his father’s bedside, O’Connor caught sight of four familiar faces—those of two nurses and two physicians—and knew his father was in good hands and would make a full recovery."

What an amazing impact a single professor, named Dr. Brian O'Connor, has made and continues to make through the thousands that he has guided into the medical professions!

Photos from the Fabulous Professor Speaker Showcase at TEDx UMass Amherst

First, THANK YOU to the students who organized last night's TEDx UMass Amherst event: Professor Speaker Showcase! Thanks also to all the students who came and energized the speakers with their enthusiasm, applause, and presence during a cold November night just before Thanksgiving.

 

My wonderful doctoral students were behind the photos taken and posted below at the TEDx event. I am sure that more will be posted on other sites. The inspiration gained and words of wisdom exchanged I know will support many of us.

The full list of speakers and their presentation titles can be found below.
6:00 - Doors open
6:15 - Cynthia Barstow on "Nurture Your Nature"
6:30 - Peter Skott on "Power, Luck, and Ideology"
6:45 - Anna Nagurney on "The Traffic Circle of Life"
7:00 - Ryan Wright on "Mindfullness Use of Tech"
7:15 - Musical Intermission
7:25 - Shaheen Pasha on "What's Your Story?"

7:40 - Brian O'Connor on "Desiderata"

7:50 - Pierre Rouzier on "Community Involvement"
8:05 - Susan Whitbourne on "Achieve Your Goals by Tweaking Your Mindset"
8:20 - Snacks, Questions, and Networking.

(The order did get changed from the original program with Professor Whitbourne being moved up and Dr. Rouzier being the grand finale!)

Operations & Information Management + Isenberg School will be Well-Represented at TEDx UMass Amherst

Tomorrow is the TEDx UMass Amherst event: Professor Speaker Showcase, which will take place in the Flavin Auditorium at the Isenberg School of Management from 6-8PM.

The organizers -- a group of visionary students at UMass Amherst -- are doing all the logistics, publicity,   and event management for this event. Plus, several of the TEDx team members  have interviewed the faculty involved multiple times!

The students have created a nice Facebook page and, in dramatic fashion, have been announcing one speaker per day, beginning a week ago, with the full list available tomorrow.

There are 8 speakers -- 4 males and 4 females, which is great.

Students submitted nominations of the professors they want to hear speak outside of the classroom setting, so this makes the event extra special.

There will be two faculty from my Operations & Information Management department, Dr. Ryan Wright and I, and one from the Marketing department, Cynthia Barstow.

This makes 3 faculty out of 8 from the Isenberg School of Management!

The others who are officially identified (I also know #8 but will keep the name  a secret until the announcement): Dr. Susan Whitboune of Psychology, Dr. Brian O'Connor of Biology, Dr. Shaheen Pasha of Journalism, and Professor Peter Skott of Economics,.

I put some finishing touches on my presentation today and am very much looking forward to speaking tomorrow evening.

I have heard that there will even be a red carpet and a musical ensemble from the Berklee College of Music in Boston!

According to the TED website: Created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading,” the TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis

AND this just in, thanks to Stephen Chan, and hot off the press: the full roster and titles: 

Here are some details for tomorrow's event:

6:00 - Doors open
6:15 - Cynthia Barstow on "Nurture Your Nature"
6:30 - Peter Skott on "Power, Luck, and Ideology"
6:45 - Anna Nagurney on "The Traffic Circle of Life"
7:00 - Ryan Wright on "Mindfullness Use of Tech"
7:15 - Musical Intermission
7:25 - Shaheen Pasha on "What's Your Story?"

7:40 - Brian O'Connor on "Desiderata"

7:50 - Pierre Rouzier on "Community Involvement"
8:05 - Susan Whitbourne on "Achieve Your Goals by Tweaking Your Mindset"
8:20 - Snacks, Questions, and Networking.

What an Amazing Week - It's All About Our Students!

Anyone who thinks that professors have a life of routine and their weeks are just punctuated by the classes that they teach are completely wrong.

If you like a predictable routine each day then being an academic is certainly not for you.

On the other hand, those of you who crave novelty, excitement, interactions with fascinating people, the exchange of new ideas as well as dynamism and being surrounded by energy and activity, then being an educator and a college professor is a dream job.

What makes being a college professor so special is the students and all that we do is really for the students!

This week is one of those weeks that highlights the span of activities that a fculty member is engaged in so let me tell you what we have been up to.

On Monday, I was videotaped by a UMass Amherst undergrad who is a member of the Isenberg School of Management Marketing Club for an Isenberg Youtube series that the club started on Meet the Professors. The students are editing my interview and it will be posted soon. I got to hear about the student's major and we reminisced about New Jersey, where he is from. The extracurricular activities that our students are engaged in are diverse and they acquire numerous skills through them.

Then,  after meetings with advisees and doctoral students, it was time to march across campus for a search committee meeting. I am serving, with my great colleagues in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, on a faculty search for an Assistant Professor in Systems Engineering. We went over the piles of applications and reached a consensus as to the top candidates, which was gratifying. There are fabulous PhD students out there. We will be very busy with their visits and interviews in the coming weeks. And if you want to see how in demand systems engineering expertise is just read about UTC's gift of $10 million to UConn to create an institute with faculty positions.

On Tuesday, I taught my OIM413 Logistics and Transportation class, which I love teaching and will soon be teaching a class today, as well. The students are now identifying the topics that they will be doing their project papers on. These will be individual projects, rather than team projects, due to the late Thanksgiving this year and only one week of classes afterwards. I worked on a rubric (never had one of these in my Brown University days) to help them with their papers. Then, after more meetings it was time for our "weekly" National Science Foundation (NSF) project teleconference. Our project: Network Innovation Through Choice is one of 5 Future Internet Architecture projects selected by NSF. Our project team, consisting of  Professor Tilman Wolf of the College of Engineering, me, and our doctoral students, with Professors Ken Calvert and Jim Griffoen of the U. of Kentucky, Professors Rudra Dutta and Georre Rouskas of NCState, and Dr. Ilia Baldine of the Renaissance Institute at UNC, and their students, is working on a new Internet. We discussed the recent Principal Investigators Meeting that took place in San Diego and you can view the presentations (ours was given by Dr. Dutta)  here.

Then it was time to complete my talk for the TEDx UMassAmherst Professor Speaker Showcase, which takes place next Monday, November 25, in ISOM's Flavin Room. Students had nominated me for this special event and I am so honored and excited to be part of it. On Tuesday, some students had made an elaborate colorful announcement in chalk in my classroom, which was such a surprise -- I was redder than the bright red jacket I wore that day!

On Wednesday, I received a wonderful message from the Founding Editor of the Goteborg Daily, which is an English language newspaper published in Sweden's second largest city, sometimes also spelled and pronounced as "Gothenburg." My interview was published with photos and it brought back so many memories. Many nice messages followed from colleagues and students in Sweden, Austria, and the U.S. (and even from a few thoughtful top administrators) who had seen the article -- Thanks for the support!

My TEDx talk "completed," I met with several of the organizers of this event -- the students are so creative and their attention to detail is impressive -- there will be a red carpet, a spotlight, and even music provided by a group from the Berklee College of Music in Boston! We went through my talk and discussed the background, etc. Plus, I was videotaped also for this event. As one of my doctoral students said, "You always have to look fresh, Professor!"

Then it was time to discuss another pending project with fellow faculty and when I arrived home, after also meeting with a student about her doctoral dissertation proposal, I found in my mailbox a new book that I will be blogging about -- will keep you in suspense as the TEDx folks are doing in announcing one professor speaker each day before next Monday's gala event!

Plus, I heard wonderful news from a student in Vienna, Austria, who had taken my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare intensive short course that I taught at the Vienna University of Economics and Business last March (while on sabbatical in Europe).  He had been accepted into its doctoral program to work under my former doctoral student, Tina Wakolbinger, who is now a Full Professor there -- I had written him a letter of recommendation -- so happy about this great outcome!

Today, Thursday, after teaching my class, I will be getting ready for two big events tomorrow. I am serving as a co-supervisor of a doctoral dissertation at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, and, tomorrow, Friday, the student, Niklas Arvidsson, will be defending his dissertation. I will be Skying in early in the morning for the defense. I have been very much enjoying reading his dissertation and attended his Kappa when I was in Gothenburg. The dissertation includes 5 papers that he has published on the overall theme of sustainable freight, which I am very interested in.

After Niklas' defense I will be off to support the students of the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, since we are hosting Master Inventor Dr. Mary Helander of IBM with a reception at 10:30AM in the Isenberg School followed by a one hour Q&A. Then Mary and I will go out to lunch. She has a PhD from Sweden so her visit will be quite special for all of us!